The Canberra based gardening company have introduced a range of services aimed at those who do not require drastic changes.

Canberra, Australia – July 6, 2013 /MarketersMedia/ —

One of the best parts of living in Australia is the amount of time one can comfortably spend outdoors, and the garden is a safe place in which families and friends can gather around the barbeque or relax on a lazy afternoon. The garden does however require almost constant maintenance to look its best, and busy home owners and those with family often find too much competition for their time to dedicate enough to horticulture. Vibrant Landscapes are now looking to lift that burden by offering a full range of maintenance services alongside their creative endeavours.

The Canberra Gardener is quickly gaining recognition for their affordable gardening services offering Canberra lawn mowing, guttering services, garden maintenance services and an end of lease garden clean up for renters.

The clean-up services allows those approaching the end of their rental lease to have their garden expertly cleaned up and beautified so that the landlord and the tenants who follow will find it in its best possible state. The garden maintenance service includes mowing, pruning, watering and planting to keep a garden looking tip top.

Vibrant Landscapes are passionate about creating and maintain beautiful gardens but they are just as passionate about timekeeping and value for money. Their mantra’s are “we turn up on time, and do an honest job” and “making the world a better place, one garden at a time” and they live by those promises, believing punctuality and value for money are the least customers should expect.

A spokesperson for Vibrant Landscapes explained their evolution, “We started this business because we are passionate about the creative side of gardening, but we soon understood that what many gardens need is not necessarily a total revolution but a degree of tender loving care that home owners are too busy to provide themselves. The maintenance services we offer allow people to make the best of what they have and make the garden once again a space they love to spend time in. Once they feel comfortable again in the space, we know they can start to see the potential for the creative work we can do.”

Vibrant Landscapes: Vibrant Landscapes is a gardening and landscaping service operating in Canberra, Australia. They aim to bring excellence and integrity to everything they do, which extends from lawn mowing services to gardening, landscaping and full redesign services. The company makes regular special offers to attract new customers and has an online portfolio of gardens they have created and maintained.

For more information about us, please visit http://www.vibrantlandscapes.com.au/

Contact Info:
Name: Andrew Bobinskas
Email: vibrantlandscapes@outlook.com
Address:
Phone: 1300698427
Organization: Vibrant Landscapes

Source: http://marketersmedia.com/vibrant-landscapes-offers-new-maintenance-services-for-owners-and-renters/17608

Via: MarketersMedia PR Distribution

 

BY KEVIN BEESE | Contributor

July 8, 2013 2:22PM

Master Gardener Thayer Jabin (right) speaks with Rose Chen about Jabin’s work in the back yard of Caren and Walter Van Slyke during the annual Oak Park Conservatory’s Garden Walk. | Kevin Beese~For Sun-Times Media

Updated: July 8, 2013 2:50PM

OAK PARK — Mike Reust brought Laterite stone from Calcutta and a spiritual house from Tibet to accentuate his landscaping.

Caren and Walter Van Slyke brought a jumping rope lady statue from Sarasota, Fla.

Paul Kotkovich brought flowers from Lowe’s.

Homeowners featured in this year’s Oak Park Conservatory Garden Walk say it doesn’t matter how you get to your landscaping happy place, it is just important to get there. They agree designing your landscaping is a personal choice and something that can be done by any homeowner regardless of income or how green his or her thumb is.

“I’m one who’d rather try and fail than not try anything at all,” said Kotkovich, who with his wife, Angela, did all the landscaping, including a pond and a trellis with Concord grapes, at their home on Le Moyne Parkway, Oak Park.

Kotkovich, who works in the film industry, said he and and his wife, who is a graphic designer, work well together. He said Angela knew instantly that certain tall grass would pop with a certain background.

“We work together, we argue together,” Kotkovich said. “She has a good pointer finger. She points and says, ‘This will go here. That will go there.’”

He said it has taken 10 years to get the home’s landscaping where is today and there has been “lots of trial and error.”

Having gardened since a kid, Kotkovich said he enjoys doing the work himself. He said he especially liked creating the backyard pond, which includes two koi and various goldfish.

