TheDesignFile

Create a better looking solar lamp for your patio

Shelly Leer at ModHomeEc has another great project featured both on her blog and at IndyStar.com.

This DIY will help you create some fun outdoor, solar patio lights using inexpensive versions of the lights plus craft items from around your house.

Shelly even pulled the cord and other electronic components out of a table lamp to create a great looking solar version (shown at right).

See more details and photos at ModHomeEc and see a full tutorial in the Home & Garden section at IndyStar.com.

Signs of spring: A trip around the garden

Years ago, I was just crazy about flower gardening. I loved everything about it. And I planted lots of flower gardens – wrapping my tiny backyard.

Then last year, we had our front yard landscaped.

So now, there’s quite a bit of work to to do – and I’m over it! The work, not the flower gardens.

That leaves my awesome but overworked husband the job of taking care of all our beds. He’s a good sport and I love him for it.

Still, I know how to enjoy the gardens and that’s what I’m doing now as everything starts blossoming.

Of course, despite the unusually warm weather, we’re still far from a full bloom but things are greening up beautifully.

The flowering trees are gorgeous, the early flowers are open and the first tiny green shoots are appearing on the later bloomers. Check out our fun twisted redbud above.

I couldn’t resist sharing some photos from our little space:

Above is our new Japanese maple tree, which was just planted last fall. This is our first time to see it it blooming and it’s wonderful.

The purple palace, above left, has suddenly brightened up. And the dianthus, which was also part of the front yard makeover, has tiny little flower buds on it.

Flower & Patio Show runs through March 18

The Indiana Flower & Patio Show is back (it started last Saturday) and runs through March 18 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

The event is just an explosion of spring. If you’re eager to see some green after our dull, grey winter, then this is the place for you.

Guests can tour more than 40 featured gardens, chat with hundreds of outdoor living experts, and learn landscaping secrets that easily and inexpensively can be incorporated into their own backyards, decks, porches or patios.

“We absolutely understand that our guests’ time and money are valuable,” says Heberer Walton, the show’s executive director. “So we’ve gathered all the experts together under two roofs this year to share their years of experience. Whether you’re planning a project – big or small – or simply need a little inspiration to help get you started, you’ll find what you’re looking for at the Indiana Flower & Patio Show.”

The great front yard makeover: Part 2

Yesterday, I showed you our front yard, driveway and front walk before our big overhaul this past fall. I know, I know. It was pretty awful!

Today is the pretty post – at least I think so. You get to see the after.

If you checked out yesterday’s post, you can see right off the back what a dramatic change this has been.

Here are the key parts of the project:

• A new, much wider gravel driveway, which we absolutely love!
• A new limestone wall along the front walk and landscaping beds just behind it.
• Rebuilt, radiating front steps built from pavers.
• A paver landing with curving sidewalks to the driveway and front walk, with limestone slab steps at the front.
• An overhauled front garden with new plantings. The only thing that stayed was our two cone-shaped boxwoods, which we had planted several years ago and were thrilled to keep.
• A gorgeous weeping Japanese maple tree in a small bed along the driveway.

The landscape was designed by architect Cheryl Jacques of Brower/Jacques Design. My husband and I hired Cheryl after struggling for years to try to figure out how to solve our issues. She was fantastic!

Her husband oversaw the crew who did the work – and completed the project in less than four days! They were both incredibly responsible and helpful, even as we had to scale the project back a bit to fit our budget.

Here’s a panoramic shot I took with my iPhone using a great program called AutoStitch.

The obvious thing about this project is how much better the whole thing looks! But really, what my husband and I can’t get over is how much better it all functions.

For me, the big change is the much wider driveway, which allows me to get out of my car onto the gravel, rather than onto the grass.

There’s plenty of room to park, walk along side the car and load things in and out of the car.

That seems like a basic, but after living for years with an old, skinny driveway, it’s truly a luxury!

I was really worried about the gravel. But I have to tell you that now I wonder why more people don’t go with gravel.

I love the way it looks. It drains like a dream. And it’s really packed down so nicely. Plus, there’s that fantastic gravelly sound every time we drive in. I love it!

