Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Landscape Design Professionals Having a Sustainable Landscape Design
When it comes investing your hard earned money, you want to know it will be as safe as possible and that you will see a return. Real estate investing will provide both peace of mind and a return on what you have put into it. Below are some Tips that will help you while pursuing your money making endeavor.
When buying an apartment building that already has occupants, carefully review their applications. Find out who their employers are as this can be very useful information. Certain companies are sure to experience difficulties along the way and you dont want to wind up purchasing an apartment building only to find many of your tenants will probably be laid off soon and unable to pay rent. Also find out how many tenants pay rent late and whether or not a fee is charged and paid when rent is not turned in on time. This will give you an idea of what to expect in your immediate future and will help you decide whether or not you should even make the purchase.
Sustainability is a term used often nowadays. It is used in the field of tourism, house construction, planning and a lot more. What is sustainability in the first place? Sustainability means the capacity to endure. It is something you plan for thinking about the long -term effects. Keeping this in mind, sustainable Landscape Design pertains to the balance of both the man-made and the natural elements. The Design is planned to keep the natural elements well maintained without letting the man-made materials get in the way. Sustainable Landscape development is now more active when it comes to real estate development. Due to the natural disasters being experienced by every country today, people now are more aware of the importance of taking care of the environment and having sustainability in everything they do. Even a space as small as a garden can and should practice sustainability.
In order to start a sustainable Landscape Design, you will need to find out the total of the area. This is needed so that the elements that will be put in can be well balanced. Landscaping maybe just a way of decorating for some but experienced Landscape artists and companies know for a fact that there is a science into it. Professional Landscape artists know the right number of plants to be placed in a particular amount of area so as not to deprive other plants of water and sunlight. They also know how to place tall plants with the small ones so every plant has the same amount of sunlight shone on it.
The good thing about sustainable Landscape service providers is that they use chemicals that are not harmful to the environment. Harmful chemicals might not only harm the plants in the long run, it may also cause diseases to the pets as well as the residents of the house. What a lot of sustainable Landscape artists use are natural elements in order to beautify the garden and keep its ecology in check. Pesticides with harmful ingredients are already a thing of the past, and every garden owner should be aware of this also.
If you have the budget to really go all in when it comes to sustainability in your backyard, you can go for solar panels. There are houses in the US that already use this technology. The power from the solar panels can power up the electric sprinkle, the decorative lights in the garden and even the motor for the fountain. Note that this option is only for the serious conservationist with enough money in their pocket since solar panels do not come in cheap.
The advent of sustainable Landscape Design paves the way for the construction of bigger projects such as a sustainable home, subdivision and even an entire community. It helps protect the homeowner as well as the environment. Not a lot of people are supporting this idea for now. Eventually, the number will grow as more and more individuals see the benefits of sustainable Landscape Designs.
If you think that you have learned a lot about how to have a sustainable Landscape Design, then you can give it a try Landscape Design in Mainline JJD Landscaping is a locally owned & operated business providing custom residential construction services. With 10 years experience, we serve owners throughout Delaware, Chester and surrounding counties
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When buying an apartment building that already has occupants, carefully review their applications. Find out who their employers are as this can be very useful information. Certain companies are sure to experience difficulties along the way and you dont want to wind up purchasing an apartment building only to find many of your tenants will probably be laid off soon and unable to pay rent. Also find out how many tenants pay rent late and whether or not a fee is charged and paid when rent is not turned in on time. This will give you an idea of what to expect in your immediate future and will help you decide whether or not you should even make the purchase.
Sustainability is a term used often nowadays. It is used in the field of tourism, house construction, planning and a lot more. What is sustainability in the first place? Sustainability means the capacity to endure. It is something you plan for thinking about the long -term effects. Keeping this in mind, sustainable Landscape Design pertains to the balance of both the man-made and the natural elements. The Design is planned to keep the natural elements well maintained without letting the man-made materials get in the way. Sustainable Landscape development is now more active when it comes to real estate development. Due to the natural disasters being experienced by every country today, people now are more aware of the importance of taking care of the environment and having sustainability in everything they do. Even a space as small as a garden can and should practice sustainability.
In order to start a sustainable Landscape Design, you will need to find out the total of the area. This is needed so that the elements that will be put in can be well balanced. Landscaping maybe just a way of decorating for some but experienced Landscape artists and companies know for a fact that there is a science into it. Professional Landscape artists know the right number of plants to be placed in a particular amount of area so as not to deprive other plants of water and sunlight. They also know how to place tall plants with the small ones so every plant has the same amount of sunlight shone on it.
The good thing about sustainable Landscape service providers is that they use chemicals that are not harmful to the environment. Harmful chemicals might not only harm the plants in the long run, it may also cause diseases to the pets as well as the residents of the house. What a lot of sustainable Landscape artists use are natural elements in order to beautify the garden and keep its ecology in check. Pesticides with harmful ingredients are already a thing of the past, and every garden owner should be aware of this also.
