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5 Ideas To Make Your Garden POP

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All gardens are beautiful, but if you want design features your guests will remember and your family will treasure, you might have to think outside the box. Creativity is the key to making a strong impression. Don’t do anything the way everyone else does it. Try something new. Go with something bold and out of the ordinary and adapt these exciting ideas to your unique style.

1. Add and Aquaponics Water Feature

Water features can be practical as well as beautiful. Consider a working waterfall raining down upon hanging or fixed planters to water them. The planters are filled with grow bed medium and beautiful plants, so your water will stay clean. Finally, after working through a system of numerous planters and waterfalls, the water babbles quietly through a final waterfall into a 300 to 600 gallon decorative fish pond. You could raise Koi for their beauty or Tilapia for your table.

Aquaponics system designs could be natural or something quite modern and abstract. Materials could be stones and concrete, decorative hammered copper and glass or any number of decorative materials. Many people are creating practical aquaponics systems that are utilitarian and designed to grow vegetables and fish, but it is possible to create intense beauty with an aquaponics system as well. Aquaponics systems self water plants, using bell siphons so they require very little maintenance, and the sound of their many waterfalls is absolutely enchanting.

2. Build Matching Walkways, Seating and Planters

There are many methods and materials that can be use to build a wonderland in your garden. Stone is always a good choice, but stamped or decorative concrete can mimic stone, brick, wood, marble or any other surface very convincingly at a fraction of the cost. A good concrete contractor can build both vertical and horizontal surfaces with the same patterns and materials. You will find his fees quite reasonable compared to the price of stone and the entire job will look like it cost a fortune.

3. A Custom Archway Trellis or Arbor with Built In Planters

Trellises and arbors can be so beautiful, but it takes forever for plants in the ground to reach the top of the trellis. Why not design an arbor with planters along the sides and built into the top for flowering plants. By combining the idea of vertical gardening with the old fashioned arched trellis one can have an amazing look almost immediately instead of having to wait for vines to grow to eight feet high? This way all types of flowering plants could be incorporated easily.

4. Build planters on the Top of your Garden Fences

Why not attach long planters to the tops of your fence posts so that they sit on top of the fence in a uniform row. This will add height, not only to your fence but to your garden. You and your guests will be able to enjoy your tall garden as a row of flowers or greenery at a new and unexpected height. This idea would work with any fence height including tall privacy fences. Consider filling the new fence planters with native violets and allowing them to trail down the fence in ample cascades of mauve and white blossoms and deep green foliage.

5. Consider an Exciting Designer Hammock

There are two stunning hanging furniture designs by Dedon, an Italian furniture company. Either would provide a stunning impression. Dedon makes an exciting 2 meter wide hanging teardrop shaped pod made of woven Dedon Fiber and stuffed with exciting outdoor cushions. Another possibility might be their Swingrest daybed. This round garden bed can be suspended or its swivel Corian base can be placed on the ground.

Mike Smith is a home decorator who uses Premium Pools and Gardens for all of his outdoor needs.






How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children

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How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children

Having a garden is fantastic, especially when you have children; however, unfortunately many gardens provide a huge number of hazards to children. It is therefore really important to make sure, upon ever redesigning your garden, to keep a number of crucial points in mind, such as:

Checking your garden is escape proof

Accidents do happen and as a parent you will make mistakes. Unfortunately no matter how hard you try it is impossible to keep an eye on children all the time. It is incredibly important your children do not find a way out of the garden when your back is turned. Therefore when you are installing hedges, fencing or gates for the first time, you need to make sure you haven’t left any gaps, all fastenings are secure and that little fingers cannot unlock or untie anything.

Checking your plant types

Unfortunately, many of the prettiest plants people want in their gardens, such as roses, holly and pampas grass often come with sharp leaves and/or thorns. These are obviously dangerous to young children, who don’t know any better than not to touch. However, this is no reason to not put these in your garden. If these plants are essential to your new garden redesign, you just need to be a bit more considerate about where you are planting them.

