Many people are choosing to move to creating more natural landscapes, even landscapes which contain plants that are useful, or can be eaten. Many vegetable plants are very attractive, and a lot of edible plants have ornamental varieties.

Most people who create edible landscapes use perennial vegetables, because they come back year after year, without the need to replant them each year. Once you’ve planted them, they’ll continue to provide you with beauty and food as long as you care for them.

A little watering and feeding is all most of them need, aside from the occasional weeding, pruning, or insect control. There are plenty of varieties of vegetables that you can plant that will keep feeding you year after year.

They’ll usually die during the winter, but every spring they’ll return and go through a growth cycle again. With the prices of fresh vegetables and fruits rising at an alarming rate, it’s a very good idea to grow some of your own.

You might not want the responsibility of caring for a traditional garden. Traditional gardens require a lot of work to maintain. You must constantly weed, rake, hoe, water, fertilize, and spray traditional gardens. But edible landscapes require little more effort than traditional landscapes!

You can use many different types of edible plants to replace various aspects of traditional landscaping. You can use fruit trees in place of standard trees. Many perennial herbs can be used to replace ground covers and shrubs. And ornamental vegetables can be used in place of flowers, borders, or other accents.

You can also mix edible plants with other plants to form beautiful combinations. Some edible plants, especially herbs, make great additions to flower gardens. You can mix all kinds of plants together for different looks.

Curly parsley looks beautiful with many different types of plants. You can plant it with pansies, lobelia, strawberries, dusty miller, or dianthus. Sage and oregano are very beautiful plants, and make great low shrubbery. They look fantastic as edging in front of larger bushes.

Leaf lettuces look lovely planted in beds as accent areas. You can plant a bed of different colors and varieties of leaf lettuce, and then edge it with a border grass. There are several types of plants that have edible flowers.

Many of these plants also have other edible parts. They can look very striking as part of a landscape while they’re in bloom. Sugar snap peas have gorgeous white, pink, or purple flowers, and they produce delicious peas.

Fava beans produce white and red flowers. Chives have amazing purple globe-shaped flowers. Dill has lovely yellowish blossoms. Nasturtium blossoms are edible, and some in red, yellow, and orange. Sage has blue and purple blossoms. And salvia also has blue and purple blooms.

Perennial herbs and vegetables are superb for planting in edible landscapes, because they require so little maintenance. You can try perennial broccoli, dandelions, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, sorrel, artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes, chives, fennel, garlic chives, ginger, and asparagus.

Raised bed gardening is a way of growing plants inside beds that are raised up above the normal level of the soil in the garden. They’re typically housed inside a wooden frame, generally rectangular. The soil may be mixed in with tilled soil underneath, or it can simply be new soil placed on top of untilled ground.

There are many great benefits to growing plants in raised beds. One of the biggest benefits is the ability to harvest more produce from the same space. Raised bed gardens can actually double or even triple the amount of produce harvested from the space! This is due to the fact that the square footage needed for pathways is reduced considerably, and more space can be devoted to the plants.

Another great benefit to growing in raised beds is the fact that you can improve your soil conditions more readily, and you can even grow plants in areas with extremely inhospitable soil. If your garden is typically very sandy or you have a lot of clay, it can be difficult to grow much in it. But if you create a raised bed, you can simply put your own purchased or created soil mix into the frame and grow your plants in that.

Weeds are also much less of a problem in the typical raised bed. Because the soil is confined, it’s much easier to spot any weeds that do pop up, and the weed seeds in the existing soil are buried under far too much soil to sprout in most cases.

The frames can also be built with a bottom and placed on tables so handicapped and elderly people can reach their plants to care for them more easily. This is a major benefit for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to properly care for a garden.

This type of gardening was made popular by Mel Bartholomew in his book and television series called Square Foot Gardening. He developed a system that requires about 80% less space than traditional types of gardening.

Instead of being just a standard raised bed, the bed is divided into sections that house plants of various sizes. It uses special soil mix that is free of weeds and is ideal for growing almost any kind of plants. It uses less water, is all organic, and uses far fewer seeds than traditional gardening. His system claims you can produce 5 times more in the same space of a traditional garden.

