Outdoor Furniture, Patio Furniture and more!

It is difficult, if not impossible, to name all of the benefits of container gardening.  Even if you pick a single word, to explain just one advantage, you can still take it in a thousand directions.

For example, let’s try the word, choices.  Just for starters, they are endless, when you’re looking for things that can be cultivated in planters.  The list encompasses nearly everything that can be found in a nursery or a garden center, including ferns of all sizes, flowering and non-flowering plants and shrubs, rosebushes, all kinds of vegetables and herbs, and even trees.  Furthermore, if you live in a cooler region, you can grow warm-climate plants in containers, keeping them outdoors in the summer, and bringing them inside when the weather gets cold.

If you’re a novice gardener, you can experiment in a planter, before deciding whether or not to try it on a larger scale.  Because a container garden can be confined to a window box, or cover a great expanse, you have tons of choices, even if you live in an apartment building, or a home with very little yard space.  Not only can you bring your small terrace, deck, balcony, or porch, alive with beautiful, aromatic flowers and herbs, but you can enhance your outdoor décor with colorful planters.

That’s another area in which there are more options than ever, with wood, metal, polywood, vinyl, and plastic-coated steel planters and planter trellises, available in all sizes, styles, and colors.  Scatter them around, group them together, or put them right into your flower beds.

You can create multi-colored or monochromatic gardens, or even choose flowers and planters that match your patio furniture, outdoor furniture cushions, or patio umbrellas.  If you wish to attract butterflies and birds to your yard, use brightly-colored flowers, and hang birdfeeders nearby.  Put plants and flowers that you want to showcase on display, in centrally-placed planter wagons or wheelbarrows planters.

When you’re having an evening party, add candles to your containers, in candleholders or hurricane lanterns, making sure that there’s nothing nearby that can catch fire.  This will give the entire setting a soft, lovely glow; and if you use citronella candles, they will keep mosquitoes away as well.

Containers can also be switched around to new locations and positions whenever you want a fresh look; and they can be moved to places where plants will get more sun, or shade, at different times of the year.

You can also dress up your planters with garden decorations; and there, you’ll have another million choices.  Just be sure to get something tasteful; and not one of those cut-outs of an old lady, bending over, exposing her unmentionables.  That would be perfectly dreadful.  In fact, I’m sorry I mentioned it!

Yours Outdoors,

Kathy

Tags: outdoor decor, outdoor furniture cushions, patio furniture, patio umbrellas, planter trellises, planter wagones, Planters, wheelbarrow planters

Today’s guest post is for all those passionate (or aspiring) urban gardeners (and, well, of course… all those interested in urban gardening)!  LaManda Joy, a Chicago vegetable gardener and avid blogger, brings us her tale of creating a fruitful vegetable garden right in Chicago! Her blog, theyarden.com, chronicles the joys and challenges of urban gardening and reflects the skills and passion of its veteran creator.

Follow LaManda Joy on Twitter @TheYarden and at Facebook.com/TheYarden.

In 2006, after seven very long and gardenless years, my husband woke up one February morning and said, “Let’s go look at houses!” What he really meant was “Let’s go look at yards!”

Finding a sunny yard that isn’t shaded with 100-year-old trees or an apartment complex looking down on it is a bit of a trick in Chicago. We thought we’d seen all the neighborhoods – and were sadly disappointed – when we stumbled upon a secret nook in Chicago’s 40^th Ward.

Long story short… we ended up “buying a yard with a house attached to it” with the sole, myopic purpose of putting in an amazing vegetable garden where we could grow heirloom vegetables, entertain and develop a community of neighbors and friends.

We wanted to install a privacy fence and a deck area over the concrete slab in the back as well as a “boardwalk” to cover an existing, but unsightly, concrete path from the front gate to the concrete slab. We also knew we wanted some “climbing area” for wisteria and sweet autumn clematis…

As you will see here we solved the “climbing area” issue with a pergola. The wisteria is barely visible behind the red chair – it is much more robust three seasons later…

This also created a nice sitting area that is the bridge from the “deck” to the garden… you will notice we bought some very inexpensive burlap and wove it between the slats of the pergola to create a shade canopy (you can see the overlap hanging down on the left side). This worked out to be a great solution to this sunny spot and a favorite sitting area for my husband. As you can see, I prefer the hammock

We liked the pergola so much we ended up putting a matching one by the front garden gate.

