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Terra Firma Landscape and Design servicing North Texas

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Normally when I write a post on this blog I discuss my garden, the types of plants I grow, plant profiles and garden maintenance tips. Usually when I write I discuss topics as though I’m talking to fellow gardeners. However, I realize that not everyone who visits this site has already created a garden. Some of you might have just purchased a home, and or are beginning to think about landscaping your property.

I also realize that not everyone wants to get their hands dirty! Perhaps you’re interested in having a beautifully landscaped property that’s maintained regularly by a landscaping company?

Well, if you live in the North Texas area and you’re interested in having your property landscaped or maintained you might be interested in contacting Terra Firma Landscaping & Design for a free quote.

Terra Firma Landscaping and Design offers services such as maintenance, lawn renovation, landscaping and complete property or garden design. The company is run by three design experts who’ve come together to combine their 15 years of experience in lawn maintenance and landscaping design.

If you’re interested in having Terra Firma landscape your property you’ll be happy to know that they are interested in finding out what you want in a design, how you want it to function and what kinds of plants or colors interest you. They discuss all aspects of design with their clients prior to starting a project and if the client is interested they’ll maintain the garden, change flower colors with the four seasons and so on.

I found the website very easy to navigate. Whether you are just visiting to check out what services they offer, to get a free quote or to learn more about the company and the projects they’ve completed in the past most of the information is only a click away.

The site has plenty of photographs on each page to compliment the topic being discussed in each article. The photos are lovely and of good quality. The site has also been designed with what I find to be pleasant colors with a background of white in the content areas and a pleasing green for the sidebars and navigational menu.

The only real complaint I have about the site is that it’s too wide. My laptop has a widescreen and I find that the pages come up off center forcing me to scroll sideways to center the text of the article. This is probably because a background image is too large and while irritating I’m sure it can easily be fixed.

One of the site features that I liked best was the blog. I’ve already got a garden and it’s not likely that I’ll be contacting anyone in the near future about landscaping or design. However, I’m still interested in learning about what the latest gardening trends are, or how to resolve various gardening or plant related issues and that’s where the blog comes in handy.

On the blog you’ll find posts that appear to be questions that some of their clients might have asked such as Why does my Crape Myrtle look like it was set on fire?, and posts about the type of landscaping that’s done by builders, featured easy care low maintenance plants and so on.

I’m sure many of my readers could find a helpful post on the Terra Firma Landscaping and Design blog.

Overall I think that a home or business owner who is interested in having their property maintained or landscaped would find this website very helpful.

However, besides the site being too wide there are a couple of things that could be improved. There are client testimonials on the site and I’m certain that many of their lovely photographs are of projects they’ve completed, yet there isn’t a specific section that discusses past projects or shows before and after photographs. I’d love to see that on this site as there’s no better way to demonstrate your skills than by showing before and after pictures.

The only other area of the site that might be improved is the plant directory. You can reach it by clicking the Plant Directory link at the bottom right of each page.

There are two columns of plant names. Site visitors can hover over a plant name and a picture of the plant appears to the right. Below the plants photo is the name of the plant and what appears to be a link that says click here to learn more. However I haven’t found a link that’s clickable. Another problem is that when you hover over a plant name in the left most column you can’t move your mouse across the page to the right side where the photo of the plant is located because as you hover over any other plant name the photo changes. I think it would be better if the plant names in each of the columns were clickable and once clicked the photo of the plant would appear.

I’ve been viewing the site using my Firefox browser. I decided I’d better take a look at it with my Internet Explorer 7 just to see if the problems I’d pointed out on the site only affected one browser type, but I see them in IE as well.

Overall I think this website is appealing and contains enough information to interest potential clients and gardeners alike, however there are a few functional issues that need to be addressed to improve the visitors experience.

Take a look at Terra Firma Landscaping and Design if you’re in North Texas and are in need of landscaping, design or maintenance services.






Chinodoxa or Glory of the Snow

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It’s been a beautiful week here in Toronto. The plants in my garden have shown their appreciation of the warm weather by growing and growing and growing some more!

Chionodoxa

The Chionodoxa, Glory of the Snow, is blooming. One day the plants were just short little green leaves, the next a few tiny buds had appears and then the following day the Chionodoxa had grown several inches and were blooming. I’ve got white ones, bluish ones and pink ones blooming in several clumps throughout the back garden.

The Chionodoxa in the front garden beds aren’t blooming yet. That area only gets late afternoon sun so it will probably be another week before they begin to bloom. The tulips in the front beds have really grown in the last day or so though.

I don’t see many people talking about Chionodoxa or Glory of the Snow as they are more commonly called. I wonder if they aren’t a very popular spring flower in many areas? If they aren’t it’s a shame because they are very easy to grow and as you can see from the photo I’ve included above they produce lovely clumps of flowers in the spring garden.

Here’s a little more information about this lovely spring flower:

Latin Name: Chionodoxa luciliae, C. gigantea
Common Name: Glory of the Snow

The species originated in Asia Minor and propagates by offset bulblets. These spring flowering bulbs requires a warm (60 to 70F) – cool (20 to 30F) – warm (35 to 55F) annual thermoperiodic cycle.

Depending upon the area, these bulbs will bloom anywhere from February to April.

If you purchase bulbs for planting they should be 4/5 to 5 cm and up in circumference. Plant in the fall, one inch apart, at five inches in depth.

These flowers are hardy to USDA zone 3 with mulch, and zones 4 to 7 without mulch.

Requires – full sunlight AM or PM sunlight, 25% shade.

Tolerates – summer drought, but requires adequate moisture throughout the growing season.

Look for these bulbs in your local garden center or nursery when Fall bulbs are being sold.

I planted most of mine in 2002 and they’re still going strong so I’d say this is a long lived and or self- propagating plant for most gardens. Mine are growing at the edge of my flower beds as they are relatively short plants that only grow to at most 6 inches in height.

Glory of the Snow are perfect for rock gardens, beds, ground covers, lawns, and woodland gardens. Some companion that Chionodoxa goes well with are Chaenomeles japonica, Forsythia, Jasminum nudiflorum, Helleborus orientalis, Vinca minor, Hammamelis.

Signs of life in the garden

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heurchera Leaves

I’ve very pleased to announce that the snow that covered my garden beds for most of the winter is now almost gone and that there are signs of life in the form of green sprouts coming up everywhere in the garden and even my lawn.

I saw our first crocus, a white one, in a sunny area of our back lawn on Tuesday. The next day I went out into the garden with our puppy and I noticed that the crocus’ that I’d planted at the edges of the raised garden beds, in the lawn, were starting to appear as well. There were no other flowers but their distinctive green leaves were sprouting up in several places.

I grow strawberries along the edge of a few of our garden beds and as per usual once the snow disappeared the plants were looking leafy and green.

Chives, heuchera, a few tulips, iris and perhaps even some daffodil leaves are making an appearance as well.

It’s a Spring beautiful day here in Toronto. So in a little while I hope to go out and begin to tidy up a few garden beds. I’m not going to do too much. Just clear off some of the dead foliage. No pruning or clipping just yet.

I’m certain that once I clear off some of the leaves that have blown into the garden beds and take away the dead foliage that’s matted down on the beds I’ll discover that quite a few plants are beginning to grow.

I just love this time of year in the garden. It’s a joy to see those first few green sprouts and to dream of what’s to come.

Peony new growth

Maybe I’ll get lucky and discover that the peonies are beginning to come up.

How is your garden doing today?

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