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Entertaining And Garden: A garden should be a place where you and your family can relax outdoors whenever the weather permits. It also provides an extra room for informal summer entertaining and garden.
IT IS a place for sitting in and and enjoying wherever possible. After you have laid out your garden and planted it, you should make some provision for using it. An important use is to be able to sit in it in peace—to read a book or follow some other pastime, or just to take in its sights, sounds, and scents.
THE FIRST basic question you need to ask yourself is what, in the main, do you use your backyard for? Is it somewhere you spend relatively little time and do you use it principally to provide a view from the house? Or do you spend a great deal of time in it— every free moment you have available, in fact? Are you looking for somewhere to sunbathe, read a book and relax? Or do you do a lot of entertaining and garden and want the garden to be an extension of the house? Do you have children and need to provide a play area? And perhaps most important of all, do you want it to be somewhere you spend hours tending to your plants or are you after a low-maintenance garden that looks wonderful for minimum effort?See Also Established Garden:THE MOST important thing in deciding how to make a new garden or how to improve an existing one is to know about your area, for the character of a garden is influenced by climatic conditions, soil, aspect, views (or lack of them), the buildings around you and so on. The combination may seem so unpromising as to be difficult, but no site is incapable of being improved by thoughtful design and carefully chosen plants.
Whether your backyard is brand new or an old, established garden plot, the same principles apply to planning and designing your garden. First, assess what you have got, then decide what kind of garden you want and whether you can achieve it. Assess your yard's potential, its strengths and weaknesses, and then decide how to take advantage of all that is good about it and play down the bad points. But, remember: nothing happens overnight, and you will not wake up the next morning to find the perfect garden!
Unless you have enough ground to form a small arboretum, trees must of necessity be regarded as background or framework plants. Because trees are so important, they should be chosen carefully and positioned strategically. For a small garden, choose smaller trees, with the emphasis on those that are relatively slow growing. If there are established garden trees in the garden, try to make use of them, as nothing gives a greater sense of maturity.
Not only do these provide interesting contrasts of foliage texture and color throughout the year, they also act as a foil for many deciduous shrubs.
On The Other Hand See Garden Beyond:The inclusion of an arresting object within a small garden beyond is an excellent way of detracting the eye from adjacent buildings and into the garden beyond itself. The focal point in this garden beyond is an ornate wrought-iron seat, which leads the eye down the garden beyond. The rather austere rectangular lawn is surrounded by a mass of pretty, shrubby little plants, which together help to soften the overall look of the garden beyond.
There are many ways of increasing the sense of depth in a garden beyond. Vistas can be emphasized and "lengthened" by stressing the distant perspective. Eye-catching features can be used to draw the eye away into the distance, but there is no need to rely solely on the contents of your garden beyond to do this. Make use of the landscape outside: let the outside world become the focus of your garden beyond vista. If you are fortunate enough to have a garden beyond with an extensive view, make the most of it. Use trees and shrubs to frame a glimpse of the scene beyond the garden beyond. |
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