Where to Place Swimming Pool

Having a swimming pool constructed is one step in many when you're looking to landscape your backyard. When it comes to landscape architecture around your home, you choose plants, flowers, trees or even gazebos or garden swings. Once you've added a swimming pool to the mix and you have added another dimension to what you can do to enhance your backyard and your outdoor living experience.
Whether you consider gardening a casual hobby or a full-time endeavor, it does take plenty of pre-planning to realize the outdoor decorating dream you'd hoped for when you started. As with any landscaping project, it's always a great idea to talk to your swimming pool designer or landscape designer unless you're able to visualize a landscape from start to finish.
Prior to contacting anyone regarding your initial plans for landscaping, it's best to sketch out what you hope the completed project will look like. Next, determine which types of flowers, plants or crawling vines you want to incorporate into your landscaping theme. Remember, you don't want too many trees dropping leaves into your swimming pool or spa.
Another part of landscaping can be the addition of an outdoor kitchen, a fire pit or even a Zen garden. Will you be using your outdoor space for family parties or for an entertaining space for colleagues or business associates? Depending on the area of the country in which you live, having a pool house or a gazebo constructed can extend the number of months you can spend outside around the pool. The outdoor kitchen or fire pit also adds another level of outdoor living fun.
Another way to undertake the beginning phase of your landscaping project is by taking photographs of gardenscapes you enjoy and by looking through gardening magazines for inspiration.
Here are other places to look for inspiration for your landscaping project:

• The internet
• Gardening and landscaping shows or trade shows
• Thumb through landscaping or gardening magazines
• Take a walk around your neighborhood for inspiration.

Take stock of why you want to landscape and what you're hoping to accomplish. Do you want a serene, relaxation space? Are you looking to turn your yard into a rustic getaway? Or are you looking for a lush oasis of flowering plants and waterfalls? Regardless of what you hope to accomplish with your landscape design, you are sure to enjoy it once the project is done. Choose the perfect furniture and you have taken your outdoor living space to an even higher level!

How to Maintain Your Lawn

Every homeowner spends a good portion of time on lawn care and maintenance. Despite lawn maintenance being a common chore, there are risks involved due to the nature of the equipment used and the terrain. According to George Mason University, between the years 2004 and 2006, over 242,000 Americans were treated in the emergency room due to accidents during lawn care. They highlight typical injuries resulting from getting too close to moving parts, but also the aches and pains due to the physical labor.

Injuries during lawn care can occur when an object being ejected from the mower blade strikes a person. Running over rocks, toys, or litter can result in those objects being thrown, sometimes at a speed of over 100 miles an hour. Many times, it is children that are struck when lawn care is being done in the same yard a child is playing in. Flying objects can also result in broken windows of nearby homes or cars, as well as damage to the mower blades. Prior to beginning lawn care and maintenance, check the area for loose rocks or other debris. In addition, turn off the mower blade while going over driveways or other landscaping where rocks and pebbles are found.

It is not pleasant to think of an extremity interacting with a mower blade; but it happens. Of the many scenarios, it's possible to get your foot caught when you are reversing direction. Mowing wet grass doesn't help your odds of slipping under the mower deck. Wearing close toed shoes with gripping soles, as well as waiting until the blade has stopped moving completely before approaching it for service are safer bets.

A riding mower has its own challenges. The BBC states that over 66,000 Americans were injured while using a riding lawnmower over a five year period of time. Many of these injuries were caused by falls from the lawnmower or by the lawnmower tipping over. Children have been injured from falling off the mower while riding with adults. Lawn care and maintenance on steep hills or on wet slippery surfaces can also result in the lawn mower tipping. Falling from the mower can result in amputations from direct contact with the blade. It can also result in severe injury when the mower tips on top of the fallen individual.

