All About Better Homes and Gardens
All About Better Homes and Gardens
Our home is our own private space.Whether you are building a dream home or just want to add a little spice to your existing house, all you need is a little time. If you have a garden, you can experiment with a lot of plants, colors, themes, fountains and more. Before venturing to discover whether you really have that ‘green thumb’, you need to study a little about garden plans, flowers, lawns, trees & shrubs, herbs & vegetables, house plants, landscaping, regional gardening, container gardens, garden guides, paths, pergolas, seeds, pests, fertilizers etc.
Just go through some planting guides and you’ll have a fairly good idea. I found the Better Homes and Gardens site offering useful Growing Zone Maps of USA spanning Northeast, South, Midwest, Mountain and Plains, Pacific Northwest, southern California to the Desert Southwest with the ideal locations for growing different plants.
Better Homes and Gardens is a popular magazine in the US Published by the Meredith Corporation, the magazine focuses on homes, kitchen, gardening, crafts, healthy living, decorating and entertaining. It began its course in 1922 when Edwin Meredith, the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson, founded the magazine. The magazine has kept in touch with the pulse of the changing times, and today it also has a website www.bhg.com.
The Better Homes and Gardens website is quite interactive and user friendly. The site offers relevant information on topics related to food and recipes, garden, holidays, health and family and crafts. What I personally do not like about the site is, when you open the home page, there is are special offer pop up windows asking you to sign up. But of course, you can just ignore that, close the window and move on to navigate the site.
The website also has a section devoted to Garden Slide Shows. Here, you can view every garden slide show that the magazine has ever done. Tools and Guides is another a helpful section in the website. Arrange-a-Deck, Garden Flower Gallery, Garden Newsletter, Plan-a-Garden and Plant Finder are some useful features. The site also has a forum with a number of great sections but it does not appear to be too active.
The Expert Advice section of the Better Homes and Gardens is probably the most useful. You will find experts sharing their opinion on flowers, roses, lawns, pests and problems, trees & shrubs, vegetables & fruit and tips & techniques. If you have a doubt about something, just express it here and you’ll probably get your answer. The website also provides you with the option of joining the club to avail of weekly updates, weekly recipes, newsletters, home improvement ideas and other offers. If you are looking for seasonal e-cards or interesting desktop items or online gifts you may again stop at this site. Some of these offers are fairly priced while others are comparatively a little high.
Targeted at providing useful information, Better Homes and Gardens is fast becoming a preferred magazine in the United States.
Get all of the latest in gardening know how from the one and only true gardening resource at http://www.gardendesignadvice.com/ Be sure to check out our better homes and gardens pages on our web site.
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Read MoreStudent Interior Designers Often Learn About The History of Their Profession
Student Interior Designers Often Learn About The History of Their Profession
In their training, student interior designers often learn about the history of their profession. This can be a really important way to give context to their subsequent careers. In this article, I will draw on my experience as an interior designer and educator to discuss the history of this exciting field.
The earliest professional interior designers were based in London â the British had become intrigued by Egyptian techniques of decorating household objects and wanted the same for themselves. London families became desperate to employ an interior designer to create magical spaces and accessorise their interiors. As interior designers came to be recognised as professionals, they increasingly found a need to draw on history to create fabulous results. This was particularly true when creating designs for historic London mansions or listed buildings â they saw historical reflections as a way of preserving the past while also looking to the future.
THE ANCIENT ROMANS
In Ancient Rome, citizens demanded comfort, luxury and wealth. These elements are still important in the work of interior designers across the world today. The lavish decorations, tapestries and iconic stonework today remain as timeless and popular in London as in Tokyo or Sydney. The Ancient Romans adored bespoke furniture and loved quality textiles and expensive fabrics.
MONASTIC TIMES
After the collapse of Roman rule, the church assumed power and largely discouraged the most creative interior designers. Opulent interiors were taken out and interior designers were instructed to install quiet and simple oak panels with dark lines and sharp edges. This influence was felt throughout Europe â from London all the way to Florence.
