If you’re like me, you love the sound of water running while you’re relaxing out back. Of course, it loses a little something if you’ve had to prop your garden hose on a rock to create that sound!

I ran across this video and thought you might enjoy it. I haven’t yet created my outdoor pond, but now I have a better idea of what I can make the water do to keep me relaxed and enjoying the ripples.

CLICK HERE for the Complete Pond Fountain Kit only at Drs. Foster & Smith

Are you in need of a very simple and inexpensive way to add a decorative touch to your yard or garden? Well, I have the answer for you. In fact, you’ll be recycling something that might have otherwise ended up in the garbage.

Plant that broken ceramic or terra cotta pot in your garden! Although you can use this technique with a new pot, it’s even better if you salvage a broken pot and give it new life. If you have a ceramic or terra cotta pot that is cracked on the lower half, you have a good candidate for this project. I prefer pots that have an undamaged top rim but, depending on your goal or vision, the choice is yours.

Plants in terra cotta pots are notorious for drying out faster than in plastic or glazed ceramic pots. Since you want the plants inside the planted pot to receive an equal amount of water as the plants around them, it is necessary to open up the bottom half of the pot. The method for doing this is to lightly tap a hammer around the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot, breaking and removing the bottom. Be very careful because you can easily remove more than you had planned. The pot in this picture was nearly a victim of a heavy hand. However, the missing side of the pot was easily hidden by keeping that side facing the ground.

Once you have the bottom removed, it’s time to plant that pot. Dig a fairly large hole because you want plenty of room to position the pot just how you like it. Make sure you leave enough of the pot showing above ground to account for any ground cover you may use around or near it. Fill in the area outside the pot with dirt first to ensure the positioning doesn’t shift, then fill the inside. Keep in mind that you may have the pot tilting (as in the picture), so you could end up with less planting space than you had planned. Use plants that will remain fairly small or they will quickly overcrowd the pot. The pot in the picture is approximately 15" in diameter, but an interesting display could also be produced with a grouping of pots of various sizes.

Have fun with this inexpensive and fast method for adding an interesting accent for your yard or garden. Don’t forget to send me a picture of your successful use of this idea.

How many times have you gotten excited about a project and rushed into it only to find you forgot something? Landscaping takes considerable time, effort, and money … so you want to do it right the first time. There are a few, crucial steps you need to take before starting your landscaping.

You must first take the time to consider what purpose your front and/or back yard will have in your family’s lives. Do you want to sit on your patio and enjoy the birds and butterflies flitting around your flowers? Do you want to have a place where your children or grandchildren can play? Do you want a serene hideaway where you can read and enjoy the sounds from a water feature? Do you want all these things? Until you know how you will be using your yard, you won’t be able to decide how to landscape it to best suit these purposes.

Next (or throughout that thought process), clip pictures from magazines or the newspaper of outdoor spaces you find attractive, make you smile, or give you a good feeling. While not all these designs may be practical for your own yard, most of them can give you a target for what you’d like to achieve with your landscaping.

Measure your yard and draw it on graph paper. Play with ideas of how much space you would like for the kids to play or your hideaway spot. The graph paper will help you better understand the dimensions of your yard and how much is possible within that space. Allow plenty of space for the bushes or flowerbeds you want to use to separate various aspects of your yard.

Decide if you will be doing your landscaping yourself or hiring out some or all of it. If you will be using a landscaper, now is the time to present your ideas and let them design a realistic plan based on what you have drawn or collected. 

If you plan to landscape yourself, collect catalogs from nurseries and visit a few of your local nurseries. You will want to start learning which plants, grasses, bushes, and trees do well in your area. Nurseries are great for seeing the actual plants, but they will usually only carry what is commonly sold in your area. If you would like a few unusual plants or variations, reviewing your catalogs will yield some delightful surprises.

The last step? Add your comments to this post and let me know if you have followed similar steps and whether or not it helped. Or let me know if you wish you had given your landscaping just a little more thought!