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Edible landscaping is the process of planting edible plants in a landscape, rather than in a traditional garden. There are two major benefits to edible landscaping. First of all, edible landscapes save space, because they combine landscaping and food-growing into a single space.

Secondly, they turn a standard landscape into more than just aesthetics, but into a useful method of growing some of your own food. Edible landscapes do not have to be 100% edible. You can design your edible landscape around any percentage of edible plants you wish.

You might want to make your landscape 100% edible, or you might only include a single fruit tree. Edible landscaping has actually been around for a very long time. Some of the earliest edible landscapes were found in ancient Persia and in gardens in medieval times.

In some areas of the world, most people plant mostly edible varieties. Some people see no point in planting anything that is not edible, seeing everything else as a waste of valuable food-growing space.

An important part of planning your edible landscape is to know what conditions each variety needs. Some plants will need a lot of sun while some plants require more shade. You need to be sure the soil conditions are suitable.

Be sure to check each and every variety so you know its soil and sunlight requirements, and the nutrient and pH balance needed. Begin planning your landscape on paper.

Mark off where you want to place certain plants, and be sure that these areas are conducive to the varieties you wish to locate there. Use fruit trees in place of shade trees. You can plant hazelnuts and currants wherever you might place a deciduous shrub. You can use herbs in place of low-lying shrubs and ground cover.

Ornamental plants often need very little care. Edible plants do need a little bit more attention than other plants if you want them to produce a good yield. You might have to water them more often or fertilize them.

The fact that insects tend to target edible plants much more often means you will probably have to work a bit harder to control pests than you would for strictly ornamental plants. However, the food yield definitely makes it worth a bit of additional effort.

One of the most important types of edible plants to add to a landscape is fruit trees or bushes. Fruit trees make excellent shade tree replacements. And berry bushes can be extremely attractive in place of typical shrubs. Blueberry bushes can be quite lovely in front of a home, for example. And apple trees can grow into delightful shade trees!

Instead of planting flowerbeds, you can plant beds of lettuce, herbs, or greens. Many types of mint have lovely blooms. Lettuce and other greens can come in all types of colors. You can get ornamental cabbages and kale in a wide variety of colors, adding a splash of color to any area. Peppers and tomatoes are colorful additions, as well.

Grape arbors are a spectacular addition to a landscape. Grape arbors have been used for many years as a beautiful enhancement to lawns, and the fruit is a wonderful bonus. Remember, many types of flowers are also edible.

Nasturtiums, violas, daylilies, calendula, and borage are all edible, and make wonderful additions to salads and decorations for cakes. So you can still plant some flowers, even if you want to stay 100% edible!

Paul Hata is active in various social and community programs aimed at providing equal access to education,health and jobs to all.Paul has over 10 years experience in managing a multi-million dollar advertising company.Paul can be reached at - EarlyPlanet.com

Do you love the beauty and color of flowers but cringe at the thought of the maintenance required for their upkeep? If your colorful blooms have a tendency to turn brown and crunchy from neglect in the hot Austin sun, there may be some flowers made just for you. Flora native or adapted to the Austin area thrive where others perish, resisting drought, pests and other hazards. Just choose your plants wisely and you can have fabulous landscaping for your property with little work.

There are many benefits to growing native plants. In addition to saving on water and fertilizer you save on time by choosing plants that thrive in the unique climate of Austin Texas. Your gardening is also more enjoyable when you are not fighting mother nature in an attempt to grow plants that are not suited to the Texas Climate. It is also nice to help maintain the original ecosystem of your locale by promoting local plants and flowers.

Perennials are an essential part of a vibrant landscape, and a beautiful choice for any Texas flowerbed is Cedar Sage. A shade lover, Cedar Sage has bright red spiky flowers that bloom spring through summer and can bring a pop of color to an otherwise gloomy spot in your yard. Sage comes in several other varieties, too, including Majestic Sage, Mealy Blue Sage and Mexican Sage bush all of which produce beautiful flowers and require very little water, just like Cedar Sage.

Trailing Lantana is another great choice, especially when used as a ground cover. It is very tolerant of poor conditions, highly drought resistant, and its lavender flowers are very attractive to butterflies.

Purple Cone Flowers, also know as Echinacea, require a little more water than the previous plants, but they are nonetheless exceptional specimens for an Austin garden. These daisy-like flowers are a Texas native and produce violet or white blooms. Preferring sun or partial shade, they can be planted almost anywhere.

Mexican Honeysuckle is another low-water plant. It displays its orange flowers spring to frost, attracting hummingbirds with its sweet smell. It only requires an occasional pruning to encourage full growth.

Ornamental grasses are another option for sprucing up your landscape, and there are many hardy varieties to choose from, such as Big Muhly, Little Bluestem and Dwarf Fountain Grass. Some grasses can be quite invasive, so be careful where you plant them, because they will thrive and take over.