The system divides each square foot into a grid, based on what type of plants you wish to grow in that section. If you want to grow a large plant like broccoli or cabbage, it would take one entire square foot, so that section wouldn’t be divided at all. If you want to grow radishes, you might section that square foot into sixteen separate spaces, each one housing a single radish!
Other similar systems have been brought out. Cubed Foot Gardening is very similar to Square Foot Gardening. The creator of this particular system is Christopher O. Bird, and he credits Mel Bartholomew for creating the original system. Bartholomew even gave the system an endorsement!
You don’t have to use a grid system at all. You can use a raised bed to plant a wildflower garden or an herb garden with no definable organization. This works just fine. You don’t have to restrict yourself to a grid-based system if you don’t want to. Raised beds are very flexible!

Edible landscaping is the process of planting edible plants in a landscape, rather than in a traditional garden. There are two major benefits to edible landscaping. First of all, edible landscapes save space, because they combine landscaping and food-growing into a single space.

Secondly, they turn a standard landscape into more than just aesthetics, but into a useful method of growing some of your own food. Edible landscapes don’t have to be 100% edible. You can design your edible landscape around any percentage of edible plants you wish.

You might choose to make your landscape 100% edible, or you might only include a single fruit tree. Edible landscaping has actually been around for a very long time. Some of the earliest edible landscapes were found in ancient Persia and in gardens in medieval times.

In some areas of the world, most people plant mostly edible varieties. Some people see no point in planting anything that isn’t edible, seeing everything else as a waste of valuable food-growing space.

An important part of planning your edible landscape is knowing what conditions each variety needs. Some plants will need a lot of sun, and some plants require more shade. You need to be sure the soil conditions are suitable.

Be sure to check each and every variety so you know its soil requirements, sunlight requirements, and the nutrient and pH balance needed. Start by planning out your landscape on paper.

Mark off where you want to place certain plants, and be sure those areas are conducive to the varieties you wish to locate there. Use fruit trees in place of shade trees. You can plant hazelnuts and currants wherever you might place a deciduous shrub. You can use herbs in place of low-lying shrubs and ground cover.

Ornamental plants often need very little care. Edible plants do need a little bit more attention than other plants if you want them to produce a good harvest. You might have to water them more often or fertilizer them.

You’ll probably have to work a bit harder to control pests than you would for strictly ornamental plants, because insects tend to target edible plants much more often. But the food yield certainly makes it worth a bit of additional work.

One of the most important types of edible plants to add to a landscape is fruit trees or bushes. Fruit trees make excellent shade tree replacements. And berry bushes can be extremely attractive in place of typical shrubs. Blueberry bushes can be quite lovely in front of a home, for example. And apple trees can grow into delightful shade trees!

Instead of planting flowerbeds, you can plant beds of lettuce, herbs, or greens. Many types of mint have lovely blooms. Lettuce and other greens can come in all types of colors. You can get ornamental cabbages and kale in a wide variety of colors, adding a splash of color to any area. Peppers and tomatoes are colorful additions, as well.

Grape arbors are a spectacular addition to a landscape. Grape arbors have been used for many years as a beautiful enhancement to lawns, and the fruit is a wonderful bonus. Remember, many types of flowers are also edible.

Nasturtiums, violas, daylilies, calendula, and borage are all edible, and make wonderful additions to salads and decorations for cakes. So you can still plant some flowers, even if you want to stay 100% edible!

Are you looking for something to add a little spice to your already blooming garden? Why not make that beautiful garden into a backyard oasis? Add a simple, yet elegant water garden to create an exotic feel and make your friends and neighbors envy you.

A water garden isn’t that hard to set up as long as you follow some simple steps.
The first thing you’ll need to do is figure out where to place the water garden. The best placement should be close to your home, so it can be easily viewed, but not too close to trees or anything that would cause too much debris to fall into the pond.

