For Garden Design, you may want to consider: Bird Feeders, Climate Zones, Container Gardening, Creating Theme Gardens, Garden Enhancements, Garden Sculptures, Gardening with Children, Indoor Planting, and Planting Seeds. Site appropriate garden design starts by carefully thinking about your different and overlapping functional needs, ongoing maintenance needs, seasonality, and of course the style. Do you want to entertain guests in the space, grow flowers, grow vegetables, grow herbs, provide places for children to play, or simply look outside into a low maintenance but aesthetic vista? Start by making a ‘wish list’ that you feel is reasonable to accomplish given your space, climate, and budget. Then, take into account the different seasonality factors as they relate to the wish list. This pre-design document will serve as your ‘program’ foundation. Now at least you have a solid starting point to create the solution.
When it comes to style, often garden designs and themes are centered around historical nationality trends associated with English Gardens, Japanese Gardens, French Gardens, or Italian Gardens. English landscape gardening and Japanese landscape gardening often share a strategy in disguising the manipulation of plant materials, paths, and water features to look ‘natural’ and ‘scenic’ even though they have been totally designed and manipulated. Conversely the French and Italian strategy is often about the Renaissance concept of ‘Man As the Measure’ where the manipulation of planting, paths, and water features is not only overt but often rigidly geometrical and architectural. This approach signified that man could have control over the wilds of nature, and our neo-classical founding fathers were enamored with the idea of the European elegance and control in the 18th century, so many of the upscale colonial gardens mimic these approaches. The French palaces are famous for their topiary as are the Italian palaces famous for their water features. The planting is not only tightly ‘groomed’ but often organized in perfectly straight rows and patterns. For small spaces the controlled approach is often deployed, because homeowners can literally make outside ‘living rooms’ out of organic and hardscape materials. If you have more room consider the full range of indigenous planting for beds and even pastures or areas for wild flower instead of lawns which disproportionally suck up water and require mowing.
The right home improvement products, techniques, and services:
Contractors, home improvement stores, and specialty shops in your area may not yet have a complete familiarity with the ‘green’ opportunities, products, system integration, and overall savings potential. So, you may get some resistance, since people in general are typically more comfortable recommending something that they are already familiar with rather than something new. To help break the inertia, use the information across this website like our Return on Investment Master ROI Table. Also feel free to post a question in our forum on the message board about a particular need for your home relative to your area. Our team has spent multiple years aggregating research from public and private sector performance reports and from manufacturers and homeowners across the country in order to provide you with the perspective you may need to see the initial payback and long term advantages. Environmental enthusiasts and leading institutions like the American Institute of Architects and the National Association of Realtors, see the value and link into our resources to support their members.
The Green Home:
For your overall home improvement, you can save money, improve your family’s health, and save the planet. Find out for free how much it will cost to do different types of home improvement in your home from a qualified and member approved contractor in your area. Get a FREE Quote . Plus, regardless of the size and scope of your home improvement project, save money and keep your home clean with the top rated chemical free and concentrated Green Home Cleaning Products.
Home Improvement Basics:
When it comes to home improvement basics, look for interior home improvements like creating a clean, safe, and healthy home through sustainable ‘green’ furniture, home décor, zero VOC and Interior Paint, plus ENERGY STAR Appliances and Electronics. For energy and utility savings you can focus on insulation and air sealing, windows, doors, lighting and skylights, water saving plumbing opportunities, and high efficiency heating and air conditioning systems. On the outside of your house, look for exterior home improvement opportunities through landscape design and gardening plus solar energy, wind and other power sources. If you are undertaking a major home renovation, an additions, or building a new home, then take the lead to ‘go green’ in as many ways as possible to save money and the environment.
