Category: Home & Garden

Eparé Espresso Cups, Insulated Glass Demitasse Lid & Saucer Set

• PERFECT FOR YOUR BREWER: Set of 2 double-wall double espresso cups measuring 2 ½ by 3 by 3 ½ inches and holding 4 ounces each. Perfect for morning coffee, tea, hot or cold beverages. Perfect glassware for morning coffee, tea, latte, espresso, brew, hot, or cold beverages.
• HAND BLOWN BOROSILICATE GLASS: Hand blowing from high-quality chemistry grade borosilicate makes these double-walled glasses thinner, lighter, capable of withstanding thermal shock, scratch, and break resistant.
• MODERN KITCHEN DESIGN: Double wall design creates a dramatic optical illusion and prevents condensation. The visual appeal makes this an exciting product for any home, restaurant, or café.
• PERFECT FOR HOT OR COLD DRINKS: The contemporary cups keeps the temperature of liquid hot or cold for a longer period of time while the outer glass wall remains comfortable to the touch.

 

When it comes to your family’s safety, you don’t want to compromise. At home you want to make sure you have all the systems in place that will protect them from any of life’s hazards and that those systems are the best ones on the market for your needs.

One of the most important safety items for your house is your smoke alarms.

I’ve partnered with Kidde, a leading manufacturer of fire safety products, to help you understand what you should look for in a smoke alarm to help keep your family safe.

Founded by Walter Kidde, the company has been a pioneer in early smoke detection and fire suppression. The company began in 1917 and started with the first integrated smoke detection and carbon dioxide extinguishing system for use on board ships. Now, Kidde products are found in homes and businesses throughout the world and their smoke and carbon monoxide alarms help to alert people faster when there is a hazard.

Kidde Worry-Free smoke alarms are designed for various areas throughout your home and they all have a 10-year sealed battery that eliminates the need for you to change the batteries twice a year during Daylight Saving Time (which is just around the corner again). The alarms provide continuous protections from smoke and fire – even when the power goes out.

Here are a few things you should know when picking smoke alarms for your home.

Know the different types of smoke alarms and understand the positives and negatives

There are two main types of smoke alarms for the home and each can serve a different purpose.

Ionizations alarms have sensors that work ionizes the air in the alarm with trace amounts of an element that sets up an electric currant. When smoke enters the alarm, it disrupts the current and makes the alarm go off. These alarms are said to be better at detecting smaller smoke particles from fast flaming fires that happen quickly.

According to Consumer Reports, these alarms are not always the best for the kitchen and bathroom areas because they are disposed to false alarms when food is burning or when there’s a lot of steam.

Photoelectric alarms have sensors that use a small pulsating strobe light and when smoke enters the detection chamber it detracts the light to trigger the alarm. These alarms are great for detecting larger smoke particles from slower and smoldering fires, including electrical fires and fires involving certain types of fabrics.

These are good for the kitchen area because they aren’t as prone to emitting false alarms from burning food or cooking steam. The Kidde Worry-Free Kitchen alarm features a photoelectric sensor and comes complete with both smoke and carbon monoxide sensing technologies. As with all Kidde Worry-Free alarms, it also boasts that same 10-year battery.

A third type of alarm is becoming more popular and that’s a duel-sensor alarm, which includes both the alarm sensors above. They are more costly than the alarms with one type of sensor. Kidde recommends that both type of alarms be installed to help ensure maximum protection for your family.

Make sure you know how your system is powered

Many smoke alarms are run off batteries and could include 9-volt, AA or AAA batteries. It is recommended you replace those batteries during Daylight Saving Time.

Some smoke alarms, the Kidde Worry-Free alarms included, come with lithium batteries that are designed to last for 10 years. This means you don’t have to worry about swapping the batteries out each year, which is a bonus since changing the batteries – even at Daylight Saving Time – can be hard to remember.

A third way to power smoke alarms is to have them hardwired into your house. However, these units need to have a back-up battery because they will not work when you have power disruptions. A lot of new homes are being built with systems like this and the alarms are all wired to one another so when one senses smoke, they all go off.

