How To Use Vines In Landscaping Your HomeWritten by Paul Curran
Vines can be quick salvation of new home owner. Fast-paced annuals will twine up a hastily erected pergola almost before summer starts, providing a cool, fragrant and beautiful awning. Annuals and perennials (or hardy vines, as perennials are called) are an inexpensive way of softening lines of new buildings, linking them to landscape. Decorative and functional, vines are often answer for older homes as well, ground-covering varieties serving as cover for foundations and banks, others spreading a carpet of flowering greenery over walls, making fences seem friendlier and stone buildings less harsh. The methods by which vines climb will necessarily influence and determine your selection. Some vines, such as grape vine, have tendrils which reach out and grasp small objects to hold on to; these vines need a lattice or fence. Others, such as Boston ivy, have adhesive discs that fasten on to a brick or stone wall, and still others, such as climbing hydrangea, hold to a masonry wall with small, aerial rootlets. Finally, there are those that climb by twining around other branches or poles, climbing from left to right, or right to left (like honeysuckle). This type can be parasitic in worst sense, climbing over small bushes and trees and completely strangling them. No vine should be unsupported, however, and attractive vines are those which are carefully trained and held up. Supports such as arbors, trellises and per golas need not be elaborately constructed, since their function is to display vine, not themselves. Wood or other material that does not require painting is ideal, for natural woods are really more suitable as a background for vines than are painted ones.
| | How To Use Annuals In Landscaping Your GardenWritten by Paul Curran
An annual, from point of view of amateur gardener, is any plant which must be replaced each year and which flowers only once in its life. Annuals generally are grown from seed. The chief advantage of annuals over perennials is their low cost. Thousands of plants can be grown from a single packet of seeds. Annuals are also very decorative, and provide best source of flowers for cutting. Their season of bloom is relatively long, as well. Their chief disadvantage is late date at which they bloom. If annuals are used alone in a bed or border, a good part of season will pass with little to show in way of color. Annuals are also of use as a filler between shrubs set some distance apart. This permits shrub to grow, yet prevents too stark an appearance. The sowing of annuals, of course, depends upon class to which they belong. The hardier flowers, such as larkspur, poppies and cornflowers, can be profitably planted in late fall. The ground preparation must be just as careful as for spring planting. Planting in fall is advantageous since it per mits flowers to get an early start following spring. Certain other hardy annuals can be planted early in spring as soon as ground is workable. It is a good idea to start some of less hardy annuals in seed pots, or in coldframes, as early as March. Otherwise, these plants cannot be set out until all danger of frost is gone. Outdoor planting of annuals in spring follows thorough soil preparation. The seedbed must be carefully pulverized with a rake after it has been prepared and prior to planting. Eliminate all lumps. The seeds are sown broadcast in patch selected, and then are lightly covered with soil. The soil may be gently tamped after covering is completed. The patch should be identified with a stake and some sort of sign. Flower seeds are best planted near surface.
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