Flora and fauna for all seasons is challenging but beautiful.

Flowering gardens are a beauty to behold and bring enormous satisfaction to those who plant them. Doing ones’ own landscaping has many rewards. Gardens that grow and bloom during all seasons can be a challenge, but in many gardening zones,  a little planning and the right mix of flora makes this possible.

Blooms Burst In Winter
Crocus often thrust tiny, delicate blooms through the snow in winter, making them a must have for your garden. They rarely get taller than four inches, so place them around the edges of your beds, or scatter throughout for ground-hugging beauty. Some hybrid varieties bloom as early as November. Plant Pansies in coordinating colors. Evergreen shrubs may compliment your winter landscape, especially when sparkling with ice. Ornamentation in the garden is more visible at this time of year; add benches, statues and seasonal decorations.

Spring Blossoms
Narcissus, Daffodils and Jonquils present an early spring show and are great for naturalizing. Hybrids offer an abundance of shapes and colors and require little care. These multiply yearly. If you have enough space,consider forms of Pussy Willow and Witch Hazel, also early bloomers. Pansies and Violas work well with these combinations.

Spring flowering bulbs are a must for a beautiful landscape. Asiatic Lilies come in a variety of colors and bloom early in spring. Tulips make an early showing as well. Corms and tubers,such as Dahlias, Daylilies, and Iris blooms follow and add to your display. Azaleas offer a bushy option, as does the March Bell bush.

Planting seeds instead of buying the actual plant can be a money-saving option. Start seeds indoors and replant outside for earlier bloom, or plant outside after danger of frost has passed in your area. Variety allows you to display your personality through your blossoms. Using seeds provides an unlimited selection.

Look though catalogs and plan your color scheme. Daisies, Marigolds and Calendulas are hardy choices for the beginning and accomplished gardener. Cosmos, with its’ frilly foliage, makes a great blossom for the back of your area. These hardy annuals can reach six feet and may bloom until frost.

Summer Showings
Ready-to-flower plants can be intermingled with seeds. Gaillardias and Gerber Daisies are popular and require little more than feeding, watering, and deadheading. Evening Primroses add fragrance as well as beauty.
Summer flowering bulbs, such as Gladiolus and Snow Drops should be planted in early spring for summer bloom. Cannas and Calla lilies have dramatic foliage and beautiful flowers. The many shapes and shades of Coleus allows your landscape to make a striking statement. Plant flowers and bulbs in waves instead of rows for a more dramatic effect.

Crisp Autumn Beauty
Autumn flowering plants are more of a challenge, particularly in the higher zones. Colchicums and Cyclamens will bloom in late August through November. If your area experiences early freezes, cover the plants for protection. Make sure to uncover before the sun can burn them.

The hardy Mum is a fall garden classic. Colors and varieties allow dramatic combinations. Asters, Pansies and the edible Viola add texture and contrast.

Experiment with different plants and flowers until you find your perfect combinations. These methods allow you to find what works best in your garden. Be sure to check sun requirements for different varieties and always start with a rich, well-drained soil for best results. Enjoy the satisfaction of nature’s beauty under your design.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Swimming pools need care even in the winter.

An above ground swimming pool can bring us years of enjoyment as long as we take care of it in a responsible manner. The frigid, freezing temperatures of winter are the most ruthless adversaries to the pool and it’s equipment, so winterizing your above ground pool is essential if you have plans to use it again next summer.

The first, and perhaps most important step before you put your pool to bed, is to make sure the chemical balance of your water is correct. If it isn’t, corrosion or scale buildup might occur while the pool is shut down.

There are four basic water content levels that need to be checked:

• The pH should be between 7.2 – 7.6.

• Alkalinity should be 80 – 120 parts per million.

• The chlorine content should be 1 – 3 parts per million.

• The calcium hardness should be 175 – 250 parts per million.

All of these tests can be performed by purchasing a good test kits from your local pool supply store. Just follow the instructions and adjust the content accordingly.

The sides and floor of the pool need to be brushed down and vacuumed. If any kind of dirt or other foreign matter is left in the pool, stains might penetrate their way into the pool lining.  While you’re at it, don’t forget to add winterizing chemicals in the deep end. This will protect the water quality.

Your skimmer, filter and pump basket should be cleaned along with the cartridge filter elements and Diatomaceous Earth (D.E.) filter grids. Any sand filter you may have needs to be back-washed. Take your chlorinator and remove any remaining tablets from it. If these tablets are left in it, they could end up staining or bleaching your pool liner over the winter months, especially if the floater winds up resting against the side of the pool wall.