This pergola, too, has ended up being a lot of fun! We use the supports to train beans or vines. One year we grew Chinese yardlong beans up and over the pergola so you had to walk through them like the long rags in a carwash. We called it the “snack and slap” and laughed a lot whenever we had to walk the beany gauntlet.

Along with the raised beds, which you see partially in the photo above, we also put in a trellis for more vertical growing space and to block the view of a work area with a very large telephone pole (ah the joys of urban living!)

All of the construction was done with untreated cedar. It smelled great and sometimes still does on a very warm day. However, knowing then what I know now, I would have chosen a recycled wood-like material to avoid having to stain. But, ces’t la vie… perhaps that’s a solution for The Yarden 2.0 – if we can ever find a yard like this again in Chicago!

ABOUT LaMANDA JOY

Awarded honorable mention in Mayor Daley’s Landscape Competition for 2009, LaManda Joy’s 1,700 square foot, heirloom organic garden in Chicago’s 40^th Ward is a laboratory and teaching ground for friends and neighbors. LaManda speaks and writes about diverse aspects of a self-sufficient life in the city, Chicago WW2 Victory Gardens, canning and other related topics.

Tags: cedar, container gardening, pergola, urban gardening

Our guest post this week comes from AK Complete Home Renovations! As a whole, AK Home Renovations believes that dream homes do not have to be bought, because they can be created.  Let their expert knowledge help turn your house into a dream home today.

Even a design/build remodeler knows that during certain seasons your outdoor living space is just as important as those indoors! As that first taste of warm weather arrives many homeowners are just itching to perk up their decks, patios, sunrooms, even outdoor kitchens. AK is most commonly asked about decks: designing, building or repairing, and there are so many options! Homeowners and buyers rate a deck as one of the most desirable outdoor features of a home. When designing a deck there are many factors to consider: size, shape, orientation, color, privacy, levels, stairs, railings and extras – like hot tubs!

The building block of your deck design should be none other than…Your Home! Ideally a deck will compliment the architecture of your home – bend with it, wrap around it, work with the windows, existing doors and height of the yard below. Capturing the unique quality of your home and reflecting it in your deck design is essential to create an ideal and customized outdoor living space that suits your lifestyle.

It is often recommended that a deck be built to be about the same size as the living room, or the largest room of the house. A deck should also be placed so that it offers an easy transition between your home and the outdoors. Typically, decks have one point of access to the house, and one or two points of access to the yard.

Privacy screens can also be a nice addition to a deck design. Many people think they want for solid deck screens but there are ways to add some architectural interest. Simple customization of a privacy screen or panel can dress up your house and add to its value, but don’t forget to check with your local ordinances before you settle on your final design. If you’re working with a professional they should do this for you.

Hot tubs are another popular addition to a deck and considered a valuable feature for resale. The most important thing to remember when adding a hot tub is that water is extremely heavy and the tub will need support independent of the deck. A raised seating area around the hot tub can also serve as storage and can conceal plumbing. Additional features like cabinetry, towel warmers, beverage centers and even outdoor televisions are fantastic higher-end options that require capacity for electrical wiring and some weather protection.

Like every family, every deck should be unique! Carefully discussing your goals with a professional designer will help you learn about all your options and get the most for your money.

Can you believe it? We have another guest blogger today! Scott Hokunson is a member of the prestigious Garden Designers Roundtable and designs landscapes for Blue Heron Landscape Design.  Based in Granby, CT, Blue Heron Landscape Design works closely with their clients to design and/or restore  outdoor spaces.  His focus is sustainable design, native and non-invasive plant communities, habitat gardening, and organic garden and lawn care.  This week, Scott shares with us a true story of using a trellis to hide an unsightly wall during a landscaping project.  No one has a completely blank canvas, so problem solving techniques are always vital!

A landscape designer must rely on many talents. Charged with creating beautiful outdoor spaces requires, a knowledge of plants, familiarity with paving and construction materials, and a sense of the clients intended interaction with the site. There are even times a designer must play the role of counselor, but that is a discussion for another time.

Perhaps the most important role a designer must play though is that of a problem solver. Clients often have an abstract version of the garden they desire, but lack the vision, knowledge, or experience to bring that vision to life. Designers are most often approached though, to resolve a singular issue that has brought the client’s creative thoughts to a screeching halt. These “challenges” are what keep are creative juices flowing, and we love challenges!