House size should be a consideration

When looking for the best smoke alarms for your house, you should plan to have an alarm in each room of your home. This includes your hallways and basement for maximum protection. Kidde makes alarms that are designed for each room and they are labeled on the packaging, so it makes picking up the proper smoke alarms easy.

It is also recommended that you have protection in the attic. However, in this instance you should consider a heat alarm. Kidde has a heat alarm that will sound if temperatures in the attic reach above 135 degrees.

Make sure it has the UL label

When picking a smoke alarm, you want to make sure the products bare the UL label. The UL label means that the prototypes have been tested and certified by the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. There are strict rules the manufacturers are required to adhere to, and they have to prove that mass-produced products can pass specific tests. The products are tested before they go to market AND then Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. conducts follow-up tests to ensure standards are consistently being met.

Kidde units all have the UL label and the company additionally complies with guidelines from the Federal Housing Authority, Housing and Urban Development and National Fire Protection Association.

Make sure there is a way to test the device

Smoke alarms should be tested to ensure they are still working and there should be an easy way to test each unit. Kidde alarms have a large, push-button right in the middle of the unit, and they recommend you test it once a week.

Ensure that it’s easy to maintain

No matter which type of device you use, you want to make sure it is easy to keep maintained and clean.

If you buy alarms that require the batteries to be replaced, make sure there is easy access to the battery panel.

It is also recommended that you vacuum your alarm to keep it free of dust and debris that could cause it to malfunction.

Consider your family’s special needs

If you have family members with special needs, look for add-ons for your fire safety system that will help keep everyone safe. For instance, if you have someone who is deaf or hearing impaired you might want to consider alarms that will also include some sort of visual signal or motion option. Kidde has a strobe lights and other auxiliary devices available to help your family with these special circumstances.

For more information on the Kidde and all its safety products, click here. To see all their fire safety products, click here.

Grab your own Kidde 10-year battery smoke or smoke/CO alarms on ShopKidde.com and use TIMEFORACHANGE to get 20% off and free shipping!

Twenty-some years ago, fresh out of college with a horticulture degree in-hand, I started teaching adult education classes at a local botanic garden. For many years, I taught a class called Preparing Your Garden for the Winter. It was all about how to clean up the garden every fall. I would show slides (remember those?) of how well-kept gardens should look in January. In the images, every plant was cut to the nub, except for the ornamental grasses and butterfly bushes, and the whole garden was snug under a thick layer of mushroom soil mulch. The roses were neatly trimmed to two feet and wrapped in a blanket of burlap, folded and stapled closed to keep them protected from freezing winds. There was nary a fallen leaf in sight; everything was raked up and hauled off. 

You see, that’s how we gardeners used to roll in the early ’90s before we knew better. Before we knew all the reasons NOT to clean up the garden. We’d cut everything down and perform a big, end-of-the-season gardening clean up until there was no shred of nature left behind. We’d turn the place into a tidied, controlled, and only slightly dirtier version of our living room. Everything was tucked and trimmed and in its place. Most of us weren’t interested in supporting wildlife much beyond hanging up a bird feeder, and the phrase “wildlife habitat” was only used in places like zoos and national parks.

Unfortunately, many gardeners still think of this kind of hack-it-all-down and rake-it-all-up gardening clean up as good gardening, but in case you haven’t already noticed, I’m here to tell you times have changed. Preparing Your Garden for the Winter is a completely different class these days. We now understand how our yards can become havens for creatures, large and small, depending on what we plant in them and how we tend to our cultivated spaces. Thanks to books like Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home, we now know how important native plants are for insects, birds, amphibians, and even people. Our gardens play an important role in supporting wildlife and what we do in them every autumn can either enhance or inhibit that role.

To that end, I offer you these six important reasons NOT to clean up the garden in the fall.

