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1. Planning your landscape is like painting a picture on canvas. Just like your art teacher in high school told you - have a main point of interest and add several sub points to make your beautiful landscape more interesting. You imagine it in your mind, draw sketches and fill in all the details that you’ve dreamed of. Keep revising your sketch until it looks like the picture you have in mind.

2. Not feeling very artistic? If you’re a more ‘concrete’ person, try laying out garden hoses or heavy string in your yard to get a feel for how and where you want to divide up your space. Remember to think balance, not symmetry. Some people think that they have to plant trees and flowers in straight, boring rows. Tip: pick an odd number when planting trees or flowers. With flowers, plant several of the same plant in groups to make a large color splash. Better to have a few, well chosen, bold splashes of color than to have tiny spots of color spread all over a large area.

3. If you’re having a hard time thinking of what your chief point of interest can be, close your eyes and think about what you like most about your yard. Is there a tall, solo pine tree, a grouping of birch trees, a rocky ledge, an old weathered fence or something else that catches your eye? If you can’t find something of interest that’s already in place, think about adding something that you admire from a picture in a magazine or something that caught your eye when you were driving through a beautiful neighborhood. Tip: do NOT copy something that your next door neighbor is doing. They won’t appreciate it and it won’t look nearly as special if both of you are going for the same effect.

4. Still can’t think of a chief point of interest? What about creating a spot for a water fall? Not a pond - that’s old news! With a re-cycling water fall, you don’t have to worry about standing pond water or algae. Just pick some interesting rocks or boulders of varying sizes, arrange them to cascade down a slope, add plants and water. Viola! Or, how about a rock path winding through your yard? Or a rock wall of native stone to create interest?

5. If you choose a tree or group of trees to be your main point of interest, don’t center them in your yard. It’s far more interesting to place them a bit off center. Don’t choose a huge, overpowering tree; the tree should have a good shape, with something interesting about its bark, leaves, seed pods, flowers or fruit. Tip: while the poplar is a striking tree and a rapid grower, it sheds its leaves early and so is left standing with bare branches in early fall. The poplar makes a better choice for a backyard tree or when creating a dividing space between your yard and your neighbors. Good choices for trees are the mountain ash with bright berries, the brilliant leaves of the sugar maple or the bark of the white birch, which all add interest to your total landscape.

6. It is always best to choose trees and shrubs that thrive in your local climate. It’s tempting to choose something exotic out of a catalog but you’ll be unhappy if the tree you choose is not right for your climate. Trees are a big investment, choose wisely.

7. Flowering vines can also be used to create interest. Whether you choose an ivy to climb the bricks on your house or a trumpet vine to wind around an old weathered fence along side your house, both can be used as sub points to accent your main point of interest. Tip: perennial vines can be used to form a permanent addition to your landscape scheme. The Virginia creeper, wisteria, honeysuckle, a climbing rose or clematis all make excellent choices for creating interest and can be used to minimize minor imperfections in walls.

8. And for a final flair, add a colorful flag to your landscape design. Whether you choose a whimsical, garden flag or a majestic, patriotic American Flag, both will create interest and add color to your landscape. Tip: choose polyester for greatest durability of a flag that is flown daily. Choose nylon flags for flying in the lightest breeze. There are several new, flag hanger styles available if you don’t already have a flag pole in your yard. The spinning flagpole mounts on your house, deck or mailbox post, and is designed to keep your flag from wrapping. And the telescoping flagpole easily extends up to 20 feet in seconds or down to 7 feet for portability.

Beth Gabriel is a successful Webmaster and publisher of FlagWave.com. She provides more flag history and flag hanger reviews that you can read on her website from the comfort of your home at 2:00 am!

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True annuals are plants that will complete their life cycle within twelve months of sowing. Biennials require two growing seasons to do so and are usually sown in summer to flower during the following spring and summer.

Many other plants that botanists would define as perennial can be treated as annuals, although some are half-hardy and, while able to flower well for a single season, are not hardy enough to be used for more than one year. Half-hardy annuals are generally raised in a greenhouse, then ‘pricked out’ (transplanted, a few centimeters apart in larger boxes) and grown under protection before being planted out.

