Tag Archives: Landscape Design

29 Aug

How to Landscape Your Driveway Like a Pro

Look at these simple and lovely driveways. They prove you do not have to be a professional designer to landscape your driveway. All it takes is careful selection of plants and a little maintenance.

Pro Tips: How to Landscape Your Driveway

  • Select plants that do not require regular maintenance. Consider planting flowering shrubs and bushes, ornamental grasses or small trees.
  • Make sure that the plants you use along your driveway are compact and do not block the driveway.
  • Select drought-tolerant plants such as succulents. They do not require much watering and thus reduce the need for drainage and also the amount of water that touches your driveway.
  • If you do not have enough space to plant, use container-bound or hanging plants.
  • Use ground covers and creepers around your driveway to avoid soil erosion.

Also see:

Examples of Beautifully Landscaped Driveways

09 Dec

9 Beautiful Examples of Landscaping with Cacti

Cacti are very useful plant for landscaping. They are hardy, do not require much maintenance and grow in many different climatic conditions. They also come in a variety of shapes and sizes making them nice accent plants in a landscape design.

Browse these beautiful examples of landscaping with cacti and see how unique a landscape design can be.

A beautiful example of cacti being used as living fence.

Cacti can be used to fill empty spaces along pathways.

Cacti can be used as a design element to cover boring walls.

Potted cacti make nice accent plants in small landscaping schemes.

You can also use potted cacti in larger landscape schemes.

A beautiful example of cacti being used as border plants.

Tall cacti can add a vertical angle in tight spaces.

Another use of cacti as border plants.

Most cacti can be grouped together to make a nice rock garden.

10 Jun

Landscaping with Ornamental Grasses

In an earlier post, I shared nine ornamental grasses that you can use for designing your garden landscape. Today, I am sharing some brilliant examples of landscapes and gardens that use ornamental grasses.

Growing ornamental grasses in containers – a brilliant idea indeed.

Grass in containers

A nice use of hardy and drought tolerant grass in a xeriscape.

Xeriscaping with hardy grass

Evergreen landscape with ornamental grasses.

Landscaping with Grass

A very handsome mix of ornamental grasses growing in a bed for a dramatic effect.

Grasses in garden

Excellent bed of evergreen ornamental grasses.

Growing grasses in a bed

Nice use of ornamental grass in a pathway.

Growing grasses in pathway

01 May

How to Transfer Plants in Your Garden Landscape in 4 Easy Steps

The worst you can do to your newly purchased plants is rushing ahead and planting them in the ground. Of course, you are keen to see those plants growing in your landscape but this enthusiasm could hurt your plants. Ideally you should prepare both the plants and the ground before you start the job.

Today, I am sharing some of the steps that I follow to transplant my plants into the landscape.

Planning the landscape

Whenever you want to plant trees in your landscape, first make sure that it is suitable for your climatic conditions. Also observer you landscape (garden, lawn etc.) and visualize how the plant would actually look like when it reaches it potential. Imagine how it would grow (some plants have columnar growth, some grow as woody shrubs, some are evergreen and some deciduous).

Imagine how your new plant would accompany others. Make sure that it does not intrude in to adjoining plants or is subdued by its neighbors. Every plant requires some ‘private space’ to grow healthy.

How to Transfer Plants in Landscape

When to buy new plants for the landscape

Do not purchase plants until you are ready to transfer them in the ground. Keeping plants sitting in their containers for a long time could be bad for the plants, especially when you do not have proper space and required environment for those container-bound plants.

Select healthy plants from your nursery and make sure that they are already established in their containers (not transferred from the ground or another container). Also make sure that the plant is suitable for your climate, lighting and soil conditions.

The day before the job

Water the ground thoroughly the day before planting to make sure that the soil is a little damp. Also water the plant thoroughly to make the transplanting easy for you and the plant.

The best time to transplant is early morning or later afternoon. Do not transplant in the heat of the day, especially in summer.

How to transplant them in the ground

Dig a hole that is at least twice the size of the container of the plant. Add some rotted compost as base for the plant. Also add some organic fertilizer and cover it with a layer of soil. This would make a perfect mixture for the plant to establish and grow roots.

Take care while removing the plant from its container. Be gentle and avoid damaging roots of the plant. Some old container-bound plants are hard to remove from their containers and you might have to cut or break the container. Root-bound plants are hard to remove from their containers. Keep this point in mind when purchasing plants for your landscape.

After the plant has been positioned in its new place, fill the hole with soil and rotted compost. Do not pack the soil in hard neither keep it too lean to support the plant. Some plants might require additional support, provide them with stakes.

Lastly, water the plant and well and try to keep the soil moist until the plant has established itself in its new place.

Native plants do not usually resist transplanting, however exotic plant might be sensitive to transplant and not bear the shock. Make sure you understand all the requirements of such plants.

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