Add Color to Your Landscape by Thinking Outside the Box

 Sometimes you find yourself wondering how you can brighten up your landscape in different ways besides just flowers and flowering bushes.

Take a look in your backyard. What structures do you have? A gazebo? A shed. I have both and they needed painting. My shed was a barn red and the gazebo was the same old drab white you see everywhere.

I started thinking of ways to make them look better and make the gazebo a focus in the year. Well, since I have a couple ponds in the back and a dropped in pond on my deck, they are the focal point. But I wanted the gazebo to stand out. It was a gift to my wife from my dad. Both have passed away but I wanted the gazebo be kind of a remembrance to them.

Blue! I decided to go blue. Obviously. Then I painted the floor a dark green. It was totally a coincidence that an old zoo sign I picked up when working had colors that matched the gazebo. Even the red blended in.

Originally there was lattice around the bottom part as well as covering the top. But it was hard to blow leaves and dirt off through the lattice and there were clumps of stuff on the top. So I pulled the lattice.

Now I can easily take a leaf blower and clean all the debris off the floor..

Next was the shed. The red was not going to work. So I decided to use the color scheme of the gazebo and switch it. A green wall with blue trim. The nice thing is when the shadows are out back, sometimes you can't even see the shed as it blends into the background.

It's an old shed so I patched it up and then painted. Funny story. Now it is but not so much at the time. This is a water based paint. Weatherman said 0% chance of rain. He lied. I got 3 sides done and the rain came. Went back after it passed and pretty much repainted the sides. Then I painted the front and the rain came again. I look out my sliding glass door and watch the front of the shed turn red again.

Yeah. I was not a happy camper. I was ready to give up but went out in the evening and touched up the other 3 walls and completely redid the front. SMH. It didn't rain until the next evening.

Look out in your backyard. Can you do something similar?

How to Make Your Deck Unique

 How would you like to make your deck stand out from the others? I'm going to show you some ways to make your deck unique. 

In this picture you can see I've dropped a pond into the deck as well as a Japanese Maple. One thing I want to point out if you decide to do something like this. Make certain you build a support stand under the deck to hold whatever you drop down.

In this case it's very important. The pond holds 75 gallons of water. Building a platform not only holds it up but also removes this weight from the floor of the deck.

The same goes for the Japanese Maple. This is a big pot and with the dirt in it, it's heavy. I had wiggle room with the pond liner as it was empty when I dropped it in so I could take my time to manipulate the wood holding it up.

Not so with the Japanese Maple. Drop that down with the support too low and it could fall through the hole and ruin your tree. Also notice I didn't make the pot flush with the floor. I left the top width above the floor so that debris being blown around wouldn't all gather in the pot.

It's not quite dark outside but it's dark enough that the motion sensor light kicked on. I have a red bulb in it. It not only makes the deck look pretty cool but, surprisingly, it seems to keep the mosquitoes away from me when my skin is red from the light.

As you can see in this picture, a stickman is enjoying the ambiance.