Check your filter tank, pump and other critical equipment for drain plugs. If you find them, go ahead and remove them to drain them of water. One additional thing you need to do after this is turn the pump on for just a few seconds so the impeller will blow any remaining water out of it. This will help protect your pump from being damaged when the water freezes. Place your drain plugs with your other stored equipment.

Depending on your personal preference, either drain the pool until the water level is below the water jets and skimmer, or insert a pool skimmer guard into the skimmer itself to protect it from damage when the water freezes. Freezing water will expand and damage or burst any piping that’s associated with your pool.

Place an air pillow in the center of the pool and tie it to the pool walls with a strong string. If the water freezes, it will expand toward the pillow rather than toward the pool walls. Were the water to expand toward the pool walls, the resulting pressure could end up bursting the side walls, and you’d end up with a real mess, not to mention a hefty repair tag to go along with it.

Cover the pool with a winter cover and secure it tightly so it won’t come off.

By following these procedures your pool should survive even the most brutal winter mother nature can throw at it. Be sure to double check the documentation of all your pool devices to be sure you’ve stored everything properly per their instructions.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Staycation is your backyard oasis.

Some time in the middle of recession from the recent financial crisis, the concept of staycation came about. Staycation is a shortened version of stay-at-home vacation. The term can now be found in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. When going somewhere for a vacation is already expensive, the wise move is to make your home a vacation haven.

The idea of going on a vacation is to relax and unwind. When you think about it, the backyard is a nice place to do such an activity. A relaxing vacation can be achieved in your backyard with few creative touches.

The Lounge Area

Find a reclining chair in your living room. Move it to a shady area in your backyard so you have a place to relax, sip drinks, and read books. Have a picnic in your backyard if you have a nice lawn area. All you need are pillows and a blanket. The soft grass can act as a cushion. If your kids have outgrown their single beds, those will be ideal lounging furniture. Choose brightly-covered pillows and you’ll easily transport yourself to some vacation paradise.

The Dining Area

Your staycation will even feel like an island vacation if you eat outside. An inviting table setting can easily make any simple meal sumptuous. Use practical and casual dinnerware. You do not want to use your fine china in this one. Light snacks during the day under the cool breeze are filling and relaxing. Light up some candles when it gets dark and you’ll have a romantic candlelit dinner. Open a bottle of wine and play good music and you will never feel you are just vacationing at home.

The Backyard Barbecue

Invite friends over when you’re done fixing up the place. Grilled veggies and meat during the hot summer afternoon paired with cool, refreshing drinks are a wonderful way to gather with friends. Do not sweat the details. Use plates, dishes and utensils you can easily slip into the dishwasher. Just prepare paper towels and spray bottles filled with water and detergent for easy cleanup.

Camping Out

Skies are clear during summer time. It is ideal for stargazing. Kids will learn constellations and astronomy. Camping out in your own backyard eliminates the troubles in having to prepare for a trip away from home. You can still enjoy the outdoors without the rigors associated with setting up camp in unfamiliar territories. You still need to protect everyone from bugs so those anti-repellent lotions still come in handy. Set up a fire and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. Tell stories and play games with your kids.

Staycation is not a bad idea. If your know how to create a relaxing and fun place in your own backyard, you do not need to travel for a vacation.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Outdoor Oasis for relaxation and peace of mind.

There are so many ways that you can create a garden, so. ultimately it comes down to personal preference. There are a few basic garden styles that you can follow. Make sure when you choose a style that you consider the architecture of your home. A formal garden will not necessarily be the best choice for a cottage style home. Also, consider the color of the items in your yard, the fence, any outbuildings. The color of your home and it’s trim are also important factors. There are five general garden styles.

Formal
The formal garden has a long history. French or Italianate gardens feature strong symmetry. Asian or Islamic gardens have strong geometric patterns. A formal design will have strong defined lines and edges. Paving and paths are central and will lead the eye to some kind of specimen plant or other garden element, such as a statue.

Hedges and shrubs are prevalent. They should be trimmed into symmetrical shapes such as pyramids, balls and boxes. Formal gardens are frequently monochromatic in color. Often they will be one single color, like white.

Informal/Casual
The goal of the informal garden is to soften the boundaries between the home and the garden. An informal garden will have winding paths, and mounded groups of plants. The casual garden will include more potted plants and beds with mixed flowers. Large shrubs should be used as a backdrop for plants. The casual garden should have a relaxed and inviting feeling.