How a homeowner gets to that marquis landscape that earns a spot on the annual Garden Walk is a matter of opinion. Individuals like Kotkovich and Reust, who lives on Belleforte Avenue in Oak Park, with his wife, Ann Maxwell, have gotten there by handling the landscaping responsibilities themselves.

For others, like the Van Slykes, on South Humphrey Avenue in Oak Park, it has been through the work of a designer that their back yard has flourished. Thayer Jabin, a master gardener, has worked with the Van Slykes for 15 years and converted what was a shade back yard into a sun back yard when two large trees were lost – one to a storm, the other to emerald ash borerers.

Caren Van Slyke said that by getting a designer and staging the work, you can get exactly what you want for landscaping.

“A designer will work with you,” Van Slyke said.

“If you don’t have the vision to devise something, a designer can come with something for you,” she added.

“We know we are not going to be in the house for 20 or 30 years, so we wanted something that would take only about five years to get going. A designer can work with you on those things.”

Over time, even fashions change in landscaping, but the good plants remain the same.

During the Victorian era (1837-1901) and even into the Edwardian period that followed, Alternanthera ficoidea reigned along with the British monarchs in the gardens of the day. There were elaborate parterre beds, knot gardens, edgings and floral clocks made up of thousands of these plants that we call today Joseph’s coat. This is a plant that responds well to clipping and close planting to create designs.

And in certain locations in England the style still endures. Today, we see a revival of this planting style in the three-dimensional figures at the Disney Parks, in some Canadian gardens and in theme and logo plantings.

As you recall from biblical writings, Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, was given a legendary coat of many colors from his father. Other names given to the plant include parrot leaf and calico plant, but my grandmother called it Joseph’s coat, and I stick with that name. As a child, I grew the old form of my grandmother’s on her window sill. Its green leaves were blotched with yellow, orange, red, brown, copper or purple and colored best in the sunny window.

There are several cultivars and forms of this tropical perennial plant, and all hail from Mexico to Argentina. And all have exclusively colored foliage that develops when grown as summer annuals in sun.

At one time at the Tulsa Park Department, we grew a dozen or more different varieties to use in the Woodward Park rock garden, the pattern beds in the Sunken Garden and in the logos at Tracy Park. Today, Glasshouse Works in Stewart, Ohio (740-662-2142, glasshouseworks.com) offers the most varieties of Joseph’s coat plants.

The Joseph’s coat pictured in the fleur-de-lis design at Utica Square is called Golden Joseph’s coat, True Yellow, and Golden Calico Plant. All the plants that you see of this chartreuse variety growing in Tulsa’s gardens and landscapes are from two plants that I received from the Missouri Botanical Gardens in the early ’70s. It was a plant that caught on and was propagated by local nurseries.

In 1975, Jim Buckler, the director of horticulture at the Smithsonian Institute, was visiting and wanted cuttings, and we provided. He then propagated them and created the formal Victorian parterre design that exists just outside of the Castle at the Smithsonian.

Many years later, Disney World in Florida experienced a crop failure of its Golden Joseph’s coat and asked Buckler for cuttings. He didn’t want to be bothered and told Disney about ours at the Park Department. Disney called, and so we bagged up a large garbage bag full of fresh cuttings and sent them. So this little Victorian Golden Joseph’s coat has traveled in its exhibition experience ranging from the prestigious and august setting of the Smithsonian Museum to the contemporary and whimsical face of Mickey Mouse at Disney World. Quite a feat for a modest plant.

Grow Joseph’s coat in a sunny, moist, well-drained, warm soil. It responds well to fertilization after clipping and forms a more dense mat of foliage. Propagate by cuttings directly in the rooting media or in water when temperatures are warm in spring and summer. These plants are generally pest-free except for a small foliage eating worm that can defoliate plants overnight in the late summer. It is susceptible to frost.

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Russell Studebaker is a professional horticulturist and garden writer in Tulsa and can be reached at russell.studebaker@cox.net.