If you have the budget to really go all in when it comes to sustainability in your backyard, you can go for solar panels. There are houses in the US that already use this technology. The power from the solar panels can power up the electric sprinkle, the decorative lights in the garden and even the motor for the fountain. Note that this option is only for the serious conservationist with enough money in their pocket since solar panels do not come in cheap.
The advent of sustainable Landscape Design paves the way for the construction of bigger projects such as a sustainable home, subdivision and even an entire community. It helps protect the homeowner as well as the environment. Not a lot of people are supporting this idea for now. Eventually, the number will grow as more and more individuals see the benefits of sustainable Landscape Designs.
If you think that you have learned a lot about how to have a sustainable Landscape Design, then you can give it a try Landscape Design in Mainline JJD Landscaping is a locally owned & operated business providing custom residential construction services. With 10 years experience, we serve owners throughout Delaware, Chester and surrounding counties
Large Fire Pit Installation Video in Winter Park CO
Here is the we video promised of the larger of the two fire pits we installed at Winter Park Ski Resort.
You can see the custom crossfire burner tree we built by viewing this video. This video was shot on our testing table at our manufacturing headquarters.
This video below is the installation process of the steel logs that sit over the actual crossfire burner in Winter Park, Colorado.
If you are in the market for a custom fire pit for your home or business, visit us online or call today. 1-877-556-5255
Monday, March 3, 2014
Monumental Fragility The Stunning Design for the Expo Milan 2015
Water surrounds the site and creates a biofiltering wetland that also produces food. The canals will integrate into Milan, extending the benefits of the system beyond the site. The series of canals are a clever system that allows all countries equal frontage along the boulevards and water.
I’m entranced by this notion of monumental fragility. In this exposition, the human creative spirit will not be channeled into celebrating our own glory, but on creating the conditions for nature to show its efficiency, fecundity, and beauty. The challenge for these designers is how to execute real moments of fragility within this monumental framework. This requires understanding the site at the scale of the garden, an outdoor scale which architects often fumble. The other challenge will be how to balance the energy and waste of a building project of this scale with its environmental goals. Architect William McDonough has brilliantly executed the “cradle to grave” approach on other projects, so the project has the right design thinking to make this happen.
I am enchanted by this master plan. Road trip, anyone? Milan 2015.
Credits: All renderings by Herzog de Meuron. Summary of design based on text from http://arkhitekton.net/ and http://www.archdaily.com/.
The Localism Bill cometh
I thought that the exciting news that the UK Governments new, “Decentralisation and Localism Bill” is only 2 sleeps away, was worth marking with a blog post.
I think it’s fair to say, that many within the planning profession have been rather alarmed by the Government’s approach to planning. Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles (see above), has rather exemplified this; making a series of sweeping, cavalier statements about planning and previous systems, but rather failing to come up implementable policies or with details of how things will actually work (see the court ruling that he wasn’t allowed to scrap Regional Spatial Strategies, and the subsequent court ruling that he wasn’t allowed to say that this didn’t matter). Hence why, the new Bill and some much needed clarity, is so eagerly awaited.
Up until now, we’ve been mainly going on conjecture, and projections arising from of the Conservatives, “Open Source Planning – White Paper”, released prior to the election. We do know of course that regions are out, and that “Localism” is the new big thing (as an aside, I rather liked this assessment from Bentley, Bailey & Shutt, on this proposed move).
For someone currently studying planning, you’ll appreciate that this uncertainty makes things rather difficult. As we’ve not been able to have a lecture on how planning is currently meant to work, we’ve had some interesting class discussions instead.
The weekend papers carried a few nuggets of information about what the bill would actually contain: the big news, as reported here by Building Design, is that neighbourhoods will be allowed to take over powers from their local authority, and effectively make their own development plans. The overwhelming feeling was that this was absurd, frankly came as little surprise. However, I found the relief amongst the course members who are currently working in local authority planning offices, more interesting. Their worry appeared to be that the Government would simply widen permitted development rights, meaning that many public sector planners would lose their jobs. The consensus seemed to be that planners would have an enormous amount of work to do in coming years, initially giving advice to communities on making their plans, before having to stitch together a patchwork of different development plans, and finally to administer this incredibly complicated system. I find this potential increase in the bureaucracy of being a planner pretty depressing.
Having recently written a fairly lengthy essay on the history and theory of planning over the last 60 years; what I found most striking is how planners have generally moved away from a position where they are producing positive proposals for implementation, to a position where their role is more about regulating policy compliances. Despite recent attempts to reverse this trend (see the New Spatial Planning), I’m disappointed that the new legislation is likely to lead more planners regulating, rather than actually planning for development.