Contemporary
Contemporary gardens use shapes that include circles, ovals and triangles. Geometric beds can be used, but the plantings should appear to have a bit of organized chaos. Often architectural features of a home, (I.E. oval windows), will be copied into the garden. House trim color is also copied with the flower color.

Also present are living walls covered with climbing vines, container groupings that mirror bed shapes, and newly introduced plants. The contemporary garden is also a great place for espalier’s and topiary’s. The topiary’s should be trimmed into free-form triangles and ball shapes. Of most importance is that this style remain fluid. A contemporary garden is a “blend of traditional style with modern design principles.” (Flower Gardening; Julie Bawden-Davis; 2004)

Natural
The ultimate goal for a natural garden is to replicate nature. Major features include groupings of odd numbered plants, plantings in layers and levels, and native flowering plants. A natural garden should also include plants that attract wildlife, like birds and bee’s. Keep in mind when creating a natural garden that room should be left for a compost pile or bin. A natural garden should also be free of harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Combination
The combination style of gardening is perhaps the most difficult to do successfully. This type of garden requires experience. A successful combination garden will have many aspects of different styles woven together. The best way to approach this design is either to plan it right from the start, or experiment as you go. Begin by choosing one of the classic styles that works for you. Transition this style slowly into a combination garden.

The above garden styles will add flair to your garden. By choosing a style that you enjoy you will add cohesion to your garden, inviting people in to experience it’s pleasures.

For more articles by this author, go to Helium.

Redesign that old and drab to new and fab.

Every homeowner eventually wants to make a change, but if you’re like many people you haven’t a clue where to begin. Just like fashion styles, interior designs change with the times as well. So, if you’ve been in your home for a long time and are ready to sell or are just ready for a makeover, read on to see if the hottest trends are suitable for your home.

Go ahead and slap a fresh coat of paint on the walls. But don’t make it sterile white or boring beige. At the very least use these colors along with some vibrant accent colors on a single wall or two.

“We’ve gone through an era of everything being very muted and quiet and what we see with the younger generation coming up is that we’re really going to use lots of colors. Colors on the walls, color on the furniture such as lime greens, browns, oranges and bright reds,” says Dixie Lovejoy, owner of Arizona-based Apple Interior Systems, Inc.

A little paint can make a major change to a home. It’s always a good idea to put on a fresh coat or at least touch up the paint before you place your home on the market. It gives a buyer a feeling of cleanliness and that the home has been well cared for over the years.

“Paint is a very inexpensive way to do something new and not have your house seem dated as time goes on,” adds Lovejoy.

Think big, but buy less. “People used to buy accessories on a very small scale. In our office, one of our slogans is: bigger is better,” says Lovejoy.

She says that means things like pots, statues, fountains, and flower arrangements should all be bigger. So instead of having a lot of knickknack items, you buy less but when you do, you buy big. The idea is to make a statement with your decorating rather than make your home look cluttered.

Accent pillows are a must! The key home décor ingredient that no home should be without gives new meaning to pillow talk. Lovejoy says accent pillows will get your houseguest chatting about your harmonizing décor. “Accent pillows are kind of a key to all design that ties everything together,” she says.

Bye-bye sliders. In my opinion, sliding glass doors have always been a bit of an eyesore, but so many tract homes have them. Now, Lovejoy says, sliding glass and even French doors are losing ground. The new alternative creates wide open space even in a residential tract home. Instead, doors that virtually vanish or disappear are appearing in more homes and allowing better access to the great outdoors.

“They actually can slide all the way into a pocket that’s built into a wall or stack on top of each other so it becomes one small window on the left or right side but the rest of your house is all open. There are also folding doors that do that,” says Lovejoy.

She says the typical narrow three-foot opening on sliding or French doors just isn’t suitable for what homeowners want today. “The newest trend is opening up a 12 to 22 or 30 feet of glass. It gives you almost the lanai effect like you have in Hawaii where the inside and the outside all become one,” explains Lovejoy.

Of course, this is ideal for homeowners who have big parties or events at their home. “You can just open up your house and the traffic flows inside to outside,” says Lovejoy.

Then the outside is decorated much like the inside with fireplaces, couches, chairs, coffee tables, and Lovejoy says even drapes and pictures hanging on the walls on the outside of the house. All of this makes the determining line between the outside and inside of your house disappear.

Furnish your outdoors like your indoors.

“We traditionally don’t even use regular patio furniture. We upholster couches and chairs and everything in outside fabric because it’s gotten so incredibly intricate. It’s not the old red, white, and blue fabric that we used to think of for outdoor furniture,” says Lovejoy.