Home Garden

Garden Calendar

Make a Toad Abode, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Gardening teaches kids life lessons

In the Brady Heights Community Garden, brother and sister Brendan and Ryan Dalton, respectively, are growing carrots and tomatoes, lettuce and green beans.

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The Community Garden Resource Fair will be held Saturday, July 27, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Visitors are invited to stop in at three local businesses for mini-clinics on herbs, landscape design and mid-summer gardening tips.

Tickets are $10 each and may be purchased at Forth Floral, Hanson’s Garden Village, Trig’s service counter (Rhinelander), Customer Choice Landscaping Gardens and the Ministry Home Care office at 1864 N. Stevens Street.

All proceeds benefit patients and families cared for by the Ministry Home Care hospice team.

New this year is the wood carvings raffle. Scott Schmidt, of Into the Wild and Jack of all Trades Caretaking, Log Furniture and Wood Burned Art, has created two wood carvings and donated them to be raffled in association with the Community Garden Resource Fair. A wooden fish and a garden mushroom will be raffled. Tickets are $1 each or six for $5 and may be purchased at the Resource Fair or by calling Ministry Home Care.

The winner will be drawn July 27 at 4 p.m. at CCL Gardens and Landscaping, 3839 County Drive (Hwy. 47 North), Rhinelander.

For more information, call Ministry Home Care at (800) 643-4663.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — In the Minnesota summertime, it’s all about gardening, but if you’re in a rut when it comes to landscaping, there’s a new trend families can get on board with.

The Minnesota Garden Railway Society builds backyard railways, and its members are growing; there are now 130 people across the metro area tinkering with trains — small trains.

What Garden Railway Society president Mark Schreier doesn’t like, is if someone calls the tiny trains by the C-word.

“There’s nothing cute about railroading,” he said. “I would like my horn to be as loud as a real train, but I don’t think the city or my neighbors would like that.”

He started The Minnesota Garden Railway Society with just a plot of dirt in his backyard.

“My first bridge I built looked beautiful, and I went to run a train through and it was about 2 inches too narrow and I had to rip it apart and redo the bridge,” he said.

It took him three times to get it right. Now, with his club numbering well over 100 people, backyard railway enthusiasts are all learning from each other.

Jim Shaver of Minnetrista says his specialty is bridges and trusses. His yard layout started as a love of woodworking, and has turned into an entire town.

“My railroad is called the Gopher, Pug and Badger,” he said.

With membership fees of $15, joining the club isn’t pricey, but collecting the materials can be.

“An engine goes for about $200,” Schreier said. “But if you want to add sound so you can honk the horn, that’s another $150. If you want a remote control so you can honk the horn, that’s another $150.”

If you don’t have the space money or time to make one of your own, a number of the members come to the Wayzata depot and open up the landscape to everybody. Schreier says it’s open for view 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

Kids light up when they see the only public layout garden railroad between Chicago and Denver, because these small scenes are still big to little ones.

“The younger they are the more they want to go up and grab it and knock it off the track,” Shaver said.

But don’t worry about the damage. Those who tinker with the trains know that sometimes the best laid plans get derailed.

For the $15 membership, you get access to open houses featuring Garden Railroads throughout the Twin Cities. As for what happens in the winter, only the electronics get pulled inside. All the other materials are able to withstand the elements.

Ryan Boyce, The Oklahoma Daily

Chester Warner, an OU landscaper, spends his summer outside in the heat, getting to campus before dawn and working throughout most of the day.

Blistering heat and the overbearing Oklahoma sun is just a fact of life for OU landscape workers, because they have to keep the campus vegetation in order, and it doesn’t matter if temperatures are high.

Chester Warner is a landscape specialist at OU. He has worked for OU Landscaping for six years and has worked in landscaping before that.

During his time in landscaping, he’s learned a few tricks.

“You try to do your heaviest work in the morning,” he said.

In the afternoon, when it starts getting warm, he begins the less physical part of his labor. Staying hydrated is key, he said.

Warner gets up early to keep OU’s gardens in order, sometimes working in temperatures near 100 degrees, a skill he attributes to his resistance to Oklahoma’s climate that he has built up over the years and also a just-do-it mentality, he said.