On the other hand, lawn care and maintenance can seem like such a relatively sedentary or peaceful activity. But, have you ever wrenched your back or thrown out your shoulder from just pulling the starter cord? You can slip on wet grass and sprain an ankle or twist a wrist catching yourself, among other things. Pushing that mower up a hill or holding out that electric trimmer for hours can certainly make for sore muscles; as can kneeling in the soil plucking all those weeds. Those intermittent chores that you only do a few times a year are breeding grounds for finding muscles you forgot you had. To help prevent such aches and pains, why not stretch? Athletes stretch to get their muscles ready to work and prevent injuries; why shouldn't you before you rev up that weed eater? All bets are off if you hurt yourself stretching.

Electrocution or shocks can occur when one is doing lawn care and maintenance with electric equipment, such as a weed whacker or electric lawnmower, and the electric cord is accidentally cut. In addition, when lawn care is being done around electric boxes or wires, the individual can be badly injured if those live electric wires are contacted. Just like identifying underground wires before you dig, you should also identify above ground wires before you begin lawn care and maintenance. But, let's say you do nick or sever a wire because you forget to call and have the underground wires located. Then, if the electricity or gas from the exposed lines doesn't get you, the dreaded frying pan injury to the head will because you just knocked out all the creature comforts to the house.

Burns can be another result of lawn care and maintenance accidents. Burns can occur when the equipment runs out of fuel and you attempt to add gasoline to the tank while the engine is still hot. These burns can easily be prevented by filling up prior to beginning lawn care or by allowing time for the engine to cool prior to refueling. You may have never read it before, but your equipment's owner's manual will give you direction on this as well.

You can disturb insects or other animals while doing yard work. It's possible to aggravate bees and be stung by many at one time. Ticks can jump on you from nearby trees. Heaven forbid that you run over a nest of baby rabbits. Whose yard is it anyway?

While lawn care is often a weekly occurrence at nearly every home, accidents are common and can have significant consequences. However, by being aware of the surroundings and practicing a few basic safety measures, lawn care and maintenance can be done safely and effectively, producing a beautiful lawn that is the envy of the neighborhood. Each tool and task has its own set of challenges and safety should be paramount. You must take the time to read that owner's manual. And we haven't even talked about tools like chain saws and rototillers. They are a whole story by themselves.

Vegetable Garden in Your Home

It is not difficult to plant a vegetable garden, but you do have to understand the few steps that are involved. The first thing to do is to plan where you will be placing your garden plot. The next step is to get the soil prepared, and set the seeds or starter plants in place. After that, all you have to do is tend to the plants in your garden and keep the weeds at bay. You will soon be excitedly waiting for your first harvest.

Vegetable Garden Plan
When you are planning the location for your vegetable garden, be sure that you select a place will allow for a minimum of six hours of full sunlight each day. This will play an important role in whether you have a successful garden.

Be sure that you plan the space wisely by taking into consideration the kinds and amounts of vegetables you would like to harvest. Some vegetables take up more space to grow than others, so be sure you understand the requirements of those you like. If you are really serious about taking on the responsibility of a vegetable garden, you will also want to make sure that you can afford to take this space away from other family activities.

One thing that many people do to create a lovely and bountiful vegetable garden in their yards is to prepare space around the perimeter of the yard, like around the fence line. This can render a great deal of space without taking up more active areas of the property. Many even use containers that can be relocated when necessary as an alternative to a traditional vegetable garden.

Soil Preparation
Soil preparation is a very critical part of successful vegetable gardens. You will want to have loose soil that is rich in nutrients. This can be accomplished by using a shovel to turn the soil over and a rake to clear it of unwanted roots and debris. If you have time between when you are planning your garden and the time you will actually be working on it, this is a good time to start a compost bin. You can have new soil ready to put in your garden beds by recycling food scraps and some paper products and wood chips in your compost bin.

Planting Vegetables
If you like getting your hands into the soil, you will enjoy this next step. It is time to plant your seedlings or actual seeds into the soil. Regardless of the location of your vegetable garden, leave enough room between the seeds or young plants to accommodate the mature plants. For seeds, all you need to do is make a slight furrow in the soil and place the seeds in and cover them up. Seedlings need to have a hole dug in the loose soil that is deep enough to accommodate the roots. Once you have completed your planting, water everything in without disturbing the seeds and wait until your vegetables are ready for harvest, weeding when necessary, and providing much needed water.

