Practical Landscaping Tips You Can Do Yourself

Let’s be honest. We all want a garden that looks as if it belongs in a glossy magazine. I do. You do. My experience is that every one of us – by using a few practical landscaping tips – can improve the way our gardens both look and grow.

This page lists a growing number of techniques and I really hope they help and inspire you to create something unique in your own garden. I also note the most important judge of whether your garden is a good one – is you. 🙂 As long as you’re enjoying your garden, then it’s “all good.”

The very first decision is whether to do your landscaping yourself or have it done for you. If you decide on the latter – the having all the work done – you’ll want to read about landscaping contracts.

Weed Control

Here’s how you can kill plants in the garden.
A Recipe for Organic Weed Control with Vinegar That Really Works
Here are two ways to control weeds you’ll want to consider.
And when push comes to shove in the landscape, here’s what you really want to know about controlling weeds (the hard to kill type)
Garden myths about mulch, landscaping and more
Here’s a simple way to prevent weeds in the vegetable garden

Unsure about whether to use chemicals in your landscape?

Here’s a research paper that talks about the impact on children from farm chemicals use.

Seasonal Garden and Landscaping Tips

As you might imagine, this is a work in progress…

January

February

March

How To Keep Your Container Gardening Plants Thriving – some tips on propagating geraniums and repotting (not the old wive’s system but the modern nurseryman’s take on repotting)

April

Practical gardening tips for early April from my own garden.

May

June

July

Here are practical tips for harvesting and prolonging the life of summer bouquets.

August

September

October

November

A gardening to-do list for November. Your last chance to get chores done before winter.

December

Here’s a to-do list for December and yes, there are things you can do in December if you’re so inclined – in fact, some things are best done in this frigid month.

Practical Tips To Improve Your Own Landscape

Here are four tips for landscaping with rocks. (Hint: bigger is better)
Deadheading plants – taking off the spent blooms – is one of the main ways we either clean up the garden or get even more blossoms from the plant. These videos will get you started right.
Butterfly garden design rules that will make a difference in your garden
How to stop frost from wrecking your garden. Practical tips that worked in my nursery.
Here’s why you use an organic mulch in your garden rather than the obscene rubber or even ornamental pebble mulches that don’t add anything to the soil.
Six deceptively simple ways to improve your backyard landscaping
Three principles of perennial garden design.
There are a great many marketing myths about growing groundcovers (like they prevent weeds). You’ll want to read this honest article
Five important factors in great perennial garden design – is one of those articles that will make a difference to many gardens.
Make your backyard landscaping better with these simple tips.
There are two schools of perennial garden design – one for raw beginners and the other for more advanced gardeners. (I prefer the beginner one myself) 🙂
Here are eight tips pool landscaping ideas to make your pool better looking.
Dryland gardening is becoming more and more important and here are some practical tips to help you succeed in a dry growing season
Six options in landscape edging. Keeping the garden beds well edged is a mark of a good garden and here are some of your options.
Here’s how you can make raised beds out of cheap lumber and it will last for years. Almost like making your own pressure treated wood.
Here are some garden myths about mulching, planting and more you’ll want to consider.
Plants to Support Your Regional Eco-system. A list of plants to support your regional eco-system.

Soils

Six practical options for successful clay soil gardening. As good a place to start learning how to handle clay soils as anywhere.
Organic fertilizer and nutrient components
And for those moments when you just can’t wait. Here’s a research report on the impact of human urine as garden fertilizer.

Landscape Lighting Of All Kinds

Comparison between Solar and Twelve-volt Landscape Lighting
Here’s why you don’t want to use night lighting in your garden.
How to talk to the fireflies in your garden. You can do this with children and watch the delight as they communicate with this insect with a simple flashlight.

Irrigation: Watering Your Garden Properly

Reader Question:

I have 20 – four foot wide beds if I use soaker hose what’s the recommended pattern? Individual, connecting 4-6 and burying the line between beds or connecting all 20 and having on/off valves to water parts of the garden.

I think many folks would like to know how this is done – so here’s the answer.

The Technical Answer

Each of the beds has a down and back length of hose. The Calculating Drip Irrigation article is important here. So that’s how you lay out the beds.

How many beds can you run at one time? See the Flow Rate Article

Layout depends on you and flow-rate.

I’d calculate flow-rate from your house to the garden.

Then I’d calculate how many beds that would run at one time. If your flow rate would run 4 beds … (see below)

That gives you a base number of beds or zones (as they’re known in the industry) Flow rate equals 4 beds and you have 20 beds, then you have 5 zones to connect.

But the main part of your question is how to connect them all. And that depends on you.

In my world, I’d set them all up on zones and water one zone at a time. That means each zone would have on-off valves set up to either stop or take the water.

There would be one “header” pipe bringing the water to the garden (larger diameter than the hoses themselves) And then they’d branch off to smaller irrigation pipes.

But Having Said That – Here’s The Easy Way

Having said that, if you don’t want to do the math, and you have enough money.

Run one header line (a main line) down the length of the garden.
Put a t-junction at each bed and a tap to control the flow into the bed.
Open and close the taps as your beds need water.
But understand you can only do a few at a time.

How To Design With Color In Your Garden

The first thing to understand is the color wheel and how we’re going to use it.
Hot versus Cool colors in the garden
Two color chords of high contrasting colors and how you can use those in your garden to get instantly gorgeous containers/gardens
Three color chords and how to create amazing color combinations for your own garden.
The practical problem with designing with variegated plants in the garden
The contrast of extension sounds complicated but it’s really not. Understanding this will make a major difference in your garden. How to balance the colors in your garden.

Landscaping Product Reviews

Rain chains: a fancy downspout for your eavestrough
Record-keeping in the garden is easier if you use the free Evernote software. Check it out here