for beautiful gardens
|
Garden Fencing: YOU CAN buy ready-made fencing panels and kits from do-it-yourself suppliers and timber yards. The latter will also supply the necessary wood for making your own fencing. In both cases, the wood should have been pressure-treated with preservative check that the preservative is harmless to plants, as some types are not. For safety's sake never burn scraps of pressure-treated wood or breathe in the dust when cutting it, as it can be toxic. If you are using untreated wood, make sure that the posts are allowed to stand in preservative for a few days before putting them in the ground. This will ensure that their feet are well protected. The rest of the Fence can be treated by brush or spray once it has been erected.
When buying nails for fencing work, make sure they are galvanized. This treatment will protect them against rust.Frankly I've become fascinated with gourds and pods after doing this book. Next spring I have the feeling that the garden fencing is going to expand again. And one summer not too far from now, the searching vines might even make it to the next farm. Love-in-a-puff grows nicely on a wire circle of rabbit fencing, 4 feet high and 2 feet in diameter. It's treated as a half-hardy annual and is so interesting that it has a separate essay on page 112. Cockscomb (Celosia cristata) or the woolflower, has flowers too small for individual interest. But when hundreds bloom in a feather-like cluster, or others twist like coral branches (or cock's combs), they become fantastic in the garden fencing. See Also Garden Arbor:As with arches, arbors can be built in many styles to suit varying types of garden arbor, so it should not be too difficult to come up with something that fits in exactly with your own plot. It is a good idea to take photographs of the area where the arbor is to be built and use tracing paper overlays to try out various designs until you find the right one. Similar sizes of wood should be used for an arbor as for an arch and the minimum width and headroom apply also.We have a prefabricated English arbor in our front yard. It straddles the concrete landing before the steps that descend to the driveway at the bottom of a 6-foot bank. The bank is covered with old-fashioned daylilies. The steps were installed 55 years ago when the former owners attempted to establish a degree of gentility in the wilds of the Catskills. The arbor was added by us last year. To the right and the left of the arbor are American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens), and I've trained some of their branches to wind about the plastic and metal hoops. They have, in fact, wound so much and so tightly, that if the arbor breaks up in pieces, its shape will remain in the branches. Bittersweet is classified as a weed by many garden arborers and there is good reason: They send out curling tentacles in all directions and if given half an opportunity, they would probably engulf the house. On The Other Hand See Garden Fountain:Make sure the garden fountain head will create the right effect for the water feature. BELL: a garden fountain that produces a sculptural, almost semi-circular sphere of water which falls in a bell shape from a central pipe. BUBBLE: this head makes a natural-looking, low garden fountain of water which bubbles up gently as though issuing from a spring. COLUMN: two or three columns of white water shoot up in a neat and stylized manner. This works well for a modern design. GEYSER: the geyser garden fountain forces water up into the air, sometimes to a great height, to give a natural-looking rush of foaming white water and a gushing sound.ANOTHER ATTRACTIVE water feature is a garden fountain which, like a waterfall, is operated by a submersible Pump sitting on the Floor of the pool, or on a platform of bricks or blocks if the pool is deep. Indeed, some pumps combine a garden fountain with a Flexible hose outlet that can feed a waterfall as well. The important thing is to choose a garden fountain that will not overpower the effect of your pool. It should not shoot its jets so high that wind-blown spray falls outside the pool, nor should it be over-elaborate if the pool is small. garden fountains are ideal for formal pools but should not be included in those that are supposed to look natural the two just don't go together. In most cases the garden fountain outlet simply projects above the Pump and it can usually be fitted with a range of garden fountain heads that vary the pattern of the water jets. The Pump should be positioned so that the head just projects above the level of the water in the pool, if necessary raised on a piece of paving. |
