Tired of watering, weeding, feeding, mowing your lawn? Installation of artificial turf is the answer. Hate Fake? Today’s artificial grass looks like the real thing but unlike the real thing – stays perfectly groomed and green all year round. It especially works wonders in a hard-to-grow-anything shady yard.
Johnson’s Landscaping installed this lifelike artificial grass and gave it a natural, undulating border of dry stack walls and soil border for bedding plants to further enhance the illusion. Watch the installation video to see the amazing transformation and the lovely outcome – inviting landscape design for a lucky backyard in NW Washington DC. Contact Johnson’s Landscaping and talk to them about your yard makeover with easy-care outdoor-living ideas brought to fruition with professional landscape design.
Welcome Home Washington would like to introduce you to a highly regarded Washington, DC Metro Area business in the field of improving water drainage on property and eliminating erosion problems: Drainage & Erosion Solutions LLC.
If you find any of these following problems on your land,Drainage & Erosion Solutionscan assess the current situation and provide design solutions:
Besides directing unwanted water away from areas, Drainage & Erosion Solutionscan add desirable natural light to your structure or home’s lower levels with egress. Whether you prefer a natural look with stone or maintenance-free alternative window wells from Wellcraft, it will be expertly installed. If you have a below-ground room with a closet (even if it’s a home office), it is, by law, classified as a bedroom and you’ll require egress*.Contactthem today if you may not be up to code.
*An egress window is a window that is required in specific locations in a dwelling and is intended to provide an emergency means of exiting a dwelling. Windows must meet specific size and requirements to qualify as an egress window.
Feeling creative this season? Evergreen decorations have been a part of winter festivals since ancient times. They have been used for centuries to represent everlasting life and hope for the return of spring. Take a walk around your own yard to see if there are some good candidates for decorative holiday greenery: Southern Magnolia, Holly, Junipers, Cedars, Firs, Spruce, Mountain Laurel, Pine, Cryptomeria, Yew, Boxwood, Pyracantha, Leyland Cypress, Arborvitae and Nandina (many more!) may all be pruned to provide Christmas greenery. There are a few points to remember when collecting these decorative materials:
1. Remember that you are pruning and in the wrong season. Remove the branch or stem at its base where it intersects another branch or stem. Prune with an eye toward thinning the entire plant towards your goal shape for better air and light circulation in the growing season.
2. When you bring your collection inside, re-cut the ends of each stem or branch and then split them either with a knife or by smashing with a hammer just before plunging them into warm water. The greenery needs to remain in warm water for 8-24 hours. Allow to dry and then spray all foliage with “Wilt-Pruf.” Do not use antitranspirants on juniper berries, cedar or blue spruce. The product can damage the wax coating that gives these plants. Keep completed wreaths, garlands and arrangements in a cool location until use. Display fresh greenery and fruits out of the sun and away from heat.
3. Poisonous berries are found on holly plants, yews, mistletoe, ivy plants, Jerusalem cherry, bittersweet and crown of thorns. The pearly white berries of mistletoe are particularly toxic. Keep all these plants out of the reach of children and curious pets.
Plan to replace greenery and fruits throughout the holiday season if they become less than fresh. Never keep dried out greens near a lit fireplace.
Decorating with Greens
Many different types of decorations can be made with fresh greenery. Some traditional types are garlands, swags, tabletops, kissing balls, and wreaths. A number of different types of forms can be stuffed with sprigs or branches to create topiaries. Kissing balls are a safer alternative to the usual mistletoe sprig (beware of mistletoe berries).
Projects:
How to Make a Holiday Kissing Ball
Holiday kissing balls are often made of short sprigs of boxwood or other greenery and hung as an alternative to the traditional mistletoe sprig.
The easiest way to construct a kissing ball is to use a round potato for the base. The moisture in the potato will help keep the cut greenery fresh. Soak greenery to be used in water overnight. Insert evenly sized sprigs of the selected green into the potato until it is completely covered. If you have difficulty inserting the sprigs, make a starter hole for each with a metal skewer. Make the evergreen sprays form an even, well-rounded ball. After the ball is completed, decorate it with ribbons, berries, mistletoe or whatever else you wish. You can find a huge selection of mini-decorations at craft stores and garden centers’ Holiday Shops. Fasten a long piece of wire to the ball so it can be hung from a chandelier, doorway, or window.
How to Make Mini Christmas Trees or Topiaries
These are so beautiful you’ll want to make several at once – kids love to decorate them with child-size ornaments. Save 2 for your own display and give the rest away as spectacular hostess gifts.
