Landscaping Without Plants

When you consider changing your landscape, sometimes it's not all about adding plants. In fact, it might be desirable not to at times. 

My daughter rents a small house she rents and she works at trying to make the front yard look nice. The problem is she would try to plant perennials along the driveway and they would seem to never grow. Whether it was the way the sun hits that area or whatever, they just didn't grow and she would end up wasting her money.

She came up with a solution. I bought her solar lights and she put them along the driveway. She added black mulch. This time though, instead of adding plants, she added flags. She spaced them between the lights and the result transformed her driveway. She no longer has to water the plants constantly and she has received compliments for her layout.

You can see how this borders her yard and the flags definitely catch your eye when you drive down the street. 

The same goes for the front of the house. Using a little imagination she took a sore spot and transformed it using mulch and a bird bath and lawn decorations. You can see one of the hostas, which I will be discussing in another post. Hosta is a terrific plant that you can basically plant and forget and a single plant can be easily divided as it grows so you get free plants.

Once the rose of Sharon shrubs blooms (it had gotten out of hand so she had it trimmed before I took this picture), 

Before I leave her house, I want to show you one other project she did. Around back she added lights to her awning. Check out the ambience. These lights cost about $30 and immediately added charm to the backyard. 

Does this give you any ideas? It doesn't matter if you live in a rental property or have a small house and a small budget. Use a little imagination and see if you can transform your landscape.

Birds in the Backyard

If you like birds and you're providing them with a birdhouse of trees or bushes and water, be prepared to attract plenty of birds tom your yard.

Sometimes you walk outside and find a nest with baby birds like this one my friend found right outside her door. 

These are baby robins and it will be fun watching them grow. I have a bird house right outside my back door and we get baby birds 3 or 4 times a year. I was lucky one time to be watching as a baby bird flew for the first time. It's fun watching the birds feed them as well.

I came across this baby blue jay one time while doing some work in the yard. I had to keep the dog away from it for a few hours but it eventually was able to leave.

I like watching the birds taking a bath in one of the ponds. It's easier than having a bird bath because I don't have to add water regularly. There have been ducks visiting the pond as well. There use to be a male and female duck every spring. They would stay for a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately once we got a dog, they stopped coming.

Be prepared for critters to visit your yard. If you have a garden, you'll need to set up some fencing to keep them out of it.