Today, designers are using big patterns made from velvets and even sheer materials on outside furniture which begs the question, “how does this fabric hold up on a couch or chair?”

“We’re the toughest market there is with the weather and everything else … and we’re the dustbowl of the world out here but even the moisture that you have in the costal cities wouldn’t affect it,” says Lovejoy. Need to clean your furniture? Don’t hire a professional. Lovejoy says, “You can take a hose to it and wash off the couch or chairs or you can vacuum them just like you do inside so there’s really no difference.”

When it comes to flooring, soft is out and hard is in. “I think that we’re going away from soft surfaces on the flooring,” says Lovejoy.

Traditionally, homes have always had carpeting in the bedroom areas and maybe tile or hardwood flooring in other parts of the house. That’s changing to create a better flow between the indoor and outdoor living areas. “That way when you open up your house for entertaining, the patio or the lanai on the outside, or your sunroom, has the same surface as the house so you get that huge expanded feeling,” says Lovejoy.

Of course, area rugs are making a huge impact in the marketplace because of homeowners wanting to have some cozy, soft areas on the floor near beds, couches, and fireplaces. Even just a few changes to your home can take it from drab to fabulous with these hot trends.

Written by Phoebe Chongchua as found in Craig Lilly’s Newsletter.

Stone Countertops

Homeowners are leaving behind the once-preferred 70′s looks of wall-to-wall carpeting throughout the house, linoleum kitchen floors and vinyl tiles in the bathroom, and instead choosing natural stone, Versailles patterns, travertine, and limestone, with honed-matte finished surfaces. For countertops, homeowners are using two tones, finishing their kitchen island in maybe limestone and the surrounding kitchen countertops in granite materials for a unique style.

At one time granite and marble were only seen in office buildings, while rustic style stone only was used in vacation homes.

“People are trying to personalize their homes more than they did before. Before you used to go through the house and you’d do everything pretty much the same overall. Now people are bringing in different types of materials like glass tile, mosaics, different designs, different sizes, textures, into the same room. They tend to want to give each room more personality by adding different types of products,” said Giovanna Gomes, President of Stones Unlimited on Miramar Road.

What is completely losing a place in homes is the white tile countertops that was the staple in every home for decades. “White tile used to be typical when building or remodeling a house. Now we’re seeing all white ceramic tile is being replaced with solid surface countertops such as granite which has no grout lines and is easier to care for,” said Lilliana Bosforo, Director of Fabrication for Stones Unlimited.

There are many different choices, sizes, textures and styles of stone. Pricing varies depending on the type selected. Some very expensive flooring is even brought back from old chateaus and farmhouses in Europe that are scheduled for demolition. The 100 to 200-year-old stone material is brought to the US for cleaning, sanitizing, sizing and cataloging.

The chic look and durability of stone makes it appealing to homeowners. But experts caution that before it’s put in homeowners should understand the maintenance required and the issues that may come up. One of the most common problems is stains. Because stone is very porous, if you spill things on it, the stone can easily absorb the liquid. However, proper care such as sealing the stone can alleviate this problem.

Gomes also said that you should consider how much foot traffic you have in various areas of your home before putting in stone floors. “Honed surfaces are usually the best because they’re matte finishes so they don’t wear like a polished material would. A polished marble will scratch and if you drop something acidic it’ll etch which means the polish will be removed in that particular area. So there are more maintenance issues with polished surfaces,” said Gomes.

However, honed surfaces show less wear pattern. Gomes said you can also be more aggressive with your cleaning, “It’ll always look beautiful.”

For countertops Bosforo recommends granite because it is dense and easy to maintain. “You’re going to have your least amount of problems with a granite over marbles or limestone which some people do put those in their kitchens, but we let them know that there will be more maintenance with a marble or a limestone and, of course, you’d want to do it honed,” Bosforo said.

Another reason granite is recommended over marble or limestone is because acids in some foods can etch the stone and cause it to leave marks or rings on the materials.

When deciding which stone to choose, keep in mind these handy tips from Stones Unlimited:

1. Granite is most suitable for kitchens and bar counters because it is the most dense. It also resists hot and cold. Acidic foods will not etch the polish.

2. Marble is not as dense as granite but is more so than travertine. Marble works well for bathroom flooring, on back splashes and fireplaces.

3. Travertine is not as dense as marble but is more so than limestone.

4. Limestone is the softest and most porous of the stones. It requires more frequent sealing.

5. Slate is an excellent choice for outdoors or indoors.

Written by Phoebe Chongchua as found in Craig Lilly’s Newsletter.

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