Liz Ball

Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree.

-- Herman Hesse

Landscape gifts

Just because we are transitioning into a winter season, do not assume home landscapes are doomed to become dull and unattractive. Whether the landscape is covered with snow or not, the plants there still can offer a lot of beauty and interest.

Why not make a point of noticing how your plants, and those in neighbors yards, are showing off this winter? Start now to spot fluffy or dry seed heads on ornamental grasses, dried flower husks on trees and shrubs, cones on conifers and interesting peeling, patchy or striped bark visible on woody plants that have lost their leaves.

Some plants reveal colorful yellow or red stems, others have branches that weep or are contorted. There will be berries on vines and shrubs. Some plants display interesting buds for next springs flowers all winter.

As the winter season progresses, yes, you will start to see flowers from bulbs and certain plants such as native witchhazel trees, hellebores and winterhazel. A winter of observation will assure you that with plants, there is never a dull moment.

Do you know?

-- Homeowners spend upwards of $500 a year on yard and garden care. Continued...

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Yardening

Creating curb appeal is one of those landscaping areas where you want your front yard to stand out from surrounding yards without being totally out of place from the rest of the neighborhood. Keep that in mind while looking at these pictures.

Along with this gallery, there are several examples front yard landscape designs and curb appeal in the designs gallery. There's also one rather interesting idea that I created that's worth taking a look at. See: curb appeal.

You'll find it much easier to come up with an idea if you don't try to find an exact match for your yard. Gather ideas from several sources and mix and match. Generally, most yards are unique in shape. It can be very frustrating to try and find an exact example of your front yard.

This gallery is free to visitors of The Landscape Design Site. Also see my original pictures gallery for more photos, examples, and plans.

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Front Yard Landscaping For Curb Appeal

Q: Before all this snow came and covered the ground, I saw plants that looked like dandelions. However, I remembered that there are other weeds that look like dandelions and wondered if they may be a problem. What can I do about them?

A: There are several weeds that are common and in their juvenile stage look much like dandelions. London rocket (a common relative of mustard), prickly lettuce and some sowthistle seedlings may be what you observed. They will survive the cold weather and can be problems in your garden next year. Some are perennial and others are annual weeds. Your local NMSU Extension Service office can help you identify these weeds and determine appropriate measures to manage specific weeds.

London rocket, a mustard weed, is a host known to overwinter curly top virus which will infect your tomatoes and chiles next year. For that reason, it is important to eliminate as many of them as possible from the vicinity of your garden (from as much of your property as possible). It is recognizable by the mustard oil fragrance of its crushed leaves. It is not prickly like some of the other weeds mentioned.

Prickly lettuce and sowthistles are in the sunflower family because they have flowers with the same structure as sunflowers, but their flower heads are much smaller. They are often prickly and when the leaves and stem are broken usually exude a milky sap. Some are annual and biennial weeds and some are perennial. This characteristic determines how you must manage these weeds. They are not as notorious as the mustards for spreading disease, but they are not good plants to allow near your garden.

With the annual weeds such as mustards, prickly lettuce and some sowthistles, the key is to remove them before they can form seeds. This may be done with herbicides, but manual removal is often fairly easy to accomplish by cutting the top from the root with a hoe or another garden implement. The mustard weeds should absolutely be removed before you plant tomatoes and chiles next spring.

The perennial weeds are a little more difficult to manage because they can regrow from a small piece of root left in the ground. Some of these weeds can have an extensive root system, so physical management by hoeing and tilling becomes more difficult, but not impossible. There are also herbicides that may be used to manage these weeds, but it is critical to use the proper product and to use it carefully according to the label direction. Your NMSU County Extension agent can help you determine the best method for managing your weeds and minimizing problems in your garden. You will also find that the book, Weeds of the West, published by the Western Society of Weed Science is a good reference for helping you identify the weeds in your garden and landscape.

Send your gardening questions to Yard and Garden, Attn: Dr. Curtis Smith, NMSU Agricultural Science Center, 1036 Miller Rd. SW, Los Lunas, NM 87031. Curtis W. Smith, Ph.D., is an Extension Horticulture Specialist emeritus with New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service. NMSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating.

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Yard & Garden: Some destructive weeds mimic dandelions

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. With just more than 2 minutes left in the New Mexico Bowl, Washington State held an eight-point lead against an opponent that had been outmanned and outclassed throughout the game and had no timeoutsleft.

