What is designing for entertainment? It is creating ambiance and a wonderful mood. In order to do this you have to know the elements that compose the feeling of repose, relaxation, elegance, pleasure and arrange landscape design elements in such a way that everything has a convenient layout and provides interest. The landscape design should create intrigue with different areas to visit and ponder-the excitement factor.

Create the Mood

What creates a fantastic landscape design environment that keeps your guests entertained, refilling their wine glasses, smelling and tasting the fresh hors de chore. Regardless of budget and elements a great outdoor landscape design for entertainment should have multiple uses and activities, be comfortable and beautiful. Although highly personal, a beautiful landscape design should be engaging with water fountains, sculptures, or garden art with graceful foreground trees and a soft lush back drop of hedges and shrubs. Pathways of varying and unifying materials guide your guests form one space to the next with intrigue and interest, “what else is here” is the excitement you want to generate. How can you make the most out of each garden element to create maximum beauty, functionality and use?

Patios and Lawns and plantings

Creating a hierarchy of pathways, patios and landscape lawn areas delineates spaces that have different uses. In addition, you can add details to paving and concrete areas. For example, you can create an outdoor rug effect by adding a mosaic tile pattern to a patio or have a brick herringbone courtyard with a white stone edge to add visual interest and detail in defining the space. You could also change color or materials in transition pathways between larger spaces such as using cut stone with ground cover planted in between to soften the effect of the path and provide greater visual interest and softness with the surrounding garden. Lawns can serve as open courtyards for play with pruned hedges and garden edges that have seating areas-just like in a public park were people love to watch other people.

Swimming Pools, Spas and Water Fountains

Over the years swimming pools have became dynamic architectural elements with built in water features. Sun decks are common to walk into and step down into the pool. Benches can be built along one entire length of the pool for lounging. In addition pools can be shallow for walking. Water fountains can take advantage of adding a vertical sculptural element suck as a raised spa that descends into the pool basin or jets can be seamlessly woven into the pool for visual and auditory effects.

The Outdoor Kitchen

Outdoor kitchens have become multimedia rooms. A beautiful outdoor fireplace can serve as the backdrop for a wonderful evening outdoors serving as both function and art. A simple fire pit can provide all the entertainment and focal point that you need in a small courtyard. If it’s a built in area, a T.V. and stereo can add to your grilling enjoyment. There are all types of variations in grill setups. There are combinations of grilling and smoking as well as sinks or refrigerators depending on the amount of cooking you see doing for your guests. Outdoor kitchens bring indoor entertainment outdoors.

Seating

Seating needs to vary from passive to comfortable. This would include passive seating walls and concrete, stone or wood benches, areas were your guests can sit or stand against to talk to someone for a short mingling conversation. At the next level you may have seating for eating and conversation. Then, more comfortable oversized chair seating for the family and relaxation.

Landscape Lighting

The soft blue glow light off a live oak limb and its leaves cascade across a stone bench. The ambiance of light and water flicker and shimmer off a pools surface. Night lighting is truly what creates the mood and sets the whole tone for evening enjoyment. High voltage mercury vapor lighting gives off a surreal soft glow at night creating a whole new effect to the landscape design. Warm accent lights can be carefully placed to give interest to sculptures, urns, flower bowls or light up the beauty of an ornamental tree.

Build an outdoor extravaganza

The more you can add the above elements, the more your landscape garden design becomes an experience for gatherings, events and private renewal. Just as the inside of your house provides for different use areas, so should the garden reflect your many public and private needs and dreams.

Jeff Halper
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/landcsape-design-and-entertainment-in-houston-texa-hou-702258.html

All garden have styles, just as with furniture and interior decorating. Sometimes styles can be blended and sometimes not. Generally, you want your more intensive formal-looking areas, like roses and annual flower beds, closer to the house; then you can let the garden become more natural as you move farther away.

Adding a small perennial flower bed next to the garage works beautifully. But a yard starts to look funny if you have a Japanese cloud-pruned pine, an English perennial border, some natural-looking shrubs, and a fish pond all at one time. If you live in the woods, among towering forest trees, one sheared bush will look odd. Pollarded trees look good next to the chateaux in France, but they look silly as the only two treated that way out of a row of trees on the parking strip in front of your house. Pollarded trees are the ones pruned to look like 6-foot lollipops.

Below are seven examples of popular garden styles:

1. Formal English: Clipped hedges, roses, knot gardens
2. English Cottage: Lots of fruit trees and perennials rambling around in great profusion
3. Japanese: Highly trained and maintained pines and other trees with masses of low sheared shrubs, placed rocks, and sand seas
4. Early American: Forsythias, quince, peonies, bearded iris
5. Pacific Northwest: Rocks to look like mountain outcroppings, rhododendron, pines, heather, vine maples, Douglas firs
6. Woodland: Tall trees with understory plants and groundcovers
7. Prairie: Grasses and sun-loving wildflowers

You would not put an art deco table next to your French Provincial couch. Be equally careful to blend styles in your yard. A good exercise for you is to start looking at yards as you pass them. When you find one you like, try to put into words what it is that appeals to you. You should know that people go through stages of gardening taste the way they do tastes in clothes or cars. At first people are attracted to the ‘mixture of color’ yards packed with annuals and dahlias. They also like sheared shrubs. They graduate through various styles and stages.