A pond would look nice framed with trees, but you would constantly be cleaning it out from fallen leaves and dirt, so try to keep it at a fair distance away from any trees on your property.

Once you’ve decided how big the water garden will be and what shape it will be, you should then start digging to the proper level based on the size of the water garden. Place your pond underlayment that you’ve cut to the right shape.

The thick pond liner will go on top of the underlayment. Make sure everything fits snuggly. Then install all of the components to the waterfall feature following the directions of the kit.

All the hardware and the excess pond underlayment will then need to be hidden, so place the pebbles and stones around the water garden so the equipment isn’t seen. You can now fill the pond with water and add any nutrients or substance to take care of any chlorine in the water.

Make sure all of the components work. By now, the water should be recycling around and streaming down your waterfall feature. When you’re sure everything is working properly, its then time to add the aquatic plants.

Make sure you add the anarcharis water plants because they’ll take care of any nutrients that would otherwise keep algae thriving. Water lilies are a popular aquatic plant to use because they help give the illusion of a natural made pond.

Your water pond is ready for your enjoyment. If you want to create a real oasis for your water garden, consider adding some goldfish to the pond. Add only a few at a time to ensure their survival.

Add a few plants near the edge of the pond to help it blend in with the rest of your backyard oasis. Once it’s all in place, you’ll need to take care of it to keep it going for many years to come.

There are many guides and books to browse through that will go into detail on the best ways to set up your own water garden. They show how to get the different sizes and shapes of ponds to allow for the water to properly flow. Check them out and plan for your own water garden to spice up your backyard oasis today.

Learning how to design a rock garden will arm you with enough design knowledge and inspiration to get out there and make your lawn more beautiful. There just as many ways to design your garden as there are rocks and plants that could go in your garden, but careful planning can ensure you have a garden that is aesthetically pleasing and will become a rewarding experience as your neighbors look on your yard with envy.

The first step in designing your rock garden is to look at your space. Every lawn has at the very least a ground surface. Some may include grass, weeds, trees, and other vegetation. If you have a section of your land that doesn’t have any vegetation, then this is probably a prime location for your rock garden.

A popular method of rock gardens is to take bedrock and theatrically show the bedrock jutting from the ground with a vegetation plane above it. In this arrangement, the plants are there to hide the cracks in the bedrock or even give an illusion to there being a single piece of bedrock, instead of lots of little pieces.

Another method is the Japanese rock garden. This method is usually just sand in a contained area with a few rocks, and designs traced into the sand with a rake. This can be very pretty and you could change the look as often as you wanted to.

After taking a look at your land, you should first choose any area that already doesn’t have anything growing on it. If you’re looking at a pile of dirt or a natural rockscape, then you’re in luck, because your pre-planning stage is done.

If you have a solid plane of grass all around your house, then your job is a little harder. You could use the rock garden to enhance your driveway or your walkway, or any way in between. Maybe you want to break up the land by having a rock garden between some shrubs or even if your location is completely bare except for the grass.

Clear the area of everything. You don’t want any accidental vegetation appearing in your rock garden because that would throw off the design. Then, you get rocks! But, not just any rocks. Consider your area and what rocks are indigenous to your area and get only those.

If you already have a rocky area in your yard it will provide an excellent start. You could consider breaking those rocks up and using them in another area of your yard. What about plants?

Well, consider what plants your area would have in rocky areas. These plants are typically small and need less water than other plants. If you’re going for the “mimic nature” approach, then your choice of plants will be limited as you’ll have to follow your area’s ecology to make sure you mimic accurately.

The best way to arrange a rock garden is to take a few rocks of random sizes, probably no more than five, and make some small piles with them. Don’t arrange the rock piles in a linear pattern as this is not the method in nature.

If you wish to add plants, then add them sparingly in between a lot of rock piles or even interspersed with the rock piles. Any vegetation in your rock garden should be deliberate. Then you’ll have your completed, low maintenance, lawn decoration.

Not every landscape is perfect and having a rock garden can help in many of those areas. You might have an area that is just too shaded and you can’t have plants because there just isn’t enough sun during the day to help them grow, or you may have an area that has become too dry because you’re either going through a drought or rain just won’t reach it.