Incidentally Eric Pickles made a comment a few weeks back, about how planners needed to get back to making plans (I’m tempted to do a best of Pickles post at some point); that current policy appears to run contrary to this is rather characteristic of both Pickles and the current administration. Despite recent talk of empowering local communities, news arrived this week that Planning Aid, an organisation that gives free planning advice to individuals and communities, has had it’s funding taken away and their staff have been issued notices of potential redundancies. If this isn’t a contradiction, I really don’t know what is.
Amongst the gloom, there have been some positive comments on the localism approach, most notably by Amanda Baillieu (here) and Jonathan Glancey (here). Certainly, greater community participation is to be welcomed (although the complications of actually doing this would span many, many blog posts), but I’m yet to be convinced that the proposed changes will be any improvement on previous approaches. Roll on Thursday...
Edit: I gather that the Bill will now be published on Monday 13th December 2010. Honest.
Landscaping Tips For A Small Front Yard
Having a modest front lawn isnt any excuse for not placing any sort of consideration or work into innovative gardening ideas which would set your home with curb appeal well above the neighbors. Allow me to share 5 easy and quick front garden landscape designs ideas for small front yards that wont break your budget and may be finished in a Saturday and Sunday.
1. Make a container garden on each side of the entrance steps or porch. Adding containers in the same color will add a unified appearance. Alter the size and height for aesthetic interest. Utilizing the same colours and shades in the floral colour pallette may look quite stylish and elegant.
2. Incorporate a small lawn space in the corner of the front garden as part of your Landscaping ideas. Plant hassle-free maintenance evergreens as well as a couple of small flowering bushes for softness and colour. This will create some privacy from the road without yet not crowd the house too much and will allow sunshine into the house.
3. Add a six-foot round brick paver patio. Create a space at the front entrance into the house or off to the side of the sidewalk close to the door. Place a small open-air table and chair set for a couple in the center, add a potted plant and you have created a enticing spot whether your company are coming or going. Place small shrubbery or even perennial plants round the outdoor patio, and finish it off with a 4 inch layer of mulch.
4. Entice butterflies and soften the hard edges of the driveway at the same time with small pockets of flowerbeds planted with flowers that attract butterflies. Vibrant blooms like zinnia, gay feather, cosmos, and lantana create the sweet nectar the butterflies love, will prove to add color and interest to your front lawn. Include a small bird bath filled with clean water and a rock for the butterflies to sun on.
5. Freshen up the foundation plantings. Pull old and unhealthy plants out of the landscaping, and prune and trim what is left. Fill in the new bare spots with grasses and native plants. Using these plants conserves water, and will give the front yard an updated contemporary look and feel. Add a small water feature near the front door. Trickling water can be welcoming and soothing and the movement adds energy. Incorporating patio lights round the brand new lawn can light up the evening to show off the front yard and also accentuate the house features.
Learn more on : Princeton NJ Lawn Maintenance
Learn more on : Princeton NJ Lawn Maintenance
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Obedient Plant
Physostegia
A genus of 12 species of plants that are part of the larger Lamiaceae family.
Physostegia angustifolia
A large perennial, forming a clump up to 6 x 3+ feet, that is native to wet soil in the central U.S. from Texas to Illinois.
The pinkish-purple flowers are borne in clusters, up to 6 inches in length, during spring and summer.
Hardy zones 3 to 8.
Physostegia correllii ( Corrells obedient Plant )
A perennial, reaching up to 7 feet in height with thick stems up to 1 inch thick. It is native to southeastern Texas, western Louisiana and northern Mexico ( Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Sonoro states ). It is endangered with extinction in the wild and should be used more as a landscape plant to ensure its continuing survival. Fast growing, it can form large rhizomatous colonies.
The ovate leaves are deep green.
The showy, purplish-pink flowers, up to 1 inch across, are borne mid summer to early autumn.
Hardy zones 6 to 9 in full sun to partial shade on moist soil. It is flood tolerant.
Physostegia virginiana
The wild form is an invasive spreader, forming upright clumps up to 6 x 6 feet, that is native to North America from Alberta to New Brunswick; south to Louisiana to Florida.
The toothed, lance-shaped leaves, up to 5 or rarely 8 inches in length, are glossy mid- green.
The pink, tubular flowers, up to 1 inch across, are borne in terminal spikes from mid summer into mid-autumn. The flowers attract hummingbirds and are a great nectar source for butterflies.
The square stems are green.
Hardy zones 2 to 8 in full sun to partial shade on fertile moist soil.
Mulching improves vigor by preserving moisture and cooling soil.
* photo taken on Sep 2 2010 in Columbia, MD
* photos taken on Aug 25 2012 in Columbia, MD
* photo taken by Jennifer Anderson @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
Bouquet Rose
Forms a clump up to 5 x 6 feet with pink flowers.