A recent project in Simsbury, CT, presented just such a challenge. Our client desired to hide a large portion of their foundation left exposed by the grade of the property. Built in a beautiful wooded section of town, the site drops considerably from the back of the house. This allows for a walkout basement, but the siding details left one corner of the foundation exposed. We were asked to come up with a solution that would enhance this area, but not encroach on the back yard, a very important play space for their two young sons. My first impulse was to use plants to soften the hard structure of the house, and to compliment a wonderful existing stone wall. Finding the right plants though for such a small space though was the challenge. The solution was to use climbing vines to create a curtain of foliage and blossom that would not only obscure this eyesore, but actually attract attention to it, creating a new feel for the area. Training vines onto an existing building is never a good idea though, so a freestanding trellis was constructed for our new climbing vines to call home.

Natural cedar was chosen to build the new trellis, for when trying to capture the genius loci, or ‘spirit of place’ of a site, nothing works better than natural materials. Local natural materials unite the garden with its surroundings, and inform the garden visitor of its place. The existing fieldstone wall draws on the old world charm of New England, with its miles of farm walls. So too will the new cedar trellis offer a connection to the region, through the native Eastern Red cedar, so prevalent in our eastern meadows. The stars of our project however will be the vines themselves; ‘Zephirine Drouhin’, an old fashioned fragrant pink climbing rose, will anchor the corner of the trellis. ‘Dr. Ruppel’ (pink bicolor), ‘Pink Flamingo’ (delicate pink hanging blossoms), and ‘Niobe’ (deep red blooms) Clematis, are also present to provide season long blossom.

As these vines mature, along with the companion plantings on top of the wall, the sight of that ugly corner of concrete will become a distant memory, replaced with the beautiful weathered look of the cedar, and filled with the sweet scent of rose. A problem presented, a solution conceived, and a garden with a sense of place created.

May all your problems be solved with a few climbers, All the best!

Scott Hokunson

Get more tips, hints, and advice from Scott Hokunson! He blogs about all things Horticultural on Blue Heron Landscapes. Follow Scott on Twitter, and connect with him on LinkedIn. Become a fan of Blue Heron Landscape Design on Facebook!

Tags: Arbors, landscape problem solving, trellises

Derek Fell is a world renowned garden designer, photographer, and writer.  He is the author of The Magic of Monet’s Garden, Renoir’s Garden, and Cezanne’s Garden.  His last work is The Encyclopedia of Garden Design (Firefly Books). His garden at historic Cedaridge Farm has won several design awards, including best interpretation of an Impressionist garden, best water garden and best flower garden.

My home and garden, Cedaridge Farm is located on 20 acres of sloping ground in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. When I purchased the property 20 years ago to serve as an outdoor studio for photography and experimenting with various gardening techniques, there was hardly a flower on the property. There were a few outbuildings – a barn, a spring-house and a chicken-house, but no ornamental features. My first project was to start a vegetable garden and experiment with various vertical gardening techniques since I had come to the conclusion that climbing vegetables like pole snap beans instead of bush snap beans and climbing zucchini instead of bush zucchini were more flavorful because of their extra leaf coverage collecting chlorophyll, but also because vining vegetables tend to be ever-bearing, where bush varieties often exhaust themselves after two weeks of production. From this experimentation I designed an easy to install vertical gardening unit called a Skyscraper Garden that the Cedar Store now offers for sale. The Skyscraper Garden consists of a pair of brackets for attaching to a fence or between two posts, a metal cross bar to hang a 4 ft. wide by 6 ft. high section of netting, and three pegs to hold the netting taught to the ground. Up to four vining plants can be grown along the width of the unit, and it is a wonderful space-saving idea for people without a lot of room for a traditional horizontal garden.

Because we are located next to a state park with more than 300 deer we have deer wandering through the property every night looking for food, and so I had to erect a fence around my vegetable garden, but to make it look attractive I used some beautiful cedar gates as entrances, one of them featuring an arch that I covered with grape vines.

My next project was a cutting garden as my wife, Carolyn and I like to fill the rooms of our farmhouse with fragrant, fresh flowers. We chose a level site between the farmhouse and our barn, and to make it decorative we installed a beautiful white Victorian-style gazebo at one end as a focal point. A flagstone path leads from the farmhouse through the cutting garden to the gazebo, with a table and built in benches for sitting with guests.

