Your landscape is very much like your home's interior dcor.

It grows old, sometimes tattered and torn, and needs updating from time to time. Sometimes, plantings need to be completely torn out and totally replaced.

Our landscape is eight years old, and annually we make changes taking out stuff that fails to suit our likes or needs or just doesn't thrive the way we expect it to.

Occasionally, we remove an entire bed, like we did this spring. A simplistic planting of dwarf English boxwoods now replaces winter-weary dwarf gardenias.

The new look follows my gardening motto: You grow or you go.

I also want plants to behave or they go. Within the last two years, we removed all rose bushes because the thorns were just too much for my skin. We also took out many ornamental grasses because the annual pruning was more than we wanted to do. Retired, my husband Ken and I have many interests to claim our time, and while gardening is one of them, we don't let the yard consume our lives. After eight years, we have finally fine-tuned it.

Professional pointers

In landscape design classes at Christopher Newport University, I learned a landscape lasts for 10-15 years before it needs at least a partial redo.

Local landscape designers agree.

"When I started my business 21 years ago there was a housing boom in Williamsburg and the bulk of my business was landscapes for new construction," said Peggy Krapf of Heart's Ease Landscape & Garden Design (www.HeartsEaseLandscape.com).

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Yard & Garden: Landscapes need TLC

Once an expanse of lawn, the front yard of the Glass residence is now an attractive landscape with low-water plants, mulch and decorative rock.

Steve Glass had already replaced the grass in his backyard with a low-water landscape. So, when he heard about rebates offered by the San Diego County Water Authority for turf removal, he and his wife decided it was time to make the switch in their Mira Mesa front yard as well.

The front yard before the makeover.

He credits the online resources of the water authority, plus information on the website of Las Pilitas, an Escondido native-plant nursery, with getting him up to speed on the process.

The guy who does the survey of your property (for the San Diego Water Authority) is quite knowledgeable, he added. Hes got good opinions.

Glass killed the 837 square feet of grass himself, using Roundup; that took about three weeks. The couple chose the plants themselves, but hired a landscape contractor to do the planting and add a permeable path of pebbles and large decorative rocks, plus gorilla hair mulch (actually shredded redwood) around all the plants.

The plants are a mix of natives and other low-water species, including purple rockrose, California buckwheat, caryx, seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) and salvia Mrs. Beard.

Kathleen and Steve Glass chose new plants themselves for the landscape redesign.

People have weird misconceptions, Glass says. Low-water doesnt mean cactus; you can get some really good plants.

For irrigation, the home already had a 10-year-old Weathermatic weather-based smart controller. Glass capped most of the existing sprinkler heads and installed five Hunter 12-inch pressure regulating pop-up sprinkler bodies with rotator heads.

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A turf removal success story

Do you spend long hours outside, making your landscape beautiful? Do you know someone who does? Now you can be rewarded for all that hard work. Enter The Southerns contest, Best on the Block.

We will choose the Best on the Block from submitted photos, and each months winner will take home three prizes: $50 gift certificates from Plantscape in Herrin, Changing Seasons in Marion and Southside Lumber in Herrin. Winners will be featured the last Friday of July, August and September on the At Home page.

One more thing: The yard work must be done by you, not a professional landscaper or gardener.

Heres what to do:

1. Take a digital photo of what makes your yard or your friends yard a contender. It can feature flowers, flowering shrubs, overall landscaping, vegetable gardens, rock gardens or whatever makes your yard the Best on the Block.

2. Go to http://www.thesouthern.com/bestblock to enter your information and upload your photo.

A winner will be chosen near the end of the month by a panel at The Southern and will be featured in a story in the At Home section the last Friday of the month.

So, put the pruners down, grab your camera and enter today.

Excerpt from:
Best on the Block: Enter and win!

Thursday, June 26th, 2014 Issue 26, Volume 18.