The Elegant Iron Garden Furniture

Nothing beats outside entertainment on a summer evening. But we would usually associate outside dining with a barbeque, a very informal gathering of friends and family. We tend to use the inside dining room for the formal dinners. It is because we don't regard our patio areas as elegant enough for a formal dinner. We don't think that we can revamp our patios into elegant dining areas because we don't regard our garden furniture as elegant, classy and formal.

Truth is, garden furniture is available in a variety of designs that can lend any type of design look to your garden or patio.

Wrought Iron Garden Furniture would add elegance to your patio and transfer your patio to a lovely classy dining area. There are so many furniture pieces available in wrought iron, that you would be able to create the right atmosphere easily.

Iron garden furniture can have a cold look and feel but that is a minor challenge which easily can be rectified with the introduction of bench cushions. The type of cushion would depend on the look and feel that you would want to create with your wrought iron garden furniture.

You can achieve a classical, timeless, white and black look when using beautiful white cushion with black wrought iron garden furniture. The use of such furniture would help to create the perfect elegant dining area for a formal dining event.

The beautiful intricate detail of wrought iron furniture has an ornamental quality. Thus, you can save money on decorations as the furniture is naturally beautiful.

The same area can easily be transformed back into an informal relaxing corner by simply replacing the cushions and the minimal decoration.

The classic elegance of wrought iron garden furniture also brings an element of romance to a garden.
Benches with beautiful, but intricate, scrolling detail can transform a dated relaxing reader corner into an elegant, and dignified, romantic corner. The comfortable seating area would provide the relaxation needed while the contrast between the beautiful hard cold iron and the soft natural beauty of the flowers provide for an unexpected elegant design element.

Whether you want to inject your outside living area with class, elegance, dignity or romance, you can't go wrong with wrought iron furniture. The furniture is high quality and will never fail to help you to create the perfect design look and feel.

The versatile beauty of wrought iron garden furniture makes it an excellent investment. The furniture is also well designed, sturdy and very heavy. It can't be moved easily and won't fall or tilt. As such, it can withstand the onslaught of severe weather. It can even be left out in the rain or snow. It is also very easy to clean the furniture.

The timeless beauty and durability of wrought iron garden furniture makes it the perfect choice if you want to take your patio and garden from pretty to beautiful and elegant.

Garden Lights to Make Your Backyard More Attractive

A person who would want to make their backyard or garden attractive may want to use garden lights. These not only help light these areas up but they may also accentuate certain parts of the backyard or garden. These may be placed also not only outside but also inside the house which you'll have to be careful about. These are helpful products to help you decorate these places. They are very helpful in such a way that it will make a statement in your garden if you decide to use it.

If you are planning to use garden lights for your backyard or garden, it would help if you consult with the one who helped you design it so that you can get a better idea of how and where you'd like to put these. That person could also help you pick out the design, color, and style which may appeal to what you want. Also, you can request for her to let you know if what you want will complement the theme you your garden. It doesn't hurt to do this because you care about your home and would want to make it to how you want it as close as possible. This person understands that which is why they would be happy to help.

Garden lights may be used inside the house if you have something like a mini-garden in-house like near your living room and you know that it would look better illuminated. These would definitely help but consider to put it in a strategic safe place. This means that the wires are not just left lying around but tucked away nicely to one part of the mini-garden so that no one would trip on it. It is for your safety and for the people in your home because this will help avoid accidents or injury. Since these are mostly electric, then consider not putting it near the water because it might short-circuit or cause a fire if water and electricity become in contact.

Think about these things when you buy your garden lights. Remember these will definitely help you decorate and make your home more beautiful. Try not to over-decorate because you'd also want this to complement your house. It is definitely important because you'd like to have these complement each other so that people who would be coming over your home would also think that it is beautiful.

