My tutorials lead you step by step, using pictures, through some DIY landscaping projects you may have been keeping on a back burner for a long time, just hoping for a little inspiration to come along. All of the steps in these tutorials are described with beginners in mind. So move your dream projects to a front burner, roll up your sleeves, and let's get going!
DIY Landscaping Project 1: Garden Fountains
Ever considered installing a water feature in your yard? Decorative water garden fountains add immediate impact to a yard. In this DIY landscaping project, I show you how to turn ceramic planters into decorative water garden fountains. I also show you how to take the design to another level through an artistic use of copper pipes.
• View DIY Project: Decorative Water Garden Fountains
DIY Landscaping Project 2: Rock Gardens
Don't think that you need a large space to build rock gardens. In this DIY landscaping project, I use rocks of a moderate size to build, in essence, a small raised bed. My pictures illustrate not only how to construct the raised bed, but also how to arrange plants within it. Special attention is paid to color selection in choosing the plants to build this rock garden.
• View DIY Project: How to Build Rock Gardens
DIY Landscaping Project 3: Portable and Conventional Raised Beds
Another twist can be applied to the "raised bed" concept: make it portable! This DIY landscaping project tutorial tells you how to build what amounts to a large container garden on wheels. Building a portable raised bed is an idea that will be especially attractive to those seeking landscaping for small yards. But for more conventional raised beds, I offer a separate tutorial.
• View DIY Project: Landscaping for Small Yards -- How to Build Raised Beds
DIY Landscaping Project 4: Winterizing Flowering Bushes -- The Natural Way
If you live in a region with snow and ice, you should consider protecting flowering bushes from the elements during the winter. Winterizing flowering bushes via a rustic shrub shelter is a fairly straightforward DIY landscaping project if you have access to the woods, and it will also save you money. City slickers may be unable to find the needed materials and will have to spend the extra money to buy lumber for a conventional shrub shelter.
• View DIY Project: Winterizing Flowering Bushes
DIY Landscaping Project 5: Installing Landscape Fabrics
Weeding is nobody's favorite gardening activity. The best defense against weeds is prevention, and the modern landscape fabrics can be a key component in a preventive weed-control strategy for folks who are "on the go." They're not for everybody, but landscape fabrics do offer a high-tech solution to weed control that some people will find appealing.
• View DIY Project: How to Install Landscape Fabrics
DIY Landscaping Project 6: Planting Flower Beds
Once you know how to use landscape fabrics, apply your knowledge by using landscape fabrics in a planting project! This project, which incorporates landscape fabrics, shows you how to plant flower beds. If you don't care for landscape fabrics, just skip the steps that call for their use. This project is a good beginner's lesson in installing a perennial bed, offering observations on such issues as choosing color schemes and establishing focal points.
• View DIY Project: How to Plant Flower Beds
DIY Landscaping Project 7: Planting Hedges
A defined area catches the eye more readily than does one that is "open-ended." This accounts, in part, for the popularity of fences in landscape design. But for plant-lovers, hedges may be preferable to fences as a means of defining a property. Learn how to grow a hedge in this tutorial.
• View DIY Project: How to Plant Hedges
DIY Landscaping Project 8: Trimming Hedges
Okay, you've followed the advice above, and your row of shrubs is planted. But how do you trim it now, transforming a mere "row of shrubs" into a true "hedge?" Trimming hedges is fairly easy, if you start when they're young and set up "guides" to follow as you trim. Using pictures from my own hedge-trimming DIY project, I show you how to put a nice, straight edge on your hedge.
• View DIY Project: How to Trim Hedges