FALLBROOK The Fallbrook Beautification Alliance (FBA) has announced the winners of its seventh annual Outstanding Landscape awards.

Each year, the FBA recognizes those who have taken an extra effort in keeping Fallbrook beautiful. Submissions are open to residential and commercial properties alike. An FBA-appointed committee reviews each submission for innovative, sustainable, or beautiful landscaping, architectural design, public art, preservation, conservation, and more.

The winners for 2014, by category, include:

Residential

The home of Sharon and Bill Desatoff, located at 1624 McDonald Rd. was selected as the residential winner for 2014. The fact that the Desatoffs were in the floral design business for more than 15 years shows.

This do-it-yourself project was completed section-by-section, taking six years. The landscape has no automatic irrigation and is all hand-watered.

Taking lessons that she learned from the Fallbrook Garden Club, such as in mulching, Sharon has created a garden and butterfly paradise. The property has many large boulders, all donated by local construction companies looking to keep them out of their way.

The yard originally contained fruit trees but is now home to rolling walkways, birdbaths and trellises, as well as many vibrant flowers and numerous native plants. Butterflies flutter around host plants, including the butterfly bush and flambego. Morning glories add lots of color, accented by purple, pink, and white delphiniums and cosmos.

Drought-tolerant

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Outstanding landscapes earn honors

Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:23 p.m. Last Modified: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 5:24 p.m.

Janet Plunkett, an Etowah County Master Gardener, recently fell and broke her right wrist. (Janet is right-handed.) When her fellow Master Gardeners heard of her plight, several came to her rescue by sprucing up her landscape.

When a crew of eight Master Gardeners arrived, each one looked around, selected an area of landscape to tackle and immediately went to work. A few Master Gardeners hoed weeds, others pruned shrubs and a couple of men pruned the lower limbs of some smaller trees.

A few Master Gardeners worked in Janets vegetable garden.

Others raked and cleared debris from the yard, and a few cleared some overgrown vines that covered a stretch of backyard fencing.

A couple of overgrown shrubs were removed as well.

Months ago, a large limb from a neighbors tree, which had been toppled by high winds, landed along the perimeter of both yards. A couple of brawny Master Gardeners went to work sawing the large tree limb. Very soon that area of the landscape became neat, opened to receive sunlight and was looking good.

In less than three hours, the crew of Master Gardeners accomplished a great deal of work.

Both homeowners, Janet and her neighbor, were most appreciative of the tree removal.

As lay horticulturists trained through Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Etowah County Master Gardeners perform service to the community, often lending assistance with school, church and Habitat for Humanity landscaping projects; sometimes offering advice with landscape design. From April through September, area Master Gardeners staff the Horticulture Helpline, answering horticulture questions and seeking solutions to problems. In late winter and early spring, a couple of Master Gardeners give hands-on pruning classes to the general public.

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CAROL LINK: Master Gardeners spruce up injured colleague's yard

Once again, Busch Gardens Williamsburg offered its award-winning landscape skills to a homeowner with a needy yard.

This year's winner of the landscape giveaway, Naomi Donohoe, 37, of Salisbury, Md., wanted a fuss-free front yard that is also a habitat garden for wildlife. She also received a Bad Boy Mower from the giveaway's co-sponsor.

A disabled veteran, Donohoe has limited mobility from service-related injuries, so the team incorporated low-maintenance landscaping elements in the design. Shrubs and perennials provide year-round color and interest, and attract wildlife like bees, birds and butterflies.

Kim Martinez, regional education manager for the National Wildlife Federation (www.nwf.org) visited the finished landscape to recognize the yard as a Certified Habitat Garden.

"A habitat garden can be built in many sizes and styles, so long as the basic elements are met," said Erick Elliott, director of Busch Gardens Landscape Operations.

For 24 consecutive years Busch Gardens Williamsburg has won the "Most Beautiful Park" award from the National Amusement Park Historical Association. Last year, Busch Gardens began offering a new landscape to the winner of its Landscaping Giveaway contest.