1. The Native Bees: Many of North America’s 3500-plus species of native bees need a place to spend the winter that’s protected from cold and predators. They may hunker down under a piece of peeling tree bark, or they may stay tucked away in the hollow stem of a bee balm plant or an ornamental grass. Some spend the winter as an egg or larvae in a burrow in the ground. All native bees are important pollinators, and when we remove every last overwintering site by cutting everything down and completely cleaning up the garden, we’re doing ourselves no favor. We need these bees, and our gardens can provide them with much-needed winter habitat.

Some species of native pollinators, like this docile leafcutter bee, overwinter in hollow plant stems.

2. The Butterflies: While the monarch flies south to overwinter in Mexico, most other butterflies stay put and take shelter somewhere dry and safe until spring. Some butterflies, like the mourning cloak, comma, question mark, and Milbert’s tortoiseshell, overwinter as adults. They nestle into rock fissures, under tree bark, or in leaf litter until the days grow longer again and spring arrives. Butterflies that overwinter in a chrysalis include the swallowtail family, the cabbage whites and the sulfurs. Many of these chrysalises can be found either hanging from dead plant stems or tucked into the soil or leaf litter. You can guess what a fall gardening clean up does to them. And still, other butterfly species, such as the red-spotted purple, the viceroy, and the meadow fritillary, spend the winter as a caterpillar rolled into a fallen leaf or inside the seed pod of a host plant. If we cut down and clean up the garden, we are quite possibly eliminating overwintering sites for many of these beautiful pollinators (and perhaps even eliminating the insects themselves!). Another excellent way you can help butterflies is to build a caterpillar garden for them; here’s how. Declining butterfly populations are one of the best reasons not to clean up the garden.

3. The Ladybugs: North America is home to over 400 different ladybug species, many of which are not red with black polka-dots. While the introduced Asian multicolored ladybug comes into our homes for the winter and becomes quite a nuisance, none of our native ladybug species have any interest in spending the winter inside of your house. Most of them enter the insect world’s version of hibernation soon after the temperatures drop and spend the colder months tucked under a pile of leaves, nestled at the base of a plant, or hidden under a rock. Most overwinter in groups of anywhere from a few individuals to thousands of adults. Ladybugs are notorious pest eaters, each one consuming dozens of soft-bodied pest insects and insect eggs every day. Leaving the garden intact for the winter means you’ll get a jump start on controlling pests in the spring. Skipping a fall gardening clean up is one important way to help these beneficial insects.

Ladybug larvae, such as this one, are voracious predators of many garden pests, including the aphids in this photo. Skipping the fall garden clean up encourages them.

4. The Birds: Insect-eating birds, like chickadees, wrens, titmice, nuthatches, phoebes, and bluebirds, are very welcome in the garden because they consume thousands of caterpillars and other pest insects as they raise their young every gardening season. Not cleaning up the garden means there will be more protein-rich insects available to them during the coldest part of the year. These birds are quite good at gleaning “hibernating” insects off of dead plant stems and branches, and out of leaf litter. The more insect-nurturing habitat you have, the greater the bird population will be. Your feathered friends will also appreciate feasting on the seeds and berries they can collect from intact perennial, annual, and shrub stems. Songbirds are one of the best reasons to skip the garden clean up!

5. The Predatory Insects: Ladybugs aren’t the only predatory insects who spend the winter in an intact garden. Assassin bugs, lacewings, big-eyed bugs, minute pirate bugs, damsel bugs, ground beetles, and scores of other pest-munching predatory insects spend the winter “sleeping” in your garden as either adults, eggs, or pupae. They’re one of the best reasons not to clean up the garden in the fall because they help you control pests. To have a balanced population of these predatory insects, you have to have winter habitat; when spring arrives, they’ll be better able to keep early-emerging pests in check if they’ve spent the winter on-site, instead of over in the neighbor’s yard.

Green lacewings are one of many beneficial insects that need winter habitat.