Or, maybe you have too much rain and your land is just too soggy to support good vegetation and has now become very swampy. Rock gardens can help in all of these problem areas and most are very low maintenance.

Good planning can help any novice to rock gardens, but sometimes a professional’s opinion can be the difference between ordinary and magnificent. If your land is too rocky, then you can just clear up some of the rock and try to arrange what is left in an aesthetically pleasing pattern.

Adding some shallow rooted plants can help break up a large, rocky area with some green. Or, if the area is too dense with rock, then you could build a border around the area with an artificial border, such as railroad ties – or use small plants to trace around it.

A hilly area on your land will cause your soil to erode. Placing a rock garden in a strategic area of your land will stop the erosion and while adding a good lawn decoration. Bringing in rocks indigenous to your area will give the illusion that the garden is more natural.

An area that is just too dry or maybe has non-fertile soil is another suitable place for a rock garden, and maybe you should even consider a Japanese rock garden. This kind of a garden uses sand and rocks to put patterns into the ground and if you have an extremely dry climate, this will look intentional despite having a bad spot in your yard. Some people will tend to call a Japanese rock garden a “Zen garden” but the two are not the same.

Shady areas can have a rock garden with plants that thrive in the shade. Instead of having plants that are found naturally around rock, you would take plants that do well in the shade and populate your garden with those. It’s a great way to expand on the rock garden concept and have a more personalized decoration.

No matter what your land is like you can always benefit from a rock garden. Do you have a lot of land? Let’s examine mowing. If you have some of your vast land mass broken up by rock gardens, then it would decrease the amount of mowing you have to do but at the same time would make your land more beautiful.

Breaking up your land doesn’t mean you don’t care about your land as much if you don’t tend to every corner of it, but it does mean that you are able to be more time efficient and give your attention to other parts of your land. You could have other projects for your land such as a waterfall or other type of water feature that would go well with rocks.

Finally, do you remember pointillism from art class? Artists would use tiny dots made with brush strokes to make large pictures, as in Un dimanche après-midi à l’Île de la Grande Jatte by Georges Seruat. He painted with a lot of dots in that painting (and others as well), and you could do the same with a lot of stones. Make your lawn an art gallery of rock garden paintings.

Raised beds make gardening easier in many ways. They help you solve difficult issues with your soil, they aid in controlling pests, they improve the amount of produce you can harvest in an area, they’re great at reducing weeds, and they help conserve water.

Any plants that love well-drained soil can benefit from being grown in raised beds. You don’t have to raise just vegetables. You can also easily grow herbs, fruits, and flowers in raised beds and make your job easier.

In raised bed gardening, the soil is usually put into frames that are about three or four feet wide and any length. The soil is generally enriched with compost, and is added to a frame made of wood or other material.

The plants in raised bed gardening are planted much closer together than the plants in a traditional garden. This allows the plants to conserve moisture and also help block the sun from allowing weeds to germinate and grow.

Raised beds can be used to extend the growing season, making it easier to start seeds outdoors earlier, and grow later in the season. This is a great way to get even more produce out of the area in a season.

If you have soil problems in your garden, you can use raised beds and just bypass your own soil completely. If you start with completely fresh soil, it doesn’t matter what type of soil you had in your garden to begin with.

Another great benefit of raised bed gardening is the fact that the gardener doesn’t walk on the soil in which the plants are growing. This helps prevent the soil from being packed down, so the roots can grow through the soil more readily.

You don’t need to till the soil under a raised bed if you don’t want to. This is very beneficial for people who can’t afford a tiller, or who aren’t physically capable of handling a piece of machinery like this.

You won’t have to water raised beds as often as you would a traditional garden. The soil in raised beds is designed specifically to hold on to water, so you can water less often and in smaller quantities. This is great for conserving water and saving money.

Frames can be built on top of plywood bases, and then raised to any height. This allows handicapped and elderly people to easily reach their plants to tend to them. For people in wheelchairs, this could be one of the only ways they can garden well.