Because people like flowers, horticulturists began to breed bigger and more spectacular flowers on plants and shrubs to dazzle us. These are called ‘hybrids.’ Often the plants have lost many interesting secondary characteristics like scent and interesting sizes, colors, and shapes of leaves. Hybrid rhododendrons look a lot alike most of the year, but species (those are ones existing naturally in the wild) vary greatly in size: some have giant leaves while others are tiny plants. Some species rhododendrons have blue felt called ‘indementum’ under the leaves while others have gold felt. Some smell interesting if you rub or prune them. Some have dangling trumpets for blooms. Species plants are more likely to bloom at a different season or smell good. They also look more ‘natural.

There is nothing wrong with any style of yard. You may be torn among several, but eventually your own style will assert itself. Many go full circle and come back to ‘gaudy’ dahlias; others remain true to their first love, perhaps the rose, Still others find new styles that are more suited to their personality. Take some time to look in books and magazines and visit gardens to see what type you identify with most closely.

Paul P. Duxbury
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/how-to-decide-the-style-of-your-garden-86824.html

Exploring nature is a rejuvenating experience. However, exploring the forest may not fit into the daily schedule. Why not bring nature right into your courtyard?

landscaping Options

Landscaping brings nature closer to home. It includes many elements: the area, design, weather and others. The over all look depends on the owner’s taste. Some want the effect of water (pools, waterfalls, etc.) and some like rocks, stones, etc.

To create a very natural feel, you must use plants. They are most helpful in creating the total effect of the landscape. It should not be just any plant; it should be the most appropriate plant for the area and climate.

Best Choice of Plants for the Landscape

1. Groundcovers These plants are indispensable to a landscape as they can serve as backdrops for trees, shrubs, etc. There are many types of groundcovers to choose from.

Sun-Loving Sunny areas are considered problematic. Many plants do not like direct sunlight. Juniper groundcovers and hardy perennials are very helpful in resolving this problem.

Shade These plants cannot stand the heat of direct sunlight. They should be used in areas that are not exposed to the sun except for short periods of time. Most of the shade-loving plants are low-growing or mid-sized.

“Attractive” Many flowering plants attract birds, butterflies, bees, etc. It is important to choose plants that grow pollens. Plants like bee balm, holly hock and red columbine attract hummingbirds.

Aroma The garden can be made aromatic by using foliage plants. The lavender perennial plant’s flowers provide therapeutic scent. At the same time, it serves as a beautiful border.

2. Wet Plants Some landscapes come with wet areas like artificial ponds or waterfalls. To avoid leaving it bare, plants that thrive in wet soils are used to give beauty and natural effect.

3. Repellent Plants More than coming up with a good landscape, it is also necessary to maintain it and keep it free from intruders. Some plants are able to repel pests like the deer. Some ornamental grasses and flowers are used for deer control.

4. Grasses These are also helpful in the garden. There are varying kinds of grasses, the ornamental type and the functional ones.

Functional grasses are those that are used in the background. Lawn grass is an example. It serves as an outdoor carpet.

Ornamental grasses appeal more to aesthetics. They are used for decoration and for landscaping just like flowers. These can be mixed with trees and shrubs or can stand alone.

Plants are beautiful, but the appropriate ones in a certain design must be selected and properly situated. They must thrive and be able to serve their purpose. This is the only key to bringing nature closer to the home.

Joey Simmons
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/finding-the-right-plants-for-your-landscape-675693.html

If you are struggling for ideas on how to decorate your landscaping project, using plants could really make a big difference. They are simple to care for and they also can look amazing too. There is such a huge range of plants available so it will really be down to personal preference on which ones you go for. You really will be spoilt for choice if you choose to use plants within your landscape.

What to Consider If You Use Plants for Your landscaping Project

If you do decide to use plants for your landscape area, then there are certain things which you should take into consideration. Firstly, it is an idea to know what type of plants you are after and then you should try to find out as much about them as possible. This way you can find out if it will suit your landscape and you will also find out how to look after them.

It is a good idea to know what area will suit certain plants, otherwise the plants that you get may not grow very well or they may not look as good as they should. It always pays to do the right amount of research needed otherwise you could simply just waste money on plants which do not suit your landscape. It is a good idea to choose a plant which will compliment the area that you are putting it into. Also, try to make the plants compatible with everything else that has been placed into the landscape otherwise it could throw the balance completely off and effect the overall look.

What Conditions Or Requirements Do The Plants Need To Flourish In Your Landscaping Project?

When you get a plant for your landscape it is important to consider just how much sun or shade will be in the landscape area. If you have an idea of this it will help you make a better decision on which plants to purchase. Certain plants will only grow in certain conditions and if they don’t get the right balance, they will not grow properly or they will die.

shrubs can be used in your landscaping plans and they can add a bit of creativity as well. They help maintain the overall look and they are a great way to bring the design of the landscape together. There is a selection of what shrubs to get for the landscape area but it is a matter of finding one that will suit your landscape the best.