Eyeful Tower
Massive, reaching up to 7 feet in height, but does not run as much as the species.
The flowers are lavender-pink.
Gigantea
Reaches up to 7 feet with very glossy green foliage.
Miss Manners
Forms a moderate growing clump, up to 3 x 3 feet, bearing pure white flowers borne on terminal spiked from early summer into early autumn.
The foliage is luxuriant deep green.
It does not spread by rhizomes and is not invasive.
* photo taken on July 1 2011 in Columbia, MD
* photo taken on Aug 25 2011 @ Scott Arboretum, Swarthmore College, PA
Pink Bouquet
Reaches up to 4 feet with dense clusters of pink flowers.
Red Beauty
Vigorous growing, reaching up to 3 feet with reddish-pink flower spikes during summer.
Rosea
Reaches up to 3 feet with pink flower spikes during summer.
Rose Queen
Reaches up to 3.3 feet with intense pink flowers borne mid summer through early autumn.
Summer Snow
Reaches up to 3 feet in height with pure white flowers. It is slow spreading an not invasive.
Summer Spire
Flowers are lilac-purple.
Variegata
Reaches up to 4 x 3 feet with pink flowers and foliage that is heavily blotched creamy-white. Very beautiful and is not invasive.
Vivid
Forming a rapid growing, dense clump up to 3 x 6 feet with bright pink flowers borne terminal spikes during late summer.
* photos taken on Sep 14 2012 in Columbia, MD
* photos taken on Sep 18 2013 in Columbia, MD
Read More..
A genus of 12 species of plants that are part of the larger Lamiaceae family.
Physostegia angustifolia
A large perennial, forming a clump up to 6 x 3+ feet, that is native to wet soil in the central U.S. from Texas to Illinois.
The pinkish-purple flowers are borne in clusters, up to 6 inches in length, during spring and summer.
Hardy zones 3 to 8.
Physostegia correllii ( Corrells obedient Plant )
A perennial, reaching up to 7 feet in height with thick stems up to 1 inch thick. It is native to southeastern Texas, western Louisiana and northern Mexico ( Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Sonoro states ). It is endangered with extinction in the wild and should be used more as a landscape plant to ensure its continuing survival. Fast growing, it can form large rhizomatous colonies.
The ovate leaves are deep green.
The showy, purplish-pink flowers, up to 1 inch across, are borne mid summer to early autumn.
Hardy zones 6 to 9 in full sun to partial shade on moist soil. It is flood tolerant.
Physostegia virginiana
The wild form is an invasive spreader, forming upright clumps up to 6 x 6 feet, that is native to North America from Alberta to New Brunswick; south to Louisiana to Florida.
The toothed, lance-shaped leaves, up to 5 or rarely 8 inches in length, are glossy mid- green.
The pink, tubular flowers, up to 1 inch across, are borne in terminal spikes from mid summer into mid-autumn. The flowers attract hummingbirds and are a great nectar source for butterflies.
The square stems are green.
Hardy zones 2 to 8 in full sun to partial shade on fertile moist soil.
Mulching improves vigor by preserving moisture and cooling soil.
* photo taken on Sep 2 2010 in Columbia, MD
* photos taken on Aug 25 2012 in Columbia, MD
* photo taken by Jennifer Anderson @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
Bouquet Rose
Forms a clump up to 5 x 6 feet with pink flowers.
Eyeful Tower
Massive, reaching up to 7 feet in height, but does not run as much as the species.
The flowers are lavender-pink.
Gigantea
Reaches up to 7 feet with very glossy green foliage.
Miss Manners
Forms a moderate growing clump, up to 3 x 3 feet, bearing pure white flowers borne on terminal spiked from early summer into early autumn.
The foliage is luxuriant deep green.
It does not spread by rhizomes and is not invasive.
* photo taken on July 1 2011 in Columbia, MD
* photo taken on Aug 25 2011 @ Scott Arboretum, Swarthmore College, PA
Pink Bouquet
Reaches up to 4 feet with dense clusters of pink flowers.
Red Beauty
Vigorous growing, reaching up to 3 feet with reddish-pink flower spikes during summer.
Rosea
Reaches up to 3 feet with pink flower spikes during summer.
Rose Queen
Reaches up to 3.3 feet with intense pink flowers borne mid summer through early autumn.
Summer Snow
Reaches up to 3 feet in height with pure white flowers. It is slow spreading an not invasive.
Summer Spire
Flowers are lilac-purple.
Variegata
Reaches up to 4 x 3 feet with pink flowers and foliage that is heavily blotched creamy-white. Very beautiful and is not invasive.
Vivid
Forming a rapid growing, dense clump up to 3 x 6 feet with bright pink flowers borne terminal spikes during late summer.
* photos taken on Sep 14 2012 in Columbia, MD
* photos taken on Sep 18 2013 in Columbia, MD
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