Garden Improvement Techniques

Every attractive garden delights the beholder with an element of surprise. A beautifully laid out and tended garden is a treat for one’s eyes.

For example, a path leading to a little wooden gate alongside a handsome Blue Cedar and flowering shrubs would hold the prospect of a beautiful garden to the mind’s eye. When planning a house, no detail is too small or irrelevant. For example, a house built on a 10-acre plot of land would have the house built on the highest level.

The sloping area to the North, South and East, would be covered by grass to make rolling lawns. Since the South slope was the largest, the lawns would be part of a landscaped garden, and the house, naturally, would face South so as to get an uninterrupted view.

The driveway would go round the back of the house, or the North side, so that no cars could be parked in front of the house, thus spoiling the view. A major point of consideration would be the kind of soil that you have. Soil-testing outfits are easily available and not very expensive, and this would help in giving you a fair idea of the kind of soil you have in your yard. Many sites consist of rough ground and the builder’s debris.

The topsoil removed during the excavation should be placed on one side of the site, so that it can be redistributed after the construction is over. Many gardens have more than one kind of soil. The house, for example that we talked about earlier, has gravel for driveways near the surface at the top of the garden, while lower down the slope the soil is clayey with rather heavy clay.

In the case of the light sandy or gravelly soil, humus-forming material like garden compost, peat, farmyard manure (less easily available nowadays), leaf mould, spent hops and horn will help in the retention of moisture. Slow-acting fertilizers like bonemeal and hoof and horn would also help.

Once the soil is prepared and the landscaping is done to create an aesthetic garden that highlights the house, you can start planning on the kinds of flowering shrub and trees, creepers and climbers that should be planted to make the house look inviting and comfortable.

Those plants whose texture, color and mood would enhance the garden especially when they bloomed, could be chosen and the place where they would be planted could be decided on. Cozy nooks and bowers created with plants, can create the element of surprise that enhances the beauty of the garden.