A.Caxton
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/do-you-want-plants-for-your-landscaping-project-99080.html

The first thing to do before putting your house on the market is preparing your house for the sale. Research figures show that when it comes to forming an impression, prospective buyers form an opinion within 30 seconds of viewing the property’s exterior. Referred to as ‘Kerb Appeal’, how the buyers initially react to the exterior can have a major impact on eventual interest. Since the exterior is the first thing a buyer will see, first impressions are very important. This relative short but critically important 30 seconds which determines the first impression could be the crucial difference for both the seller and the prospective buyer.

As outdoor living becomes a more important priority for many, it is not surprising therefore that many consider the garden a critically important aspect of the exterior. Ideally effective use of colour and style should provide a seamless transition from the house interior to the ‘outdoor room’ or garden areas. In such situations how the front and rear gardens are presented to prospective buyers is very important if an overall positive image is to be achieved.

In today’s competitive property marketplace, sellers should ensure that when it comes to selling time that the gardens look their very best. At a basic level, areas should be clean and clear of clutter. However much more needs to be done to create attractive gardens that could make all the difference to the prospective buyer.

‘Kerb Appeal’

What first impression a prospective buyer may have, begins with perhaps a view from a passing car or literally at the kerbside. But how do you determine ‘Kerb Appeal’? For starters take a good look around the immediate neighbourhood. Look at nearby houses, how does your house compare?  Are your gardens above/below average standard for area? Is the fencing, paintwork and paved areas in good condition? Are trees and shrubs neat and tidy? Are there signs of wear and tear, fallen leaf, overlooked debris and toys cluttering areas? Are there obvious signs of colour and vibrancy? Are lawn areas groomed, green and refreshing or simply jaded weedy patches?  

Use colour, scent and features in areas that are practical and comfortable, pleasing and refined, and create calm and spacious surroundings that one would love to enjoy. The buyer experience begins in the garden with a sense of excitement and inspiration, mixed with an anticipation of comfort and wellbeing that only the beauty and harmony of a cared for natural garden can provide.  

Where to Start

Before you start showing the house, invest some time, money and effort to create looks that sell and pass the ‘kerb appeal’ test that will attract interest and not repel prospective buyers. Speculate to accumulate is probably another way to look at it. Focus on optimising the buyer experience, attention to detail defines the whole experience, and this should be apparent from the entrance gate. Now should be a good time to start work.

Lawns

Lawns should be in good condition, evenly cut with crisp well defined neat edges and cleared of all grass cuttings, fallen leaf and weeded etc. If colour is not vivid consider feeding with lawn fertiliser. If the problems are more serious and lawn is infested with weeds, it might be better to replace old lawn with new turf. A well maintained groomed lawn whatever the size makes a striking impression.

Shrubs, trees and Flowers.

Dead head old flowers, trim and prune trees and shrubs where necessary, especially low hanging or overgrown branches especially around windows, over footpaths. Remove all dead shoots and branches. If there are obvious yawning gaps in planted areas, better to fill voids with new plant stock. Do bear in mind, the importance of colour and flower and ensure all plants are watered and look healthy. For a striking and fresh looking finish mulch planted areas with bark mulch. If the garden appears neglected, it might well require more professional assistance to complete the remedial works including installation of new lawn areas, and revisions to planting scheme. For more modest undertakings, best to keep it simple by planting groups (block planting) the same type and to bring out the best in colour and achieve impact use seasonal flowers. Do not overlook scent which can be an exciting experience in the garden. There are plenty of plant types to choose from including Shrubs, herbaceous and Herbs, e.g., Lavenders, Santolinas, Helichrysums, Lillies, Roses, Dill, Thyme, Rosemary etc. Try planting scented shrubs near windows or better still near seating areas and along footpath edges.

Patios and Paving

Patios and paved areas should be weed free, tidy and if necessary power washed to remove accumulated surface grime, lichen, moss etc.  Check Driveway areas for any signs of engine oil, and remove any oil stains with proprietary cleaners. A few strategically positioned colourful planters can have a dramatic effect at or near Patio areas or in overlooked recessed areas.

Garden Features

Ideally water features and especially pond areas should be cleaned and pumps in good working order. Also check garden lights and replace any faulty light bulbs. A particularly intrusive interference are Halogen security lights with poor settings, adjust angles and settings correctly so as not to blind house viewers.

Miscellaneous Areas

Toys should be stored away neatly, all garden rubbish should be removed and all doors, windows, drains and down pipes cleared of webs, washed and cleared of any debris. Worth checking are any Garden Outbuildings and Sheds which might benefit from a coat of paint.

So before selling your house pay some careful but critical attention to the garden areas. Some simple adjustments to particular aspects of the landscaping, not only enhances the overall effect, but could make it easier and faster to sell the house. More importantly the seller will be wise to remember the importance of the exterior and its role in shaping the prospective buyer’s first impression and making it count.

Owen Chubb
http://www.articlesbase.com/moving-and-relocating-articles/making-first-impressions-count-693359.html