RENAISSANCE AND REVIVAL
The Renaissance saw the emergence of professional French or French-inspired interior designers. It was a new age of elegance and sophistication, which saw the rebuilding of the London Interior Designer community and a fresh take on creative and beautiful living spaces. A âpalatialâ feel was rediscovered, and interior designers began to take advantage of new transport axes going through London to the continent and to the Americas in order to rediscover their profession and herald the next generation of design.
This brings to an end my article on how the work of interior designers has changed over the ages. In my next article, Iâll reflect on how interior designers use interior fashions for great effect.
Interior Design London – Global Interior Design Consultancy Company in London, UK for interior design services.
Valuable Points about the Black Mulch for Your Garden
Valuable Points about the Black Mulch for Your Garden
Most of you know something about mulching. It is a method, which is commonly used by gardeners to regulate soil temperature. Your garden soil is likely to retain moisture if you have protected it with mulching. In this day and age every gardener is concerned about landscaping and gardening strategies. This is why traditional mulching is not very much preferred. People want to see more colors and orderliness in their gardens, explaining why they are buying different types of mulch. Black mulch is commonly selected because of its natural attractiveness.
Other colors you could go for include red, white and brown. It is up to you to select the most suitable color. Black mulching has heat retention capabilities and it can hardly loose its color in the sun. During cool seasons, you could use black plastic mulch to grow good vegetables. This is because the mulch is rigid and has wonderful warming effects on the ground. One of the most widely used black mulch in home gardens is the paper mulch. Although it is currently not proffered commercially, black paper mulch is recyclable. As the season comes to an end, you can combine soil with your black paper mulch.
You could also go for the shredded wood mulch in black color. This type of mulch is natural and it makes the garden soil healthier. It is similar to the red shredded wood mulch in terms of the role it plays, only that the colors differ. A black color provides a sharp contrast to your garden plants, which are particularly bright. This is why most people prefer it to red or other colors. The other advantage of black mulching is that it cannot harm living beings like people and animals. It is dyed with natural substances that add the aesthetics. Black mulching highlights your garden because of its dark background. Even so it has its disadvantages.
The problem arises when you purchase the black mulching product without reading the label. Some unscrupulous producers still use the prohibited Chromated Copper Arsenate to treat the wood. This is what pollutes the garden plants as well as the environment. The recommended mulch of any kind is made of wood pieces, which are raw. They are dyed with iron oxide or the vegetable dyes. Always go a step further to read the ingredients of the mulch. When you spread the mulch, the CCA chemical is likely to affect a bigger portion of the ground.
Under bad weather conditions such as heat or rainstorms, the chemicals in CCA can be released into the soil. Whenever you buy mulch of any type or use, your goal should always be to conserve the environment. This is why you must select your mulch vigilantly. Some black mulch types are much more likely to fade. Fading occurs due to constant exposure to the hot sun conditions. Even extreme snow or rains cause the black paint to come off. The result of this is an ugly pale black ground. Eventually the garden’s background will look gray. You should seriously value the quality of the mulch you intend to purchase.
G. Smitty is a writer who loves to discuss many topics ranging from red mulch to professional basketball. Thanks for reading!
About Water Gardens
About Water Gardens
Once you have decided that you want to build a water garden in your garden or back yard you will need to make bigger and crucial decisions about how the whole thing is going to look, how are you going to make sure that each element you want in your water garden will be successful and help the entire water garden environment flourish.
As everyone knows there are many different water gardens, and from my experience most people already have some idea about the general look and theme they look for, but sometimes people are not educated enough to make the choices, some times home owners discover other, unknown water gardens after they that invested a lot of their energy, efforts and money into their existing water garden.
The basic idea in planning and even designing your own water garden is to have a lot of information before you even start imagining how its going to look and how much time you will spend in your new garden. Surf the internet and look for things you like, and things that you dislike. As you start seeing more and more internet sites, articles and photos start also paying attention to costs and maintenance costs and details as well. If you do your research correctly if will be very easy for you to make the right decision once the moment for that has come.
