David's Landscaping Blog

Your deck design options are virtually limitless. But this very abundance of choices in deck design can confound homeowners. I recently conducted an interview on deck design with an expert in the field, Lawrence Winterburn. The results of the interview are contained in a Q&A, which may answer several of the questions the average homeowner has about deck design.

Read interview: Deck Design

Landscaping and gardening give us an opportunity to give free reign to our creativity -- to varying degrees, depending on the circumstances.

At the higher end of the spectrum, we find the ideal situation: the freedom of working with a blank slate. We look at an area in the yard, remove whatever's currently there, and start from scratch. If we've decided on a planting bed for that spot, we conduct our research on plant selection ahead of time. We purchase the plants at the right time, install them at the right time and sit back, admiring our creation.

Then there's the real world. Most plants require some amount of maintenance; and mulching, watering, etc. are pretty low-end on the creativity scale. But many landscaping and gardening tasks fall somewhere in the middle: we can be creative, but we're forced to adapt. For example, a mistake or an obstacle may mess up our plans; but in surmounting it, we can still express ourselves creatively.

Let's say we forget to plant our spring flowering bulbs in fall, for instance. In pondering our alternatives, we realize that growing them in containers, instead, is one option. The containers could be creatively arranged to form a knockout display.

Or maybe hiring a stump grinder isn't in the budget -- and we don't feel up to DIY stump removal -- so we find ourselves "working around" a huge tree stump in the middle of a planting bed. I've witnessed instances where folks in this situation hollowed the stump out enough to use it as a planter!

My picture (above left) shows a great example of creativity used to overcome an obstacle. These people wanted a fence in a particular area of the yard, and they weren't about to let a boulder stop them -- they just built right over the boulder!

_{Photo ©2007 David Beaulieu (licensed to About.com)}

The diseases to which our trees succumb can be pretty befuddling to non-arborists. After all, it's tough enough to keep up with the constant changes in human biology with which science bombards us! Fungi are at the root of the most common diseases of trees. "Fungi lack chlorophyll and derive nourishment by feeding on (parasitizing) trees," states Steve Nix, About's Forestry Guide. Steve covers some of the most common diseases of trees in this piece.

If you do a lot of watering on your landscape, should you have a water well dug, to lessen your dependence on the public water supply? The initial cost of having water wells dug may give some cause for concern. But water wells do eventually pay for themselves. I guess it's just a case of, "It takes money to make money" -- or, in this case, to save money.

There is much confusion over the identification of poison ivy plants. Some folks mistake another plant, Virginia creeper vine, for poison ivy. Others, with less experience in the woods, aren't even aware that traipsing through the brush could bring them into contact with poison ivy. Don't let yourself or your loved ones fall victim to poison ivy rash! Avoidance begins with proper identification of poison ivy. To that end, I offer pictures of poison ivy in this photo gallery.

View photo gallery: Pictures of Poison Ivy

_{Photo ©2006 David Beaulieu (licensed to About.com)}

Red twig dogwood shrubs provide year-round interest, featuring:

• Flowers in spring
• Variegated foliage and berries in summer
• Fall foliage in autumn
• And their signature red twigs in winter.

In fact, when people wish to call attention to the foliage, rather than the bark of variegated red twig dogwoods, they may refer to them by names such as "silver-edge dogwood shrubs." Still, "red twig dogwood shrubs" is bound to remain these plants' chief moniker, as the bright color of their branches is startlingly eye-catching. In this article on red twig dogwood shrubs, I tell you how to maximize that bright color.

Read article: Red Twig Dogwoods

"What to do in the garden in May? What doesn’t need doing? That’s why it’s nice to have a list," states Marie Iannotti. And About's Gardening Guide supplies such a list in this regional gardening calendar for May.

May truly is a "frantic" month in the garden, as Marie puts it -- even just in terms of indulging in a full admiration of each of your plants' blooms, before they pass! My Korean spice viburnum and lilacs are on top of my "To Admire" list right now, since I want to drink in their heady fragrances as much as possible while I can. On a purely visual level, creeping phlox and Kwanzan cherry are the stars of my current garden, although they will soon lose that position to peonies and candytuft.

_{Photo ©2006 David Beaulieu (licensed to About.com)}

If you're new to landscaping, perhaps you've heard a lot of talk about "dogwood" but aren't sure what dogwood looks like. Steve Nix remedies that with his photo gallery, showing not only dogwood flowers, pink types as well as white, but also examples of the plant form of dogwood trees. This sure beats trying to tell a dogwood from its bark!

Seriously, though, etymologists tell us that the word "dogwood" has nothing to do with dogs. Instead, it harkens back to an old word, "dag" (think "dagger"), which referred to a sharp tool. Dogwood branches were useful in making such tools, since the wood is so hard. Indeed, the Latin genus name for dogwood is Cornus and means "horn."

As I enjoy the blooming spectacle being put on by the flowering trees in my area, I can't help but think of what can be a false dichotomy between "ornamental" trees and more useful trees. Some trees can serve double duty....

When we contemplate adding flowering trees to the spring landscape, we generally think of "ornamental trees" such as magnolias and redbuds. They're pretty to look at -- and pretty useless beyond that. But the option of growing apple trees reminds us that beautiful flowering specimens can be more than just eye candy. This article provides information on varieties of apple trees suitable for home landscaping. Growing any of these apple trees will allow you to enjoy a first-rate floral display in spring, and delicious fruits in the fall! Edible landscaping with beauty to boot -- how can you beat that?

Related article: The Growing Popularity of Backyard Orchards

After suffering through a long winter, we plant lovers are often guilty of going berserk at the nursery in spring. We buy too many different kinds of trees, shrubs and perennials all at once -- one of this, one of that.... This, despite the fact that landscape designers tell us that masses of the same plant have a bigger visual impact in planting beds than a mish-mash.

Admittedly, it's more satisfying to walk into the nursery and buy a smörgåsbord of individual plants. But that's just for one day. How to derive maximum satisfaction from your plants over the long term is an issue of much greater importance, don't you think? There's something to be said for turning our attention to more fully appreciating each and every plant we end up growing in our gardens.

And there are so many small details worth admiring! I find I derive maximum satisfaction from my garden when I slow down long enough to admire what's already there properly, before adding too much more just yet. To that end, I recommend carrying around a magnifying glass when in the garden, at the very least. You'd be surprised at the details you miss walking by small plants growing on the ground -- details that you can appreciate down on all fours and armed with a magnifying glass. If a bad back precludes such activity, consider growing your plants in raised beds, which effectively bring the plants up to your level.

But don't stop there! At the next level of commitment, the plant lover keeps a garden journal. Keeping a garden journal will allow you to record the changes in your plants, as they progress through the seasons -- and from year to year, if you have the discipline to stick with it that long!

And if you're even a bit more committed to deriving maximum satisfaction from your plants, snap photos of them at different junctures along the way. A closeup lens comes in handy for this but isn't absolutely necessary. The photos can be incorporated in your garden journal. I find the easiest way to keep such a journal is on the computer. For instance, to chart the progress of a forsythia bush, create a "Forsythia" folder, which would then contain:

• A text document to hold the garden journal entries on your forsythia
• Image documents (photos of forsythia at various stages)

Multiply this process by all the types of plants you have in your garden and you can see how much is entailed in deriving maximum satisfaction from your plants. Such an approach is challenging, but it's worthwhile. After getting to know your plants up close and personal, you'll start to think of them as your "family in the yard."