Fans eyed the exits, reporters across the social media landscape wrote the game off as over and just about everyone in the stadium was certain that WSU had alreadywon.

Everyone, including theCougars.

We got too complacent; kind of thought we won the game early, senior Justin Sagote said after the Cougars 48-45 loss to ColoradoState.

CSU linebacker Shaquil Barrett

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Colorado States Jake Schlager, right, recovers fumble by WSUs Teondray Caldwell (34) on late kickoff returnSaturday. (Full-size photo)

TimePlay Score

2:52Grayson 12-yard TD pass to Vaden. Roberts converts the PAT45-37

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WSU blows 8-point lead over CSU with 2 minutes left - Sun, 22 Dec 2013 PST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. With just more than 2 minutes left in the New Mexico Bowl, Washington State held an eight-point lead against an opponent which had been outmanned and outclassed throughout the game and had no timeouts left. Fans eyed the exits, reporters across the social media landscape wrote the game off as over and just about everyone in the stadium were certain that WSU had already won. Everyone, including the Cougars. We got too complacent, kind of thought we won the game early, senior Justin Sagote said after the Cougars 48-45 loss to Colorado State. CSU linebacker Shaquil Barrett

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Associated Press photo

Washington Staterunning back Theron West (24) celebrates his touchdown with teammate Marcus Mason during the first half of the New Mexico Bowl NCAA college football game against ColoradoState (Full-size photo)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. With just more than 2 minutes left in the New Mexico Bowl, Washington State held an eight-point lead against an opponent which had been outmanned and outclassed throughout the game and had no timeouts left.

Fans eyed the exits, reporters across the social media landscape wrote the game off as over and just about everyone in the stadium were certain that WSU had already won.

Everyone, including the Cougars.

We got too complacent, kind of thought we won the game early, senior Justin Sagote said after the Cougars 48-45 loss to Colorado State.

CSU linebacker Shaquil Barrett forced a fumble, recovered it himself, and the Rams promptly scored, tying the game on the two-point conversion by running a delayed handoff to Donnell Alexander known as the Statue of Liberty play.

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Colorado State rallies to beat WSU, 48-45 - Sat, 21 Dec 2013 PST

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- With just more than 2 minutes left in the New Mexico Bowl, Washington State held an eight-point lead against an opponent that had been outmanned and outclassed throughout the game and had no timeouts left.

Fans eyed the exits, reporters across the social media landscape wrote the game off as over and just about everyone in the stadium was certain that WSU had already won.

Everyone, including the Cougars.

"We got too complacent; kind of thought we won the game early," senior Justin Sagote said after the Cougars' 48-45 loss to Colorado State.

CSU linebacker Shaquil Barrett forced a fumble, recovered it himself, and the Rams promptly scored, tying the game on the two-point conversion by running a delayed handoff to Donnell Alexander known as the "Statue of Liberty" play.

"They had a lot of reasons to quit in this game," WSU coach Mike Leach said. "They could have quit at any point because they spent most of the game about 10 points, two touchdowns behind. They never did quit."

WSU quarterback Connor Halliday had fumbled on a quarterback keeper the previous play, but officials ruled that his knee touched the ground before the ball was loose after a lengthy review.

WSU's Teondray Caldwell fumbled the ensuing kickoff at the Cougars' 24-yard line and Jared Roberts' field goal sailed through the uprights with no time left on the clock, giving CSU its first lead, and the victory.

"We were thinking the whole time they've just got to run the ball a few times, kneel it," Sagote said. "Then there are two turnovers in 10 seconds that changed the whole game."

Prior to Halliday's run, the Cougars passed the ball on three consecutive plays, electing not to keep the ball on the ground and ignoring the stopping of the clock with an incomplete pass. On their previous drive, up 45-30 with about 6 minutes left, the Cougars passed three times and ran three times.

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Cougars collapse late in New Mexico Bowl loss to Colorado St.

The Artists' Gallery makes the most of its compact space in a downtown Columbia office building. And its all-member holiday show and sale covers seemingly every available surface with art in various media.

As you would expect from a group exhibit that arrived with the onset of winter weather, this show has its share of reminders of the season. They range from directly representational depictions of winter to other, less direct references.

As part of the latter group, Winnie Coggins' clay vessel "Winter Winds" has white bands worked into its bumpy surface. The effect is of a strong wind raking a brown landscape.

Stylistically situated midway between realism and abstraction, Jing-Jy Chen's watercolor-and-ink "Winter" incorporates direct references to a tree-covered landscape, but its melding of black, gray and white tones also has a semi-abstract quality.