6. The People: If the previous five reasons aren’t enough to inspire you to hold off on cleaning up the garden, I’ll add one final reason to the list: You. There is so much beauty to be found in a winter garden. Snow resting on dried seed pods, berries clinging to bare branches, goldfinches flitting around spent sunflowers, juncos hopping beneath old goldenrod fronds, frost kissing the autumn leaves collected at the base of a plant, and ice collected on blades of ornamental grasses. At first, you might not consider yourself to be one of the reasons not to clean up the garden, but winter is a lovely time out there if you let it be so.

Delaying your garden’s clean up until the spring is a boon for all the creatures living there. Instead of heading out to the garden with a pair of pruning shears and a rake this fall, wait until next April. By then, all the critters living there will be emerging from their long winter nap. And even if they haven’t managed to get out of bed by the time you head out to the garden, most of them will still manage to find their way out of a loosely layered compost pile before it begins to decompose. Do Mother Nature a big favor and save your garden clean up until the spring. And, when spring does arrive, please use these pollinator-friendly tips for cleaning up the garden the right way.

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Are you an insect magnet? If you aren’t, you probably know one. Insect magnets attract annoying insects the second they walk outdoors — or so it seems.

If this describes you, take comfort in knowing that one of the ways you can fight back against mosquitoes, gnats, flies, no-see-ums and other pesky bugs doesn’t have to involve covering yourself with a sticky spray or engaging in chemical warfare. To help you enjoy going outdoors, try strategically placing insect-repelling plants in your garden or on your patio.

Essential oils in these plants act as nature’s bug repellent. Insects tend to avoid them. You can even use some of these plants to make your own natural bug repellent.

But know that simply including insect-repelling plants in your landscape will not in itself ensure your garden is insect free.

“There’s not enough research in this area to support that,” says Dr. Bodie Pennisi, an associate professor and extension landscape specialist at the University of Georgia’s Griffin campus. “The concentration of oils is not there to offer that kind of protection.”

There may be fewer insects, but no one’s done the research into how many plants, planted how close together, would be effective in repelling insects to any great extent, says Pennisi. One of the best things people can do to hold down mosquito populations, she advises, is to eliminate any standing water, which is where mosquitoes breed.

For those who would like to give the natural route a try, we’ve described some easy-to-find herbs readily available at most nurseries that are said to repel mosquitoes and other annoying insects. The smell of fragrant herbs is the result of the distribution of tiny globules that contain oils. High temperatures, for example, can cause the globules to become volatile, evaporating the essential oils and turning them into vapors, Pennisi says. The many globules on the underside of rosemary leaves (seen at right) are one of the best examples of this.

We’ve included our take on ornamental flowers that can help keep plant-attacking insects at bay. Keeping your growing areas as insect free as possible will help your vegetable garden stay productive and your ornamental beds attractive. In addition, we’ve included a carnivorous plant that eats insects which you can also include in your eco-friendly insect barrier.

First, the herbs

You can keep basil in pots to repel insects or make it into a repellent spray. (Photo:arifm/Flickr)

Repels house flies and mosquitoes. Plant basil in containers by your house doors and in outdoor areas where you like to relax or entertain. Basil is delicious in salads, in many pork and chicken recipes and with a variety of soups. Basil also improves the flavors of certain vegetables, include tomatoes, peppers, and asparagus. You also can use fresh basil to make an insect repellent spray. A simple recipe calls for pouring 4 ounces of boiling water into a container holding 4 to 6 ounces of clean, fresh basil leaves (stems can be attached), letting the leaves steep for several hours, removing the leaves and squeezing all of the leaves’ moisture into the mixture. Then thoroughly mix 4 ounces of (cheap!) vodka with the basil-water mixture. Store in the refrigerator and apply as a spray when going outdoors. Be sure to keep the spray away from your eyes, nose, and mouth.

Mihaliova/Shutterstock)

Repels moths, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes. Lavender has been used for centuries to add a pleasantly sweet fragrance to homes and clothes drawers. Although people love the smell of lavender, mosquitoes, flies and other unwanted insects hate it. Place tied bouquets in your home to help keep flies outdoors. Plant it in sunny areas of the garden or near entryways to your house to help keep those areas pest free. You can also use oil extracted from the flowers as a mosquito repellent you can apply to exposed skin when going into the garden or patio. The Everything Lavender website has a guide for extracting the oil and making a lavender-infused body oil. Added benefits are that lavender oil nourishes the skin and has a calming effect that induces sleep.