I can’t believe that we ever even thought about going with concrete! Combined with our neighbor’s drive, it would have seemed like a parking lot.

The great front yard makeover: Part 1

I bought my house long before I even met my husband, and one of the things I knew I wanted to change right away was the front steps and walk. Fifteen years later, I’m prepared to show you the project.

Today’s post is really about the before. Tomorrow, I’ll show you the amazing after, thanks to our landscape architect Cheryl Jacques of Brower/Jacques Design.

The reason for the project was clear: The steps were not in good shape, the sidewalk was crumbling and the peach-painted, scrolled iron railing didn’t look anything like me or my house. Plus, there was no way to get from the door to the sidewalk along the street except walking on the driveway.

Oh, and that driveway! It was just two thin strips of concrete, which looked good because the drive runs along a neighbor’s concrete drive and the grass between the strips kept it from feeling too much like a parking lot.

But with a car parked in the drive, there was no room to walk. That meant getting in and out of the car onto grass, something that worked OK until it was wet or snowy. Midway through spring, the grassy slope on which I got in and out became a mud slide.

Meanwhile, some yucca plants were taking over the front garden.

A yellow door makes a festive entry

My mom has been perusing the first issue of the HGTV Magazine and has fallen in love with the yellow door featured inside.

(You can get those cool number decals at Leen the Graphics Queen and she’s even giving some away on her blog!)

Mom said that’s just the color yellow she’s been looking for and I think it would look fabulous with her bright white porch and red brick.

Plus, she’s thinking about painting her shutters gray. I love the yellow and gray color combination.

That got me wondering about other yellow front doors and I came up with a few great examples.

The pretty door above is from HGTV as well. I love the way it looks with this bright blue house. It’s very festive.

I’m not usually a big fan of glossy paint, but it just seems to work on the door above.

I found the photo above at Apartment Therapy, although it comes from Robert A. Dickinson, who shared it via a Creative Commons license on Flickr.

The door at right is also from HGTV.

It was shared by Erin Loechner on the HGTV blog Curb Appeal.

I think it’s from Erin’s home.

It looks great with those gray shingles and the chrome or nickel hardware and house numbers.

 

What do you think?

Could you go so bold?

Happy 4th to you. Happy birthday to my Mom!

My mom has had beautiful interiors and gorgeous gardens for as long as I can remember – but particularly after my sister and I moved away and she got the space and time to work without interruption.

But when I went to her house to celebrate her birthday – which also happens to be the 4th of July – she had really outdone herself in and around her back patio.

It was all decked out for our family get-together, including two of the cutest little yellow Adirondack chairs I’ve ever seen, perfect for my nieces.

She hung red, white and blue bunting from the little fence that separates the patio from the rest of the yard.

What I like best, though, is the way her containers are just absolutely overflowing with flowers. They are beautiful!

 

We’re not planning to actually eat our birthday/4th of July dinner out on the patio.

Mom has a long table decked out inside the house for that. But you can bet that – assuming it doesn’t rain – lots of our hanging out will take place out here.

Amazingly, Mom doesn’t think her gardens looks that pretty. I think she’s nuts and want her to come do my gardens, which she declined!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Mom!

Prepare your garden before your vacation

I’m taking a break today from interiors to spend a little time talking about our exteriors – where hopefully it hasn’t been too hot for you to enjoy some time in the sun.

With the long, holiday weekend upon us and many folks traveling, I thought I’d pass along these tips from Preen for keeping your gardens in good shape while you’re gone.

• A Good Soak

Give flower and vegetable gardens a good final soak before flying the coop. This is especially important if rainfall has been inadequate, or sparse precipitation is predicted.

The good news is that further watering may not be a worry no matter what the weather. Established annuals can last for ten days without supplemental water.

Most perennials can weather two weeks of dry conditions. Trees and shrubs won’t feel the pinch for about a month. Lawns are the camels of the garden. A healthy lawn can go six weeks without extra water.

• Don’t Feed and Leave

Don’t fertilize plants before leaving. Slower growth is what you want while you are away.

• Protect Containers

Container plants need water more often than border plants.

If you ask a friend for a watering favor, group containers in a protected area with indirect sun, but access to rainfall. This makes it easier to water and harder to miss a pot and lessens stress on plants and your watering chum.