These are only a few of the many ideal plants for your Texas landscape. There are a multitude of choices available out there, so next time you go to a nursery, make sure you do your homework first or ask the people running the nursery which plants and flowers are native to Texas. The city of Austin has worked to promote a green and environmentally friendly city. The city of Austin has a Grow Green plant list featuring native and adapted landscape plants that thrive in Texas. By planting smart you can save water, fertilizer and time.

Ki works as a realtor in the central Austin real estate market helping individuals looking for homes as well as investors looking for cashflow properties. His site provides a free search of the Austin MLS along with a blog covering news and statistics on the Austin Texas real estate market.

Do you love the taste of fresh berries? There’s nothing quite like the taste of fresh strawberry jam or grape jelly on toast. Unfortunately, buying fresh berry products can be expensive. However, growing enough berries to meet your needs is fairly easy and affordable. In many cases, you can grow a wide variety of berries in as little as five square feet of garden space.

Soil and Climate Concerns

For the most part, berry plants require acidic soil. Get a simple soil pH test kit from any lawn and garden store to check whether your soil is acidic or basic - and add Miracid fertilizer or tea bags to the soil around the plants to make your soil more acidic. If you make your own compost and apply it to your garden, you’ll be adding most of the nutrients that your berry plants need. Luckily raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries all tend to tolerate a wide range of climates, so you should be able to grow them no matter how far north you are.

Selecting Plants

Depending on where you live, you may be able to find wild berry plants growing on the side of the road or at the edge of a field. If you have wild berry plants around your yard, watch the plants closely during the late summer and fall. This is usually the time when berry plants will make small plants, or suckers, that will take root in the surrounding soil. If you dig these suckers up and plant them in your garden, they’ll bloom into healthy plants the following year.

If you don’t have access to wild specimens, you can purchase all different types of nursery stock at your local garden store, and even in many department and food stores. Typically, berry plants are widely available during the early spring months. If you decide to purchase these plants, it’s important to make sure that there’s no sign of infection or rot on the stems and roots. It’s also best to buy plants that don’t already have developed leaves, as they may not survive the transplant process.

Organic Pest Control

When it comes to berries, the most common pests you’ll encounter are birds. In order to protect your berry garden, it’s best to enclose them in a fence or net. If you place all your berry plants in one area, you can easily fence them off and put a net over them for protection. As you might expect, the net needs to be high enough so that birds can’t reach through to the berries nearest the net. If you love to have birds around and don’t want to permanently scare them off, you may also want to place a few berry bushes in other parts of the yard for them to feed on.

Every year, commercial farms produce millions of pounds of berries. While you may savor the taste of many kinds of fresh berries and jams, the price of these products may be outside of your budget. Growing your own berries also gives you access to affordable fresh fruit that hasn’t been exposed to pesticides - so you can be healthy and save money.

The author maintains a blog about gardening and lawn care. He has also written content for http://HobbyLawnCare.com

In spring, your lawn may look vastly different from what it did when you give it the last mowing in the fall. During the winter season, debris can accumulate on the lawn and there may be dead leaves remaining that you missed and there may be animal droppings that have started to rot. All of these can do damage to your lawn if you don’t remove them when you start preparing it in spring. This is why spring lawn care is just as essential as the care you give it all summer long.

Carefully examine the grass on the lawn to see if there are any weeds. These can grow rather quickly in the spring and need to be eradicated immediately. Remove the weeds, making sure you get the roots because if you don’t they will only grow back. For areas with patches or clumps of weeds, remove the roots and then aerate the soil. This means to poke small holes in the soil so that the oxygen can get to the roots of the grasses or plants. Water the soil and then plant new seedlings. You should do this with all of the lawn and not just in the places where you remove the weeds.

Raking the grass is and essential part of lawn care in the spring. This helps to bring up the dead clippings and rejuvenate the grass so that it will start to grow again. It is also an excellent way to remove thatch cover that may be present. Thatch cover of less than 50% is not a big deal for any lawn, but if there is more than that you do have to take steps to remove it and raking is the best method.

All lawns need water in the spring. You should not think that the soil has received enough water from any snow or rain because most of this moisture evaporates rather than sink into the soil. Experts recommend that you should give your lawn at least 5 inches of water in the spring. Thereafter you should give it at least an inch or water once a week and during the hot summer weather, the lawn needs an inch of water every three days.

The water will help moisten the soil to ensure that any new seedlings have the fertility they need to start growing. You should also check the drainage system to make sure that any excess water does drain away and does not saturate the lawn. In areas where there is a lot of ice and snow during the winter months, watering the lawn early in spring serves another purpose. If you use salt to de-ice walkways or the driveway or if you live close to the street where the city regularly spreads salt to keep it from becoming slippery, water will help desalinate the lawn. Even though you don’t spread these chemicals on the lawn, the wind and the spray from the wheels of vehicles on the street will carry them to the lawn.

For more information on spring lawn care and other lawncare related topics, visit the lawn care tips site http://www.HobbyLawncare.com.