We have a natural stream at the bottom of the slope, and we made a nature trail that criss-crosses the stream, requiring the installation of several bridges. These are painted barn red to match the color of the barn and also to harmonize with the colors of fall when the deciduous woods turn russet colors.

The styles of the bridges change depending on the location – one is a Monet-style arched bridge, another a flat span connecting to a boardwalk that leads through a swampy area, and another is a rustic design made from two rough wooden slabs and tree branches for hand rails..

Whenever there is a change of environment along the garden path, or at the entrance to a theme garden (such as a cottage garden adjacent to a guest cottage), I have installed wooden arches. These are not only decorative and functional by supporting climbing plants such as trumpet creeper and wisteria, they help to create focal points and  direct visitors from one garden space to another.

For the future I will be working with the Cedar Store on a series of classic garden structures that I have admired, largely as a result of writing about the restored gardens of great Impressionist painters, like Renoir, Monet and Cezanne.

Tags: Bridges, cedar gates, Derek Fell, Garden Bridges, Gazebos, skyscraper garden, wooden arches

Today we’re featuring Landscape Designer Jenny Peterson for a post featuring her wide expertise on client-directed landscape design.

One of Jenny Peterson's landscape designs featuring a garden bridge

Jenny Peterson and her team have been creating cool gardens in the Austin area since 2001. From elegant courtyards to funky meditation spaces, Jenny’s gardens span the spectrum.   Jenny listens to her clients and brings out their style and taste so their landscape always reflects the personality of the owner.

Trained as a Master Gardener, Jenny brings a deep understanding of the ecosystems that promote a vibrant garden: healthy soil, integrated pest management, appropriate plant choices and organic methods. She is committed to using primarily native and adapted plants to conserve water and reflect the beautiful Texas landscape.
You can contact her by phone at 512.922.3359, email her at j_peterson63@yahoo.com, or follow her tweets with @Mulch Maven. Be sure to check her out at http://www.JPetersonGardenDesign.com/

As a landscape designer, it’s my job to help my clients create the best landscape they can have, but before I can put any plants in, I have to pay careful attention to the structure in and of the garden itself. Structural elements in the garden are significant because they create a sense of importance, permanence and visual interest, but also because they dictate the flow of the landscape and the way the garden is used.

Which brings me to the very first question I ask my clients: How do you want to use your garden? Their answers tell me which direction I should go: what plants to use, whether to have a lawn or not, if we need more deck space, and how I should lay out the entire space. So here’s a rundown on the most popular uses of gardens, with suggestions of how you can achieve it with careful choice of structures, plants and accessories:

• Relaxation: If you want to primarily relax in your yard, you’re looking for low-maintenance plants with lots of evergreen foliage so you’re not spending your time pruning and fertilizing. Plan for enough deck or patio space to comfortably accommodate chairs, lounges, swings or picnic tables. Remember to plan an area under shade trees for a hammock, or even a cabana for the ultimate sense of vacation!
• Play: You probably have children and possibly pets if you want to use your yard primarily for play! Make sure you have enough lawn space to run around on or set up a croquet course or playscape, remembering to look into water-wise lawn options like Buffalo grass. Try to incorporate features like pathways and bridges for kids to explore and be a part of the landscape rather than trying to avoid it. Pay attention to plant use as well—softer, non-toxic plants that can take a lot of foot traffic is a must!
• Entertainment: Most of my clients want to be able to entertain in their landscapes, so we plan to have additional patio or deck space to accommodate larger crowds. We also remember to add features like firepits that draw people together. Plan for a variety of seating areas, possibly adding a second feature like a gazebo away from the house where you and your friends can gather. Carefully plan a pathway to that structure, meandering through the garden and paying attention to landscape lighting so guests feel safe walking around. You might want to be a bit more dramatic with your plant selection as well—large leafed tropicals, brightly flowering cannas or heavily-scented roses.

There is a lot you can do yourself, but don’t be afraid to enlist the expertise of an experienced landscape designer to help you plan your space out. If you commit to a bit of thinking and planning ahead, you can create a landscape that is beautiful, functional and fits your lifestyle perfectly!

Tags: cabana, chairs, croquet set, Gazebos, Guest Posts, hammock, Jenny Peterson, landscape design, lounges, outdoor decor, patio groups, picnic tables, structures, Swings