The winter hardiness of biennials depends on the district where they are to be grown. But there are significant advantages in planting out in late summer or autumn for all those hardy enough to winter well. For example Canterbury Bells that are planted outside as transplants in the autumn will flower well the following summer, but if planted out in the spring they tend not to flower until twelve months later!! Sweet Williams behave in a similar way.

Biennials are usually sown in a seedbed in the open, or in boxes in a frame or greenhouse, and transplanted as seedlings. They are then put in their final quarters in late autumn, as in the case of Wallflowers which do best in cool regions. It is quite important to plant out forget-me-nots and cinerarias in the autumn, as both of these flower early and therefore need to be planted out well ahead of flowering time.

Cinerarias are suitable only for areas free from frost but in such areas they are very showy and they are particularly useful for shady gardens. There are short, medium and tall types and the color range is wide. Especially good are the rich blue shades.

Plants that are not frost hardy include Begonia semperflorens, coleus and impatiens. The latter have become extremely popular plants. They are available in both short and taller varieties and also in numerous double flowered cultivars, which are mainly propagated by cuttings. Impatiens grow well in full sun if watered or in shade and are popular container plants for patios.

Hardy biennials are plants that are sown the year before they are expected to flower. They are raised in a seedbed outdoors or in a cool, shady frame and may be thinned out or transplanted when large enough. For best results planting out should be done in the autumn. If they are bought from the garden center in punnets or seedling trays, plant them out early in the season. Even in areas where the winters are mild, planting at that colder time will result in small flowering plants, except perhaps with pansies and violas.

Annuals that can be sown directly in well prepared flowerbeds and which come quickly into flower are bound to be popular if they are capable of sustaining flowering for a lengthy period of time. There are numerous suitable varieties to choose from and in most cases they may be sown in boxes and transplanted. Before sowing time, prepare the growing site. If the soil is lumpy and heavy, compost should be worked in and planting mix applied to the surface. Then choose a dry day, apply a little general fertilizer and rake it in. Seed can be broadcast or it can be sown in shallow drills.

Some seedlings can be safely transplanted but the following do not transplant easily: clarkia, eschscholzia, godetia, gypsophila, linaria, nigella and poppies.

Half hardy annuals must be raised in a frame or greenhouse or in a few cases sown outside after the danger of frost has passed.

Germination time varies, and most kinds require pricking out into boxes or pots of potting compost. Some of the seeds such as lobelia, begonias and petunias are very small and need to be sown carefully and kept out of direct sunlight.

Nowadays the numerous garden centers often do all this work for you offering a good range of these plants n punnets ready for planting. But it may be that you want to use seed collected from your own garden, or wish to grown varieties unavailable in punnets. In any case you will find that raising your own seedlings can add a great deal of interest to your garden.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Gardening

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It is starting to get very HOT during the month of June. You need to watch your watering especially with new plantings.

You can still successfully plant new plants. Make sure enough water is applied to thoroughly saturate the original root zone. Too often many folks apply “one gallon” of water, or leave their drip system on for only 15 minutes. It is NOT how long but how much water is used.

Conserving water in Southern New Mexico & West Texas is a BIG issue, so watering deeply and infrequently produces deeper roots which will in turn make plants much more tolerant to drier conditions once established.

Below is a list of plants and trees that will take “summer plantings” without suffering from summer stress!

Mesquite Tree
Desert Willow
Texas Sage
Red Yucca
Oleander
Bird of paradise
Vitex
Coreopsis
Salvia
Vinca
Portulaca
Purslane
Bottle Brush
Rabbit Brush
Apache Plume
Desert Marigold
Gailardia
Spanish Broom
Trumpet Vine
Silverlace Vine
Crape Myrtle
Lantana

Remember to use root stimulator and mulch with all your plantings. We recommend Ferti-Lome Root stimulator.

Summer weeds can begin to be a problem during the summer months. We have several products you can use to keep them at bay.

Fertilizing regularly as needed takes advantage of water your are applying. It also keeps blooming plants blooming longer and resists insect and or diseases.

Paul Guzman is the author of this article.
You can read it online at: http://www.guzmansgreenhouse.com/seasons/junegardentips.htm?
He is also the owner of “Color Your World - Guzman’s Garden Centers”. You are welcomed to use this article on your website as long as this resource box is left intact.

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