• Harvest Produce

Harvest produce before you leave. If you can’t take it with you, or just have too much, donate to a food pantry or share with friends or family.

If you’ll be gone for more than two weeks, ask a friend to harvest produce. If you stop harvesting vegetables some stop producing.

• Apply a pre-emergent garden weed preventer

Most people associate pre-emergent garden weed preventers such as Preen with early spring, but mid-summer is another smart time to apply it.

A second application atop mulch or soil stops weed seeds from sprouting while you’re away and well into the fall. Remember that mulch and Preen prevent new weeds from happening. They don’t kill existing weeds.

Preen offers more gardening tips at its website.

Black is a hot color in the garden

I’ve always loved plants with dark flowers and foliage. I have a day lily (no clue on the variety) that is such a dark red it’s almost black and it’s one of my favorite plants. I also like the varieties of coleus that are the darkest.

Apparently, I’m not alone

“Nothing compares with black for adding impact,” said Rod Grasman, an owner of Garden Crossings in Michigan. “I'm particularly fond of foliage plants with dark tones.”

Rod recommends Colocasiaesculenta 'Illustris', a large-leafed elephant ear (see above right). “It is stunning in containers or in moist, shady landscapes,” he said. “Its purple-black leaves are enhanced with green veins and violet leaf stalks."

Heidi Grasman, a co-owner of Garden Crossings, said customers are also new black varieties (see above) of petunias: 'Black Velvet', 'Phantom', 'Pinstripe' and the superbells variety, 'Blackberry Punch'.

"Our customers can't seem to get enough,” she said in a press release.

According to the Grashmans, dark-toned plants are perfect to accentuate jewel-toned flowers and foliage. Hot pink, bright yellow and lime green really pop when positioned near the black beauties.

Mid-tones seem to work better than a complete contrast like white, or tonal variation such as gray or silver. These can seem drab or somber in comparison.

The BHG photo at right shows a great combo of dark foliage plants and light pink petunias.

I also love black accents in the garden – a wrought iron gate, a black painted wooden fence or even a terra cotta pot painted black.

And I love black furniture in the garden (like the options shown below from MyHomeIdeas.com) but – wow! – can it get hot!

Now for some design ideas … outdoors

I normally stick to all things inside our homes but the weather is getting warm and my containers are looking pretty empty. So I went in search of new ideas to make mine look great this year.

I was so pleased to find the perfect advice from Anthony Tesselaar Plants, a garden wholesaler.

Tesselaar has some recipes for what it calls “eye-popping garden container combos.” Below (Container #2) is the recipe for the great looking pot at right.

“So many of us love to look at all the beautiful colors, textures and shapes of plants in the garden center, but we have a hard time visualizing combinations,” says Anthony Tesselaar, the company’s co-founder and president of Tesselaar Plants.

“While it would be nice to have the time and money to keep playing around with different plant groupings, this just isn’t reality for many of us,” he said. “We’re busy. We’re budget-conscious. We want beautiful, dependable, already-choreographed compositions.”

The three recipes below involve what Tesselaar calls the “thriller-filler-spiller” model and use colorfully foliaged Tropicanna cannas as the “thriller.”

“So often,” says Tesselaar, “a great mixed container design comes down to a ‘thriller’ – often a big, bold and beautiful plant at the top of the composition, a “filler” – usually a mid-level plant that softens and complements the thriller, and a ‘spiller’ – a tumbler or trailer over the edge of the pot, for lower-level personality, texture and a finished look.”

This video shows you step by step how to achieve this look.

 

 

Now, you can use the recipes below it to put together your own great-looking container.

Container #1

Thriller – Tropicanna cannas, original (top)
Filler – Zinnias (middle left)
Spiller – Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ (lower right)

Container #2

Thriller – Tropicanna Gold cannas (top)
Filler – Heuchera ‘Velvet Night’ (lower right)
Spiller – Torenia ‘Catalina Viva Blue’ (bottom left)

Container #3 (pictured at right)

Thriller – Tropicanna Black cannas (top)
Filler – Salvia farinacea (middle left)
Spiller – Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ (bottom)