We have all seen garden makeover shows. An army of workers descend on a garden with tools in tow, and sometimes even large machinery like bobcats. Such dedicated attention to a garden might be effective, but it’s beyond the budget of the average citizen. A few practical, more modestly priced solutions are on hand, to help Joe Average turn his garden around. Just like with furniture removal, choose a supplier that works for you.

Appeal
Gardens help complement the attractiveness of a house. An unruly and unkempt garden makes a whole property look unappealing, even if the house is in good order. It is therefore worth accentuating the attractiveness of a nice house by taking steps to a tidy garden, with perhaps a few little features that add charm and quaintness.

Grass
The presence of grass gives a plot of land a natural look. Keeping lawns cut is the first step to a tidy garden.
One should then get rid of long grass at the edges of gardens. Whipper snippers do a good tidy up job, and edging tools keep the sides of paths neat. For harder to access areas, like in cracks, pull out weeds and grass, and treat these areas so that nothing grows back.

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The life of wild birds can be pretty tough at times, especially in the winter. Food sources are scarce and the cold can be too much for some of the younger birds to cope with. If they should happen to find food left for them in a nearby garden or park they will usually return there regularly.

Leaving food in your garden will therefore entice a variety of birds into visiting you, which can really bring your garden to life. For a show complete with aerial aqua aerobics you might consider adding a solar fountain, as birds clearly really enjoy playing with water and will use it as a bird bath.

Solar fountains do not have to be connected up to your mains. This means that you can place them anywhere in your garden, so long as the area chosen receives an abundance of sunlight.

As they are powered directly from the sun, there are no ongoing electric charges to worry about and maintaining them made a great deal more straightforward.

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If you wish to attract birds into your backyard garden, create an inviting bird habitat for them to visit.

Creating shelter in the form of shrubs and trees will definitely attract birds to your garden. Shrubs and trees that provide fruit, nuts or seeds are very desirable. You can create artificial slopes and build low walls that act as grade changes for birds. Walls can can be topped with low shrubs in which birds can nest. Thorny plants and blackberries also act as good shelter for your bird habitat.

In winter, broad leaf evergreens in your garden will keep birds warm and cozy. Evergreens also provide a safe, natural bird habitat, where birds can hide, nest and feel safe from predators.

Create an inviting nesting place for birds by simply putting together 3-4 cardboard boxes and stuffing them lightly with a pile of dry grass. By providing pockets within the dried grass you create crevasses wide enough to allow unhindered movement of the birds.

A regular water source is a must have for birds. If you cannot provide a large source of water in your garden, a bird bath works perfectly and makes a great focal point in your garden. Place the bird bath adjacent to areas of birds shelter to make it inviting.

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It’s always around this time of the year that I appreciate the design elements of our outdoor lighting scheme. The days are getting shorter and I find that I am turning on our outdoor lights slightly earlier each day. The result of decent outdoor lighting is that we can still use our outdoor space into late August and September.

During the longer days of mid summer, it seemed that I could cook and entertain relatively late without worrying about turning on the lights. Safety is a big issue for me, and I like having stairs and pathways of my back yard lit well enough so my friends and family don’t end up in a bush. But now that the days are shorter, I just enjoy turning on the lights so that my evening guests can enjoy the ambiance as much as I do.

We started to create our outdoor lighting scheme about 5 years ago. My spouse and I were charmed by the simplicity and beautiful effect of the outdoor lights of a French restaurant we visited in Mexico. Since that time we have experimented with many different types of outdoor lighting designs. Our scheme is a work in progress and it gets refined each year. Some years we use a lot of string lights while in other years we use spot lights and twinkly lights. We generally tend to stick to white lights although we sometimes use the odd colored spotlight.

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Solar powered landscape lighting eliminates the need for any wiring in your landscaping whatsoever. Solar powered landscape lighting is becoming more popular, day after day, due to not only being absolutely autonomous, but also being extremely low cost. Any homeowner will be able to save on their electric bills and get rid of the unsightly wires in their landscaping.

Solar powered landscape lighting uses natural solar energy for emitting light. This type of landscape lighting is both cost effective and environmentally friendly.

No lighting wires in your garden means three main things: children in your garden will not get an electric shock, animals in the garden will not damage the wires as well as such wireless units will be very easy to set up and to relocate in the future.

Why does the number of homeowners, who opted for solar powered landscape lighting, increase day after day?

1. Solar powered landscape lighting provides the homeowners with a wide range of units to choose from for their landscape lighting design, including floodlights, flashlights, bollard lights, step lights, garden lights, light strings, lantern lights, hanging path lights, wall lights and adorable floating pool lights.

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Have you ever thought about installing an outdoor spot light? It is easier than you thought and these lights serve more purposes than originally thought. Most homes or business establishments that have outdoor lighting schemes can benefit from the installation of outdoor spot lights. Outdoor spotlights have a number of different purposes ranging from providing extra security, high-lighting pathways, providing extra safety, and providing a nice form of ambiance. Properly positioned spot lights are a wonderful addition to any outdoor lighting scheme.

Typically when you think of outside spotlights you probably think of outdoor concerts, or outdoor shows where event planners needed to draw your attention to one specific spot (moving or stationary). Or perhaps you have only really seen spotlights lighting up the sign in front of local businesses. These are ideal uses for the spotlight, but you might not realize that there are many places around your own house that you could install a spotlight to great effect. Think of your backyard lighting scheme, do you have a wonderful statue or birdbath that could be lit up at night? Using outdoor spotlights let you focus attention on objects that would normally be lost in the dark, allowing you to create focal points that add extra dimension to your outdoor lighting scheme.

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“Garden Gnomes For Sale”

So said the sign I passed on my way to a business meeting. For some reason, when I got home, I decided to read about garden gnomes and found there was a fascinating history!

Seems that garden gnomes first appeared in the early 1800′s, in Germany. About 1840, they came on the scene in England. People believed that having garden gnomes would make for better plants, and also bring good luck.

Apparently Sir Charles Isham, the 10th Baronet of Lamport Hall, brought around 20 garden gnomes from Germany – the first to arrive in England. He proudly set them up in the rockery in his garden. Unfortunately only one remains – “Lampy” – and it’s a sad sign of the times that he has to be insured against theft – for a million pounds.

Up until the 1960′s, terracotta was the usual material for making garden gnomes. The early figures were often seen as highly collectible and frequently remained in the family for generations.

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Low voltage outdoor lighting represents a safe and cost-efficient lighting solution. It is quite easy to assemble and install your own low voltage outdoor lighting system, without having to use the services of a professional electrician.

Dangerous regular 120 watt electric current is stepped down to merely 12 V in the low voltage outdoor lighting systems, making it so much safer. Electric in such systems runs through a loop from one end of the transformer to another.

There are several important advantages of the low voltage outdoor lighting setups, when compared to regular lighting:

1. A homeowner can set up his/her own low voltage outdoor lighting system hassle free, with the use of a special kit. Such kit usually includes all of the needed components, such as the cable, a transformer and the fixtures. The only needed component that is not included in the kit is the bulbs. However, it would not be prudent to include the bulbs in the kits, since every bulb may have a different wattage.

2. Low voltage outdoor lighting helps you to save money on the electric. The bulbs used for the lighting may be 4 W light bulbs. There are also available fluorescent lamps and fluorescent lamps, the latter being currently the most cost-efficient.

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