Foam forms are available at craft stores. Prepare boxwood as described above and take sprigs of it or smaller leaf evergreens and push into the form until covered. Once it looks like a miniature christmas tree or the form you choose is fully covered decorate with ribbons, bows, mini-bulbs and ornaments, even strings of mini-lights you can get at local craft and garden centers. Keep in a shallow dish or festive pot (bonsai pots from garden centers are a good choice) and water once a day to keep the form moist.
…or take the busy Washingtonian route: just go to your local Garden Center for huge selections of already prepared greenery. Regardless of where it comes from, greenery crowns your house with nature’s simple reminder that you are uniquely blessed and there is always hope and renewal in the new year. Have a great holiday season – from WHW.
We would like to welcome Betty’s Azalea Ranch to Welcome Home Washington. Betty’s is the largest single garden center in the U.S. As their name proclaims, their specialty is azaleas. You have never seen so many incredible azaleas in one place! The hardest part is picking your favorites from the many varieties and full range of colors. Choose from hardy standards or go for their unusual bi-colors or variegated.
16 Acres holds a lot more than their reknown azaleas & rhododendrons. You’ll find forests of trees, evergreens, ornamentals, shrubs, flowering bushes of every kind, annuals, perennials for every season ready for your purchase – all at discount prices.
Everything for your garden is right here: mulch, soil, tools, fertilizers, pots, statuary (if you want it for your yard and garden it is here) – with lots of friendly, knowledgeable service from the staff.
Need someone to put it all together for you? They have a landscape department that can turn your ideas into showhouse-garden style. Hardscapes, flower beds, landscaped walkways…put the jewel in the crown with expert installation of their healthy, quality stock.
No matter what the season, the scene is always changing at Betty’s Azalea Ranch to serve your needs whether it’s azaleas for Spring, flowers for Summer, planting bulbs and trees for Fall, or decorative indoor plants for Winter like poinsettias.
A one-of-a-kind Discount Garden Center right here- for your enjoyment and shopping- in Fairfax, VA.
If your daylily blooms, hostas, bushes, impatiens, vegetable garden, etc. have suddenly been devoured- you may have a deer problem. The Washington Area has a burgeoning problem with the deer population. They are driven from the shrinking woodlands to our gardens for food especially during times of drought which we are having right now in MD, DC, & No.VA.
There are several home-made solutions to repelling deer that some people swear by:
-hand a stong soap like Irish Spring or Ivory hung among your plants
-deer hate the smell of eggs (mix eggs and water and spray on your plants, add a little tabasco!)
-four or five mothballs in an onion sack, hang it from a tree about as high as a deer
-human hair sprinkled around the plants
-blood meal
Mechanical:
-a six-foot high wire fence (angled away from the yard) will create a physical and psychological barrier that deer will fear becoming entangled in. The fence must have a 30-degree angle to be effective (deer can jump vertical fences 8 feet high).
-the “scarecross sprinkler”: squirts bursts of water when it detects movement
-deer guard: a fine mesh that comes in rolls or different sizes to place over your plants and bushes
Deer Repellant products (if anyone has used these let us know):
Liquid Fence®
Deer Off®
Milorganite. It is a fertilizer made from human waste, will not burn your plants and does not have to be watered in
The best idea is to plant deer-resistant plants so you have a good head start.
Here’s some great “deer-resistant” plants that do well in our area – Not a guarantee: if a deer is starving, he/she will eat anything.
Lucky 21 favorites of Welcome Home Washington.
Achillea – Yarrow
Aconitum – Monkshood
Ajuga – Bugleweed
Artemisia – Wormwood
Buxus – Boxwood
Carex ¨C Sedge (grasslike plants)
Coreopsis – Tickseed
Dicentra – Bleeding Hearts
Digitalis – Foxglove
Ferns
Geranium – Hardy, Scented Geranium; Cranesbill
Grasses – Ornamental Grass
Helleborus – Hellebore
Iris sibirica – Siberian Iris
Lavandula – Lavender
Monarda – Bee Balm
Perovskia – Russian Sage
Picea – Spruce
Polemonium -Jacob’s Ladder
Potentilla – Cinquefoil
Salvia – Meadow Sage
Good Gardening!
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2011 Update: same scenario only this year I caught the deer at 4AM when they set off my security lights. I had to go outside and shoo them away (those daylillies are such a treat to them). I sprayed Liquid Fence on them the next day (there were a few buds left) and so far so good. Liquid Fence (deer & rabbit repellant), by the way, smells SO BAD. I can’t describe it on a family website. We had a downpour last night so we’ll see how it holds up.