Garden Maintenance in Autumn

You have to take care of your garden during the autumn months and this is a very important thing to be kept in your mind. Autumn is, perhaps, the busiest period in which we have to spend more time on maintaining the garden and these efforts will save loads of your time in the coming spring. Here are some basic ideas and tips to be followed by you, in maintaining your garden, during autumn. You should also take care not to walk on the grass when there is frost on it. Now get ready with your garden blower.

Tips to be followed in Steps
To begin with you have to remove the plants that are dead, from your garden. These plants, survived during the warm summer months and now, they have withered on the ground. The removal of these dead plants will give a fresh look to your garden, at present. While you are in the process of removing these plants, you can go on planting new plants and vegetables in your garden. You should be sure enough, that the new plants will withstand freezing conditions, but you think of providing some cover on the plants during the night-time.

Now you have removed the dead plants from the garden, the next step is to clear the garden from the leaves that were shed by the trees, using a garden blower. This process has to continue for a few months, as the trees will lose their leaves during that period. Now you should remove the built up, that is beneath the grass, and this should be done in a straight pattern. Now your lawn may become too short because of this, but you are going to be fertilising and seeding in the lawn, so that the lawn will improve soon.

Now you have to clean the garden and remove entire unwanted things that have accumulated in your garden due to the above operations with the help of the blower and lawn rake. Then fertilise your lawn starting from the edge and ensure even coating across the whole area. Then make the area moist by watering the garden fully. If necessary, you have to apply seeding again, if you see any bare or yellow patches even after fertilisation process.

Now it is time to set right your sprinkling system and you have to wrap it well. During winter, you have to water the garden lawn by hand using detachable hose pipe which will help to prevent from freezing.

Suitable Material for Outdoor Furniture

When thinking about which materials to use for your outdoor furniture, there can be more aspects that you need to consider compared to choosing furniture for the indoors.

To be sure that you have made the right decision, you have to know the materials well. There are important points for every type of material. And, there are advantages and disadvantages that will make a big difference in your decision.

The most common material we use is wood. This is mostly for the chairs, the benches, the tables, etc. Wood can be an ideal material as there are varieties that are very affordable. However, their durability might not be the best when compared to other materials out there. But, if you think about the price and the durability, it can be worth it. It will be easy for you to change an old and damaged furniture item with a new one as you didn't spend too much for that one.

The design of wooden furniture are also very laidback and familiar. There can be no radical changes to the comfortable outdoor feel that you have with such familiar furniture items. As earlier said, there are several types of wood that can be best for the outdoors. Even if they are just cheap, you should still go for the ones with the most durability.

Wicker is another material that you can possibly use. They are also generally cheap. And they can be turned into pretty comfortable furniture. Depending on the design, they can be very low maintenance. Also, they can be made from either bamboo, rattan, cane, or several more. This allows you to choose the best material to complement your outdoor area's ambiance and design.

As wicker furniture are generally lightweight, it can be easy to move them from one area to another. You can even take them inside a sheltered space when rains or the snow comes. These can be best for that relaxed, outdoor feel that you are trying to have in your outdoor space.

Synthetic wicker furniture are also available these days. For these type of furniture, you will not need to worry about the weather and the furniture's durability. They are more suited for the outdoors and they can withstand the heat or rain more than those made from bamboo, rattan, etc.

If you want to have metallic furniture, aluminum can be one of your first choices. First of all, they can be the cheapest of the metal furnishing. But, they remain lightweight, durable, and comfortable to use. Cleaning aluminum furniture can also be very light work. Even if you have left aluminum furniture outdoors for some time, you will not have much problems with corrosion.

If aluminum is not suitable for you, you can check out iron furnishings. They can be a little bit heavier but, they are durable and can withstand almost any type of weather. If you are worried about rust and corrosion, you can go for wrought iron as these will not be your problems with such items.