Two very different and always gorgeous basic concepts are the western water garden which can be mostly found in Europe and consists mainly of the water pond features and a matching garden on the same space, and the oriental, meaning mostly Japanese water garden which places a lot of importance of the whole look and harmony created between the space nature and men.
Although a lot of people have a very clear idea what they want and stick with their basic feelings, sometime one is fascinated by something completely different and changes his mind, the problem in that case is that if this person did not do his research he is going to need to recalculate the costs and start looking at the space differently, this is very significant in moving from a western European approach, which basically can match itself fairly easy to the average style of building, than to switch from the oriental approach to the European one.
Both of these popular water garden designing styles are beautiful and would make anyone feel great sitting in his or hers water garden to relax and reflect on things, read a book or take a nap, meditate or spend time with the family. It is clear that people have different needs and different passions, some want a fish free garden as others are mainly interested in fish, it is obvious that it is these needs that will dictate all that follows, costs and maintenance and the level of dedication to be involved in maintaining or even enlarging your water garden.
As with all other things a research will set you on your feet before you start shopping, like that you will also start a better chance of discovering different sales techniques and you will not be easy to convince going a different direction, this research will only do good things to your future water garden.
Daniel Roshard is an interior designer fascinated by outdoor, he is currently studying public parks and outdoor design. Daniel is writing articles about home improvement and landscaping issues. You can read his latest work on Water Garden here.
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Read MoreAll You Need To Know About Garden Fountains
All You Need To Know About Garden Fountains
The garden in itself is a beautiful place. But no garden is ever complete without a garden fountain. They add beauty and charm to the place they are installed in. The sound of the water adds to its natural appeal.
Types of Garden Fountains
They come in different sizes and shapes. They can be either big or small. Bigger fountains are suitable for large gardens while smaller ones can be installed in small parks. Garden fountains can be wall fountains or pond fountains. Wall fountains are attached to walls and do not take up much space. Hence they are preferred for smaller gardens. You can even have different types for indoor and outdoor fountains. Pond fountains are large and are wired and programmed to perform different patterns of water sprays.
There are various materials used in making garden fountains. Some of the popular ones include fiberglass, wood, copper, concrete and porcelain. Concrete and ceramic are considered to be the best. Carving with sculptures and then giving a finish with sandstone add to the beauty of the fountain. You can customize your water fountain just the way you want it.
Selecting the right type of the water fountain for your garden is an important decision. There are a lot of things to be considered like how mechanized the water fountain is required to be, the right kind of wirings and tubes to be used and similar technical issues.
Garden fountains must be constructed preferably on strong, stable and level ground. It is recommended to get professional help so that the fountain can be designed to best compliment the place.
Maintenance
There are certain things you need to keep in mind to maintain fountains -
- One of the common problems with a fountain in the garden is the uneven flow of water from the garden. A possible reason for this may be that the fountain is sinking. This can be avoided by placing garden fountains on strong and leveled ground.
- The water may turn green and dirty. This may sometimes be caused due to irregular cleaning of the water. Algae when formed in water, can make the water appear green. In such cases water in the fountain needs to be replaced.
- Use some animal safe algae treatment for your garden fountains. Regularly drain the water and clean the fountain by scrubbing. You can then refill it with tap water. Keep visiting your garden fountain regularly. When a fountain is left unclean and unmanageable, it becomes difficult to solve the problems. Proper care and maintenance will add an everlasting charm to your garden.
Proper planning is the main requirement for installing garden fountains. You can even refer to various magazines and visit different sites to get a clear picture of what type you require. Well-designed and planned fountains can be your source of relaxation and pleasure.
Get all of the latest in garden fountains know how from the one and only true gardening resource at http://www.gardeningtoolsadvice.com/ Be sure to check out our garden fountains pages on our web site.
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