 

Lemongrass contains citronella, a natural oil often found in insect-repelling candles. (Photo: Zulashai/Shutterstock)

Repels mosquitoes. You’ve no doubt seen citronella candles in stores during the summer and read how citronella will keep mosquitoes away. Citronella is a natural oil found in lemongrass, an ornamental that can grow up to 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide in one season. (It’s worth noting that lemongrass isn’t just the name of one plant; it’s the umbrella name for plants in the Cymbopogon family, which also includes citronella grass.) This grass with wonderful culinary uses is hardy only in South Florida (Zone 10), so almost everyone else will have to grow it as an annual. It does well in a pot or in the ground in a sunny, well-drained location. Use its fragrant, narrow leaves in chicken and pork dishes and to flavor soups and salad dressing. Many Asian recipes call for lemongrass.

 

Bruise the leaves on this hardy plant to repel mosquitoes. (Photo: Andrea_44/Flickr)

Lemon thyme …Repels mosquitoes. This hardy herb can adapt to dry or rocky, shallow soil and will thrive in your herb garden, a rock garden or a front border as long as these are in sunny locations. The plant itself will not repel pesky mosquitoes. To release its chemicals, you must first bruise the leaves. To do this, simply cut off a few stems and rub them between your hands. Before you do that, though, it’s advisable to make sure the plant’s natural properties will not adversely affect you. Determine your tolerance by rubbing crushed leaves on a small area on your forearm for several days.

 

Mint spreads aggressively so it’s best grown in pots unless you want it to take over your yard. (Photo: Edsel Little/Flickr)

Repels mosquitoes. Mint is best grown in pots rather than the ground because it spreads aggressively. Once established in the garden, it can be difficult to remove. Cuttings of mint in mulch can help broccoli, cabbage, and turnips. The leaves are commonly used to flavor minty iced tea. The aromatic properties found in the leaves are also present in the stems and flowers. With a little work, the plant’s aromatic oils can be extracted and combined with apple cider vinegar and cheap vodka (or witch hazel) to make a mosquito repellent. Containers of mint strategically placed in the garden or on the patio will help keep nearby plants insect free.

 

 

Home cooks love rosemary as much as insects hate it. (Photo: Alice Henneman/Flickr)

Repels mosquitoes and a variety of insects harmful to vegetable plants. Rosemary is available in various forms. Plants can be grown in containers on a patio and shaped into ornamental pyramids, grown in herb gardens or planted in landscaped beds, where some varieties can grow quite large. Rosemary’s oils are as delicious to home cooks who use herbs as they are unpleasant to many insects. The plant itself and its cuttings are effective repellents. You can make a simple repellent spray by boiling 1 quart of dried rosemary in a quart of water for 20 to 30 minutes and then straining the liquid into a container at least a half-gallon in size that contains a quart of cool water. Put a cap on the combined liquid and store it in the refrigerator. Add the repellent to small squirt bottles as needed when going outdoors. Discard the remaining repellent in the refrigerator when it no longer has a strong telltale smell of rosemary.

Next up: Ornamental flowers

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Here’s Marie Kondo’s Advice in a Nutshell

The basic principles of the Marie Kondo tidying method (most relevant to the pantry) are:

• You organize by category, rather than location. That means instead of going cupboard by cupboard, you pull all your pots and pans out at once to inspect.
• Take everything out. Nothing should be left on the shelf.
• Put back only the things that spark joy.
  

  Tip 1: Just Toss What You Won’t Use

  I tossed anything that was expired or stale and all the spices that smelled dull. I also started a “for the food pantry” box for anything that was good but I knew I would never use.