"Here, the house is very linear, and lends itself to a formal garden style," Elliott said of Donohoe's home.

"By incorporating a short boxwood hedge, the landscape team provided the linear continuity for the garden, with formal topiary pieces to provide balance on the ends of the house. A half circle across the front of the home is filled with 10 different perennials in shades of purple to pink, providing blooms from April to October and seeds into the winter months.

The selection of plants also assisted the design.

"By selecting taller plants that are sturdy and 'good for cutting,' color blocks can remain more linear and help maintain a more formal appearance over time," he said.

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Busch Gardens landscape experts create wildlife habitat for lucky homeowner | Diggin' In

Is your garden as appealing to the birds as it could be?

Having a bird-friendly yard or garden has never been more important an average of 2.1 million acres each year is converted to residential use, and almost 80 percent of wildlife habitat in the U.S. is privately owned.

According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study, birding is the number one sport in America. There are 51.3 million birders in the United States, and it takes only a field guide, a spotting scope with tripod or pair of binoculars to go birding. Many birders put feeders out in their backyards to help our feathered friends, and that's good news. However, if you've been wishing you could attract more birds to your yard or garden, remember that providing adequate cover for nesting and protection is as important as providing food.

Shelter

Birds need shelter from the weather and places to hide from predators. Wooded areas, ground cover, a log pile, shrubs and roosting boxes are all examples of shelter your yard can provide.

For safer movement, birds prefer habitat with vegetation at varying heights. Place low-growing vegetation next to a thicket of shrubs and taller trees. Some birds like woodpeckers and chickadees excavate cavities in tree trunks for nesting and roosting. Where natural cavities are hard to find, nest boxes offer these birds a place to raise their young. You can also supply nesting material like yarn or string.

Recent studies show that free-roaming cats limit the survival and reproduction of wild birds in urban and suburban environments. So keep your cat indoors or put a bell on its collar.

Food: try native plants and wildflowers

When it comes to helping out the birds, a good place to start is with a reliable food source in the form of native plants or trees. Planting native plants, shrubs and trees is the easiest way to provide foliage, especially seed- and fruit-producing plants; native plants also require less watering.

Consider planting shrubs like snowberry, twinberry or serviceberry to provide fruit throughout the seasons. If your yard contains cone flower or black-eyed susans, don't deadhead them but let the seeds remain on the plant through the fall and winter to keep goldfinches and other seed-eaters around. Offer hummingbirds the standard mixture of four parts water to one part sugar.

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How to attract birds to your yard or garden

I was delighted to read Don Burnetts column in the June 5 edition of the Capital News, headlined Save natural state of hillside lots.

Frequently, new homeowners come to my xeriscape class to find out how to recreate the natural beauty that attracted them to their property.

Unfortunately, the native vegetation was destroyed in the building process, leaving disturbed soil infested with invasive weeds.

Sadly, it is very difficult to restore what has been lost.

Putting a true value on natural landscapes is long overdue.

Building with Nature, by Andy Wasowski, is an excellent book detailing how owners and builders work together to maximally preserve the natural landscape. Used copies of this are available online.

I strongly recommend it to anyone involved in land development or construction as well as those planning to have a home built.

In Kelowna, we have a wonderful example of this method of building by the late John Woodworth, a prominent architect and ardent conservationist (founding and 25 year member of the Nature Trust of B.C, chair of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, co-founder of Brandts Creek Marsh, and recipient of the Order of Canada for conservation work).

As his final project he designed a home for his wife and himself on the extremely steep hillside beside his long-time residence.

Excerpt from:
Steele: Let Mother Nature maintain your yard

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) June 20, 2014

Water features can add an exquisite touch to an incomplete landscape design, says B&D Rockeries. Their recently published article, Exquisite Water Features, explains the various types of fountains and waterfalls that landscapers can use to spice up their yard designs.