Diseases and pests are easier to control in raised beds. Since you’re starting with fresh soil, it’s less likely to be contaminated with diseases that could infect your plants. If your plants do become infected, you can simple dispose of the soil in that bed and start again from scratch.

And pests are easier to control, because plants are in a more confined area. This makes it much easier to spot potential problems, and it also makes it easier to get rid of potential problems before they take over your entire garden.

Just about anyone in the word can build a great rock garden pond and waterfall because it’s really inexpensive to do and doesn’t require very much instruction. Having a pond as a centerpiece to your rock garden will make your landscape stand out.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that for a novice, you will have to contend with a lot of engineering because it really isn’t “simple” to have a pond that doesn’t leak. The first thing you should consider is the land.

Since you’re going for a pond and waterfall, you’re going to need lots of space for it. Find some good level land and clear away all of the debris and vegetation. You also don’t want it to be near drain pipes or rain run-off so that you keep your pond safe from contaminates.

If you build your pond too close to trees, you’ll have to continuously take dead leaves and other tree matter. Putting your pond in a place where it will get a lot of direct sunlight will aid in plant growth.

Once you have your land set aside, you’re going to need to decide what kind of pond you’d want. Do you want to have fish or plants in the pond? If you make your pond too small, then it could be or become uninhabitable for your fish and plants.

It’s almost better to have too large a pond that one that is too small. It would be very difficult at best to make enough room for your vegetation. Now that you have decided where you want your pond, you’re going to cordon off the area so you can visualize your project better.

Trace the area you want by driving a stake in the ground, then tying adjacent stakes together with some nylon cord. When you have the entire area cordoned off, dig down about six inches for the first shelf. This is called the coping shelf.

Then dig down twelve more inches and this is your second shelf and about another six inches for the base of the pond. You have these different shelf positions because you’re going to have different fish and plants at each level. A larger pond is going to be more stable and easier to keep without worrying about your plants and fish dying off.

After you’ve dug your hole, fill it with soft sand and pack it down really tightly. You want about a one half inch thickness with the soft sand. Going to a home improvement store or a pond supply store would probably be the best bet to find materials for your pond at this point.

You’ll need a pond liner, and you can usually determine your pond liner’s size by taking the largest length and width, then calculating the depth and twice what you dug. This will ensure you have the size of pond liner you’ll need.

After removing your shoes, take the liner you bought and lay it on the bottom, then work it into the shelves you made. Be careful to follow the contours of the pond. After you have lined the entire pond, then it’s time to fill it.

The waterfall is usually bought as a kit. You’ll want to decide the best way to integrate the waterfall into the pond. Most of the shops where you buy the waterfall will have books on how to do this type of integration.

Along the border of your pond, pile small rocks and stones along the outside of it and on some of the other shelves. This is to trap the liner so it doesn’t get unattached and ruin your little pond. Now you can add plants and fish to add to the attractiveness of your pond.

There are many types of gardens you can have for your yard to make it more attractive in the neighborhood. Everyone knows that a nice, manicured lawn will go a long way to improve the overall look and appeal in any neighborhood.

Some of you may even have messy neighbors who don’t care about their lawn and having a fabulous garden could even offset the shabbiest of lawns. There are many types of gardens you could use for enhancing your lawn, but probably the simplest is the rock garden.

Rock gardens are a type of garden with an emphasis on rocks and stones with a few small plants that are found in naturally rocky areas. The plants are generally small and de-emphasized but are vital to help in the aesthetics.

Because the plants are native to rocky areas, they’ll be small and like their soil to be drier than most plants but can’t completely be without water. A popular type of rock garden is where bedrock is arranged to imply there was a bedding plane that had shifted or had come up partially above the ground.

Plants are arranged in this type of garden to hide joins between stones, whereas in its natural setting it would likely be one continuous piece. This type of professionally designed rock garden, or rockery, was popular in the Victorian times.