  Tip 2: Use the Space Wisely

  When arranging things on the shelves, I didn’t put anything in stacks. I also tried to minimize how often I put things behind other things. But if I had two cans of condensed milk, I did put one behind the other. I positioned tall containers (like flour, for instance) behind shorter ones (powdered sugar).

Yes, There IS Joy in a Tidy Pantry

In the end, while the ramen noodles and olive oil did not really spark joy, my organized shelves definitely did. I find myself smiling when I look in the pantry. Like mess encourages mess, neatness is also contagious. No backsliding yet—and I’m still down to one can of Pam!

Party Patina has many more ideas for organizing your kitchen and whole house.  Be sure to visit this site at, www.partypatina.com.

source:  https://www.tasteofhome.com

 

Let’s be honest! When it’s time to buy a rose fertilizer, for many home gardeners, purchasing of a bag fertilizer for rose bushes is a purchase of mystery.

This need not be; with a little knowledge, anyone can select a rose bush fertilizer to fit any particular need.

You can buy with the assurance that you’ve obtained the proper ingredients for maximum results assured each bag.

By law, all fertilizers carry numbers of the guaranteed plant food such as 10-6-4 or 7-8-5.

The three numbers always indicate the number of units of:

Fertilizers for roses, and for all plants, have always been and always will be in this order.

Thus a formula or n-p-k ratio of 20-10-5 means:

While complete high nitrogen fertilizers tend to give a showy display of top growth, this by itself is not sufficient to ensure healthy plant growth.

In fact, an imbalance of nitrogen can give the false sense of security that plants or a lawn are developing beautifully, when in fact the root systems are being starved.

For this reason, it is essential to feed each type of plant the precise, carefully balanced diet which brings maximum beauty and health to the entire plant.

For healthy rose buses, one of the best diet formulas is 7-8-5.

Unfortunately, most packages of rose fertilizers do not give much additional information about the contents.

The reason is that individual states have different rules as to “how to express the contents” of-a-package and what can and cannot be listed.

Inasmuch as the fertilizer manufacturer cannot afford to print, fill and inventory different packages for every state, they omit much data and lists only the information and terminology agreed upon by all states where it is sold.

Thus a rule to follow is to always ask to see the manufacturer’s literature before you buy. This holds true for organic fertilizers, Miracle-gro, slow-release granular fertilizers and everything in between.

Read more 

 

Understanding the differences in how determinate and indeterminate tomato plants grow and set fruit can help you choose the best type for your home garden. The differences can influence not only which type you choose, but also how the plants should be spaced, trellised, and pruned.

Differences between the growth types

Plant size at maturity

The first difference that we can easily see in the garden is how large the mature plants become.

Determinate tomato plants usually grow between one and five feet in height, which means they are less likely to overwhelm a small garden. Many patio and container type tomatoes have a determinate growth habit.

Indeterminate tomato plants can grow to become much taller, as much as 8 or more feet tall. Main stems of plants in this growth type continue to grow in length/height for as long as they are healthy. Many heirloom varieties are indeterminate type tomatoes.

Semi-determinate tomato plants are a third growth type that you may see. As you might have guessed, the characteristics of a semi-determinate plant are in between those of the two other types. These plants are a little less tall and rangy than indeterminate type tomatoes, but not as compact as determinate types. This growth type can work well in a small garden.

Differences in when they set fruit

Timing of fruit production and ripening — when it is ready to harvest — is another difference between the growth-types that we can see in the garden.

Determinate type tomato plants set almost all of their fruit within a few weeks, and then their productivity slows way down. The fruits form on side-branches that are fairly closely spaced on the plants.

Indeterminate type tomatoes produce fruit all summer and into the fall, if they stay healthy. The fruits are spaced farther apart on indeterminate plants than they are on determinate plants.

Semi-determinate type tomatoes can produce fruit through the whole season, but they may not be as productive toward fall as an indeterminate type.

source: smallgardennews.com

 

 

Most people want to make their yards look better, but sometimes it can be difficult to find something that makes your yard stand out. With these 10 high impact landscaping ideas for instant curb appeal, you’ll be able to make some changes for the better that are generally affordable and different from what everyone else is doing. In fact, most of these are quite simple and really make a dramatic difference.