Straightforward realism can be found in Barbara Steinacker's pastel "Baby, It's Cold Outside." The artist sets this scene inside a presumably warm room, where the viewer first contemplates a candle placed just inside the window and then looks outside to gaze upon a snowy yard.

Setting up his camera outside on a cold day, photographer Carl Segal's "Bactrian Camels in the Snow" has two of those furry beasts looking very comfortable as they stand in a snowy landscape.

Whatever the season, many of the artists in this exhibit like to set their scenes out in nature.

Deborah Maklowski's colored-pencil drawing "Stone Barn" astutely brings out architectural detail in the subject's stone walls. The artist's drawing "Water's Edge" similarly makes sharp distinctions between rocks along the shore and a very blue body of water. Maklowski switches media for her pastel "Red Barn at Massey," with the softer attributes of pastel making for a visually softer image of a red barn set in a yellow field.

Some of these artists are willing to travel quite a distance for their natural subject matter.

Jerry Weinstein's photograph "Boat in the Harbor Iceland" bears a title that might have you reaching for yet another layer of clothing, but this appears to be a warm-weather scene. The boat in question is a Viking-style vessel whose traditional design is in contrast to the modern-looking boats docked behind it. You get the sense that all of these boats are intended for weekend pleasure cruises.

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Columbia Artists' Gallery presents all-member holiday show

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Detroit Lions: Jim Schwartz Deserves to Be Fired Immediately

There are a couple of landscaping tricks to keep in mind when constructing an informal path through your yard. A flagstone path can meander through the woods, lead from the front of your home to the rear, help you access your garden or connect various lawn areas. Theyre an excellent device to help create visual connections within the yard.

Material: Flagstone, a natural stone, is flat like a flag. You can cut it into squares or use a hammer and a chisel to easily break it into different sizes and irregular shapes.

Crab Orchard and Pennsylvania Bluestone are the most frequently used types in this area. Cherokee Flagstone is harder and shinier, but it isnt as easy to work with because you must manually cut it.

The color you choose should blend with the rest of your landscape.

Path: Lay out your path to match the typical gait of an adult. Select pieces that are 18- to 24-inches wide (side to side) and 1- to 2-inches thick. Use flagstone as individual pieces, not little pieces that you fit together like a puzzle. If you use pieces smaller than 18 inches the stones tend to wobble when stepped on. Put a 6- to 10-inch gap between each stone.

Flagstone paths work best in relatively flat or gently sloping areas. Use a shovel to scrape the ground so its flat and stable, and then add a small amount of coarse sand to help level the stone.

Bury each flagstone piece about half-way in the ground. Add mulch, stone or plants flush with the top of the stone.

If your yard is sloped, create a series of steps with some level areas between them. This is similar to a landing on a run of stairs.

You can use the same flagstone, but youll also want pieces that are 4- to 7-inches thick that you stack on top of each other.

Hardwood mulch works well around the path because it packs down well. My favorite mulch to use around a flagstone path is crushed slate, which is available by the ton at select stone yards. Its a pretty light blue color. Due to its small particle size, it packs down and helps hold the stone in place. It also helps control weeds.

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Tips to build fabulous flagstone path

I'm very excited to add this newest collection of photos to the site. I decided to put this together as a free alternative to all the paid landscaping picture sites that keep popping up everywhere. While this collection of design ideas isn't quite as big as some, it is from the same that they're selling. For Free. I actually left quite a few photos out of the galleries as many of them repeat the same designs and styles.

Along with this directory, the original gallery of pictures also has thousands of images of designs from the most creative designers and sites online.

A collection of several of our own design ideas in the designs and plans galleries will lead you through the steps and explanations of what actually goes into creating a landscape.

You can also look at over 120 sketches and designs that may help you generate some ideas for shape, planting ideas, hardscapes and more. See: 120 free landscaping plans to take advantage of this directory.

And on top of all this there are also several other directories that you may find helpful. Tips on how to plan a landscape. Most everything on this site can be found in the menu to the left. Hopefully you can save your money. Good luck with your project.

Click On Images To Access Galleries

Don't forget to take a look at my Original Pictures Gallery. It's as good as if not better than these new examples in the sense that there is much more variation, professionalism, and detail.

For tips, instructions, and details to some of my own design plans and projects see The Landscaping Plans And Ideas Gallery. For everything else that has to do with designing, see the menu at the left.

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Free Landscaping Pictures And Design Ideas