You will also need to double check the toxicity of your new plants before planting, to make sure they are not poisonous if a child happens to eat them. Aim to keep all of these kinds of plants at a higher level, far away from children’s eyes, faces and fingers. Or you can always section off an area of your garden using handrails, thereby making the plants inaccessible to your children.

Checking your tools are always safely stored away

One of the most important things to remember, when redesigning a garden with kids around, is to ensure everything is always put back in its proper place. Even if you only put something, like a garden fork or a hammer, down for a second in order to go and get a drink, it can be extremely dangerous. A child might easily pick something like this up off the floor and cause damage, to themselves or even to someone else.

Try to avoid using any tools with power leads, when your children are about. Not only might the cords prove to be a tripping hazard for your children but you may also find tools start and stop for no apparent reason…Upon investigation you will probably find a mischievous toddler is at fault and they are playing an ‘innocent’ plug and unplug game, however, it just isn’t worth the risk of something going wrong.

Checking the safety of your water features

Without a doubt water features are one of the most popular aspects to include when redesigning a garden, ranging from large pools and ponds to simple bird bath fountains. However, whilst they can be beautiful, they are also very dangerous to children, for obvious reasons. Try to keep this in mind when installing your water features and include whatever safety measures you can, whether this include cordoning off the feature itself, covering with netting, or just settling for features too small in size to be a threat to your children.

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Laura writes for Seagull Ballustrades. When not writing, she can be often be found trying to keep her children from destroying her garden.

Starting A Career As A Professional Gardener

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A career in professional gardening is one that is very attractive to a lot of people. It offers the perks of being able to work outdoors, get fresh air and be surrounded by beautiful natural plant life. Therefore it suits those who like to keep active, do hands on tasks and be interactive with their work. It is something that you usually have to get into at a young age to turn into a proper career. A lot of gardening jobs in the horticultural sector start with apprenticeships (which are mostly given to younger individuals).

This article will talk about the career path of becoming a professional gardener and what traits/skills are required to succeed.

In the current climate jobs are hard to come by in most sectors. Therefore experience is an increasingly important factor when applying for jobs and even training courses. Experience usually has to be gained by volunteering and giving up your time. Luckily there are a lot of companies and organisations that are willing to take people on for free! Some good places to look are garden centres, park maintenance teams, private estates and local council volunteer schemes. Gaining this valuable experience will allow you to have an edge over competing candidates when applying for paid work.

When gaining work experience you likely won’t be given highly specialised tasks to complete. But what you will get is a taster for the industry and an understanding of the kind of work that you’ll be engaging in. It’s always good to test the waters before going into a career type job; as often it’s hard to turn round and change what industry you work in.

The best way to enter the gardening trade is to gain certain recognised qualifications. This is usually part of the apprenticeship process if you go down that route. Gaining industry accredited horticulture qualifications opens you up to a wide range of opportunities and jobs. Being a qualified gardener allows you to work on projects such as private estates, botanical gardens, display gardens and other prestigious locations.

One thing to note about the gardening trade though, is that it is a year round job; which means working in all weather conditions. You need to be able to hand the cold winter grounds and surrounding environment, as well as the warmer summer temperatures. Although a gardener’s work is most visible during the summer months, the work continues all year round. Work needs to be put in to make sure that everything is set up right for spring. During winter there is a lot of ground treatment work, fertilisation, seed sowing and top dressing. This is done so that when things start growing again they are already set up to go.

Overall being a professional gardener can be a very rewarding job. It is hands on, healthy, in a great environment and you can actively see the fruits of your labour. If you’re an outdoor type who likes hands on work this would be a very enjoyable and satisfying career.

For more information on commercial gardening, groundcare and landscaping work have a look at the advice section on www.sgm-uk.com

This article was written by Peter McAllister, who works for SGM, a supplier to many commercial gardening contractors, companies and individuals.

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