Use Planters

Whether it’s on your front porch, down the driveway or by the windows, planters look excellent in the yard and go a long way toward getting you that curb appeal you crave. You can choose large or small planters depending on the size of the area you are working with, then place shrubs, plants, or flowers in them in a uniform or random fashion. This is one of the least expensive ways to brighten up any yard.

Landscape Lights

Landscape lights not only brighten up your yard, but they also make it more attractive. You can get very cheap landscape lights or go all out and get the expensive ones, but no matter which you choose, they look nice when used around a driveway, in flower beds, or in certain areas that need a spotlight. There are electric-powered lights and solar options. Solar lights are easier to maintain, but they may not be as bright and have to depend on the sunshine in order to gain power.

Brick Pavers

Brick pavers are not only pretty inexpensive, but they really make an area look clean and well-kept, which is why this is one of the more popular high impact landscaping ideas. You can use them to edge a flower bed or keep in mulch, and it makes the whole area look more uniform and tidy. It’s an easy landscaping idea and one that is easy to rearrange if you grow tired of the look. Because they’re not permanent, you can easily move them around to fit the look you’re going for and then change your mind and start all over again.

Plant Wildflowers

If you want a look that is easy to maintain yet still pretty, plant wildflowers in a flower bed. You won’t have to worry about making the area look perfectly landscaped, but you will still have a flower bed that is lovely and didn’t take much work. Seeds work well, or you can go with cheap plants. Make sure to see if the plants are annuals or bi-annuals so you will know when to expect them to die off.

Add Window Boxes

Window boxes or planters make an excellent addition to your home’s curb appeal. You can buy these pre-made or make them yourself. Whether it’s a wood planter box or one you paint to match the trim of your home, this idea is one of the high impact landscaping ideas that makes a huge difference in how your overall home’s appearance looks to others.

Make a Rock Waterfall

Gutters are one of the areas of the home that have a purpose but can look pedestrian. By stacking flat rocks under the gutter, you create a waterfall effect once the water flows through the gutters, and it immediately brightens up the area and makes it prettier and more serene. This is another inexpensive idea that is fast and easy to do, and it can be rearranged in whatever way looks best to you. Flat rocks can be found at most big box hardware stores, and they’re easy to place because they do not have to be uniform.

topdreamer

A Tree Bench

If you have a tree in your front yard, it’s easy to use a little bit of wood to build a tree bench. This idea is perfect for the children to sit on and read a book or enjoy a game, or you can even put a few potted plants on it to make it even more eye-catching. Best of all, this idea is not only attractive and unique; it’s also functional because you can sit on it and put things on it.

Re-do Your Mailbox

A mailbox is something we all have to have. They are often boring and plain-looking. Make a stone pedestal or place a flower bed around the mailbox. Make sure it is painted nicely to match your home and looks appealing instead of the humdrum mailboxes we’re all used to seeing.

Make Your Own Walkway

A walkway is easy to make and only takes a few hours of your time. Get stone pavers, mark out the walkway area and dig up the grass. Place fresh dirt in that area, place your pavers neatly, and sweep the dirt off, making sure that it fills in the gaps. You can make a more permanent walkway with cement, but if you want easier high impact landscape ideas, you can opt for the dirt and paver route to make things easy. This is also a good way to make a temporary walkway to see how you like it.

Use Camouflage

Garbage bins, air conditioning units, and other areas outside sometimes need a little camouflage to make the entire area look better. Build a brick encasement around garbage bins and air conditioning units to make the area look prettier. These things are unsightly, and while everyone has them, yours do not have to be an eyesore.

There are many high impact landscaping ideas you can use to make your home look better, and these are just a few of them. No matter which ones you choose, it is always worthwhile to make your landscaping look cleaner and more beautiful. Best of all, most ideas are really simple to pull off and won’t cost you a ton of money.

source: Reliable Remodeler