Bringing Nature to Your Outdoors
The look of a well-manicured landscape design sets the tone for all guests as they enter your home. It is often seen by far more people than ever enter your home and still is often forgotten about when thoughts of remodelling and updates come to mind.
The preferred look of lawns and gardens have changed a lot in the last 20 years. In the 90’s it was all about precision and squared neat corners of yard with all flowers of uniform colour and height. It was an effort to show how much work you put into keeping the garden maintained – showing off your dedication and effort as opposed to showing off the natural features around you.
The newer design is a far more carefree and natural appearance. Rock gardens and wildflowers are as popular as or more so than rigid lines of plants all blooming in the same colour and season. Variety is favoured over uniformity and the gardens give the impression of something to be walked in and enjoyed instead of simply observed from a distance.
Allowing corners to round slightly by mowing or placement of flowering shrubs has eased the sharp angular appearances. The use of multiple different flowers and plants ensure something is always in bloom and interesting both to guests and to butterflies and birds. Allowing a slightly longer growth to the lawn grass adds warmth and texture that looks like it should be walked on as opposed to avoided carefully.
In completing the transformation to a more relaxed and natural look after the plants and lawn structure is eased other ways present themselves to add a natural and tranquil feel. The most common improvement happens to be one of the simplest.
Adding an ornamental water feature is a low coast low maintenance method of completing the natural look and feel of your gardens. Using a tiered system of two smallish pond features connected by a short waterfall or a dingle pond with a spouting fountain gives both visual appeal and fills the air with soft sounds of water filling the evening air.
For ease of maintenance as well as the appeal of a fountain or waterfall it is essential to use a pump to keep the water moving. If the water does not circulate it will quickly become a stagnant eyesore. You select a pump based on volume of water to move and in the case of fountains how high you want them to spray.
Smaller water features can be dug yourself and then inlayed with a plastic pool to hole the water masked by stone and plantings around the edges. In particularly hard ground or for larger features a quick hour or two with a small excavator will make it a simple process. The natural look and sound of the water will be welcomed by the birds and butterflies as well – and a beautiful replacement to the white plastic birdbath of years past.