Having a beautiful lawn during the spring summer and fall shouldn’t have to cost you money. By taking advantage of the lawn care tips you find in books and magazines, online and by asking questions of experts at your local lawn and garden store, you can easily take care of many of these jobs on your own. Once you are aware of some basic factors associated with lawn care, you can become a professional in your own right and your neighbors will start asking you for advice. The only requirement is that you spend some time researching how to take care of your lawn during every season of the year and devote some time to the tasks.

Mowing is one of the basic essentials of having a great looking lawn. However, there is a trick to this. In the spring, when you mow for the first time, mow the grass at the lowest level on the mower. This will remove all the dead grass and allow the roots to start producing new shoots. Make sure you rake up the lawn even if there are not many clippings because raking helps to revitalize the grass and the soil. Then when you mow the grass again, you should move the blades up a level. The lawn needs to be mowed on a regular basis. During how weather in summer, you can even have the blades higher so that you don’t mow too close to the ground and cause the grass to burn and turn brown. When you mow the lawn for the final time in the fall, place the blades at the lowest level again.

Watering plays a major part in lawn care. Without water the grass will not grow and will die causing brown patches to appear in the lawn. You have to know the type of grass you have and the type of soil so that you give it the appropriate amounts of water. You should never water the lawn after a rainfall because this could saturate the soil and cause the grass to die. When there is very little rainfall, the best time to water the lawn is in the early morning or just at sunset. This is because there is less chance of the water evaporating before it gets a chance to soak into the soil.

Fertilizing the soil is also important. For this you do need to know what type of soil you have. If you are not sure, you can bring in some of the soil to a garden center and the experts there will be able to provide you with the right fertilizer for your needs. You can also decide whether you want to use organic or chemical fertilizers, but whichever one you choose, you do have to follow the directions on the packaging. Using too much fertilizer can be harmful to the grass.

One thing that people do not realize is that the soil and the roots of the grass need air in order to grow, especially if the soil is compacted. To check to see if this is so, pour a small amount of water on the soil and wait a few minutes to see if it starts to soak down through. If it doesn’t this means you will have to aerate the lawn. What this means is to perform a simple procedure or poking small holes in the lawn a t regular intervals so that the oxygen can reach the roots and the water can get to them. The holes are small and will not be noticeable in the lawn.

For more great lawn care tips and lots of information on related topics such as spring lawn care visit http://www.HobbyLawncare.com.

Want to spruce up your garden or yard? Nothing else does the job quite like a bird feeder does. A bird feeder will brings dozens of beautiful birds into your garden and yard, giving it a colorful, lively feel. To get the full benefits of a bird feeder, though, you must first learn about the different types and varieties of bird feeders, and how you can go about the best on for your needs. It isn’t complicated, but knowing a few things can go a long way towards making your bird feeder a success.

The first thing to consider with any bird feeder is the look. If it doesn’t fit with your garden and house, its not going to do you any good. Fortunately, you can get bird feeders in a wide variety of colors and styles. You can get sheet metal bird feeders, wood bird feeders, hanging feeders, standing feeders, solar powered bird feeders, and many more. Look with what fits in with your garden, and make your decision. While a stone angel feeder may look great in one yard, the gazebo style might be a much better choice for yours.

You also need to consider what type of feeder you want. The most common type of feeder is the traditional birdseed type feeder. These feeders take the traditional mixed birdseed, which will attract a wide variety of different birds. If you have a lot of finches in your area, a finch feeder maybe be for you. Since finches have long, narrow beaks, and can eat different types of seeds, you can attract these birds with a specialized finch feeder. These can be a great compliment to your regular feeder, as it will provide some nice variation. Finally, you can get a hummingbird feeder, which feeds liquid sugar to hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are always fascinating to watch, so getting one of these feeders is a great idea.

You should also consider some special features for your feeder. The most important feature, in my opinion, is squirrel proofing. If you have squirrels in your area, they will get into your feeder if you let them, no doubt about it. You will find out how outlandishly clever squirrels are once you start trying to keep them out of your feeder. Even though many of the squirrel proof designs aren’t perfect, if you don’t have this, you’re just giving them a free lunch.

Another interesting feature you can get with your bird feeder is a lighted feeder. Powered either by battery, or a rechargeable battery powered by solar panel, you can watch birds feed into the evening and in the early morning with the feeder. This makes it a great conversation piece for those summer outside parties. A very unique and wonderful choice for a bird feeder.

Overall, you can see that choosing a bird feeder isn’t an extremely easy decision, but neither is it that hard. Just make your choice among the wide variety of styles and options available, and you will get to enjoy the relaxation and aesthetic appeal that only a bird feeder can bring to your yard or garden. Just keep those squirrels away!

David Wilson loves birds, bird feeders, and life in general. Shop for a wide selection of great bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders, garden angel bird feeders, and many more, at the best prices on the net.