A Japanese rock garden, sometimes misnamed ‘Zen garden,’ is a sand box with sand, rocks, and very occasionally grass. The sand in these gardens tends to represent water, with the ridging caused by rakes to symbolize the ripples.

The rocks would then be islands. Some people believed these gardens were supposed to soothe the mind, but this was not the original intention. Understanding how to put together an effective garden for your terrain type would enhance your landscape.

Just because you don’t have fertile soil or lots of space without rocks, it doesn’t mean you can add to your landscape by having a garden. Even if your land is flat, you can bring in rocks for your rock garden. Just about every terrain type can support a rock garden.

But, before you start bringing in all types of rocks for your garden, you should consider what rocks are native to your area if you want to create a completely natural look. Also, you should consider only local plants.

Putting a few extra moments into the design of your garden can ensure you’re going to get compliments from your neighbors and be the talk of the neighborhood, and maybe even your town.

Since rock gardens are typically shallow and don’t require plants that need a lot of water if you’re going to include plants at all, then you can see that a rock garden can be a very low maintenance way to decorate your lawn.

In this case, a small amount of upkeep every week or even every month can keep your lawn decoration well-maintained for the neighborhood. After you bring in rocks, you should clear the land you’re going to use of debris.

You especially want to take care of the weeds since rock gardens look their best when the vegetation is low, clearing it out is essential before you begin your garden. In your garden you will typically want small piles of rocks with either no plants or very sparse plants to break up the scenery.

It will take time and practice to make sure you have the right balance between rocks and plants, but when you do manage to find that balance, it will be rewarding.

Water always seems to have a soothing, calming effect on people. It is beautiful, sparkling, and gentle. Water gardens can certainly add interest to an otherwise bland yard. They can include waterfalls, ponds, fountains, and aquatic plants.

Generally, water gardens are ponds or containers of water that house plants, and sometimes also contain fish or other aquatic animals. You should be very careful to choose the right spot for your water garden, because it would be extremely difficult to relocate it once it’s been established.

You need to be sure to pick a spot that gets a lot of sun, because most fish and aquatic plants need quite a bit. The best spot is a place that gets at least six or eight hours of sun every day. Be sure to keep the pond away from large trees and shrubs that can cast leaves into your pond and shade it.

If you have a small yard, you should probably stick with a smaller pond. Larger yards can comfortably house larger ponds. If you have very little space, you could use a container for your water garden.

You don’t need a lot of fancy features in your water garden. You can start with a standard pond, and then add in other features later. You can add special lighting, waterfalls, fountains, rocks, and other features whenever you want.

When you plan the plants for your water garden, you should be sure not to plant too many. You don’t want to cover more than around 50% of the water surface. If you add too many plants, the sun won’t be able to reach any fish or other animals in your pond, and you may have more problems with algae and other issues. You could also cause overcrowding, and your plants might not survive.

You can choose from several different types of plants for a water garden. Free floating plants float through the water without being anchored in soil. Marginal plants typically float, but their roots are usually anchored in soil or other material.

Submerged plants are generally located under water only, and aren’t very visible from the surface. The type of plants you choose will depend on what you want your pond to look like.
Fish and other aquatic animals can be a very useful addition to your water garden.

They help keep oxygen moving through the water, preventing the water from going stale. They can also help control mosquito larva, which can be a really bothersome part of water gardening.
Emergent plants, also called marginals, are usually found at the edges of ponds.

Their roots are anchored into the bottom, usually in mud. Cattails are one very well-known type of emergent plant. Water lilies and lotus are also emergent plants. Submerged plants are the ones that remain almost totally underneath the water.

They help fight against algae, because they consume the nutrients the algae needs to grow. They also produce oxygen during the day, supporting fish and other animals. They can be potted in gravel, because they don’t use their roots to collect nutrients.

Floaters are not anchored at all. They float freely through the water, either on the surface or submerged. Floaters are sometimes prolific multipliers, so they may need to be thinned out on occasion.

They are used to enhance the look of the surface of the pond, and to enhance the appearance of water lilies and lotus. Duckweed, water lettuce, and water hyacinth are all types of floaters.