B&D Rockeries, an experienced rockery landscaping company has been in business since 1975 and is passionate about increasing the aesthetic beauty of their clients property.

To view B&D Rockeries work, visit the following link: http://www.bdrockeries.com/our-work/.

If youre looking for that little pick-me-up or way to make your yard look especially lovely, water features are a charming way to do so, the articles says.

B&D Rockeries goes onto explain how fountains and waterfalls can fit any style of landscaping and any size of space available. Spouting, cascading, and pondless fountains are lovely additions to any landscape. Waterfalls, both large and small, can have a charming effect on the atmosphere of an outdoor scene.

The article concludes by saying, If youre interested in rockery formations that incorporate water feature designs, B&D Rockeries would be delighted to have a conversation with you.

About B&D Rockeries: B&D Rockeries has been serving in the Snohomish and King county areas for over 35 years. Owner Neil Eneix has a capability and skilled knowledge of rock retaining wall development that will help you accomplish any rock garden design that you need. Whether youre looking for rocks or blocks, Neil has been helping homeowners carefully plot out their landscaping projects for years.

B&D Rockeries 1249 NE 145th St Seattle, WA 98125 206.362.4022 http://www.bdrockeries.com/

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Exquisite Water Features for Landscaping Revealed in New Article Released By B&D Rockeries

AMES, Iowa - Maple trees are a landscape staple valued for their shade and vibrant fall colors. Homeowners may notice growths, spots or sooty areas on the maple leaves during summer. Horticulturists with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach identify the leaf abnormalities and tell how to manage them. To have additional questions answered, contact the ISU Hortline at (515)294-3108 or hortline@iastate.edu.

There are erect, hair-like growths on the upper leaf surface of my maple tree. Should I be concerned?

The hair-like growths are likely galls. Galls are abnormal growths of plant tissue induced to form by mites, insects or other small organisms. The hair-like gall on the maple leaves is probably the maple spindle gall. Maple spindle galls are yellowish green and about one-fifth inch long and are as thick as the lead in a pencil. The galls are somewhat thicker in the middle than at the ends, hence the common name of spindle gall.

Maple spindle galls are caused by tiny mites. Adult mites spend the winter under bark and other protective places on trees. In early spring the adults move to the developing, unfolding leaves and begin feeding. The leaf responds to the small irritation by rapidly producing extra cells that form the abnormal growth at the feeding site. The gall encloses the mite, which continues to feed and lay numerous eggs within the gall.

Reproduction is prolific and as the new mites mature, they leave the gall and move to other newly developing leaves to repeat the process. Only new leaves are capable of producing galls. Mite activity continues until mid-summer when it starts to decline. In the fall, adult mites leave the foliage and move to overwintering sites.

Another gall commonly found on maple leaves is the maple bladder gall. Maple bladder galls are typically found on the upper leaf surface of silver and red maples. The roundish, wart-like growths are initially light green but quickly turn red and finally black. Other galls occasionally seen on maple foliage include the gouty vein gall, a green or red thickened swellings along leaf veins, and maple erineum gall, bright red velvety patches on the undersides of leaves. While galls may be unsightly, they do not cause serious harm to healthy, well-established trees. Galls cannot be "cured" once they have formed. Preventive insecticide treatments are seldom warranted.

There are black spots on my maple leaves. Is this a serious problem?

Tar spot is a common leaf spot on maples in the United States. Several fungi in the genus Rhytisma cause tar spot. Spots are black, slightly raised and up to 3/4 inch in diameter. The black spots resemble blobs of tar, hence the common name. Fortunately, tar spot does not cause serious harm to maple trees; the damage is mainly cosmetic.

The severity of tar spot can be reduced by raking and removing infected leaves from around the base of the maple tree in fall. In most cases, controlling tar spot with a fungicide is not practical.

The leaves on my maple tree are covered with a black, sooty material. What is it and is it harming the tree?

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Yard and Garden: Maple trees