On an average summer day, Warner arrives at OU at 5 a.m. to begin work, which includes watering and trimming shrubs, grass and roses; pulling weeds; maintaining gardens and removing trash.

“It needs to be done,” he said. “You know what you have to do, and you just do it. I’ve been working in Oklahoma heat for years, so it doesn’t really bother me.”

Despite having to endure triple-digit temperatures, Warner said he gets a sense of satisfaction from his job and enjoys working at OU.

“[I like] making the campus look nice,” he said. “It’s something for visitors and students to look at and appreciate.”

Many do appreciate it.

“It looks amazing,” said sophomore electrical engineering major Evan Tisdale. “I work out in my yard a lot, but I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to do that on a daily basis.”

As well, Oklahoma City Community College pre-engineering major Cody Mitchell cites the polished atmosphere of the campus as one of the major reasons for his planning to transfer to OU.

“It looks fantastic,” he said. “I took a look around and thought this was a good place to be.”

Warner is modest about his work, though, when asked about the year-round beauty of campus.

“It’s just there and it looks nice,” he said.

But how long does Warner plan to continue wiping the sweat from his brow after a hard day’s work on campus? Warner has a simple answer for that.

“As long as they’ll let me,” he said.

Details

Category: Human Interest

Published on Wednesday, 03 July 2013 10:55

Written by Press Release

Oak Park, IL—(ENEWSPF)—July 3, 2013. If you think a landscape should be about more than a lawn of non-native grasses, and want to learn more about native plants, attracting pollinators and birds, and the restoration of natural landscapes, you’re invited to attend a kickoff meeting to form a local chapter of Wild Ones, an organization devoted to creating natural gardens and landscapes.

This first meeting will be held from 2:30-4:30 p.m., Sunday, July 21st, at Green Home Experts, 811 South Blvd., Oak Park, Illinois.  Local Wild Ones member, Stephanie Walquist will give a butterfly presentation.  She has been gardening for butterflies and rearing/releasing some species over the years. Stephanie has also been assisting in the installation of a native plant garden at Beye School with the hope of getting other schools and local residents to join in to create wildlife corridors.   Plans will also be discussed for future educational programs, seed and plant swaps and field trips, and anyone interested will be invited to join the organization.

Wild Ones members help and learn from each other – beginners and experienced members alike – about identifying native (and invasive) plants, creating natural landscapes, protecting threatened native species, dealing with “weed ordinances,” and a lot more.

Members plan monthly educational chapter meetings, field trips, and presentations by experts in the field of native plants and natural landscaping. Chapters are supported by a national organization, and each member receives handbooks related to natural landscaping along with a bimonthly publication, the Wild Ones Journal.

For more information – and to let us know you’ll attend – contact Pam Todd (pamtodd5@me.com), Ginger Vanderveer (gingervbrown@gmail.com) or Marni Curtis (sassyspider@gmail.com).

Wild Ones began in 1979, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and became a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation in 1990. With approximately 40 active chapters, Wild Ones has approximately 3,000 members across the United States and Canada. See website at www.for-wild.org.

 

There’s a party going in Westby, or at least there will be when the Westby Area Chamber of Commerce holds its annual garden party on Thursday, July 11.

This year’s theme is “Gardens, Rails Vining Trails” and will send garden lovers from the city to the country in search of scenic landscaping and then back to Davidson Park for food, music and fellowship.

This year’s garden party features a wide variety of hostas used to landscape difficult areas of any lawn. From 4:30-8 p.m. visitors are welcome to tour the garden locations where area green thumbs will reveal how perennials and annuals can be used to bring color to an otherwise lifeless landscape and reduce mowing time overall.

Partygoers can begin or end their colorful journey with a trip to Davidson Park in Westby for the weekly “Hamburgers in the Park” festivities, sponsored this week by the Westby Chamber of Commerce. Food will be served in the park from 5-7:30 p.m. and music will be provided by Westby Summer Big Band.

People interested in the garden walk can buy a $5 ticket at Davidson Park or at any of the featured locations. Each ticket purchase includes a map of garden locations highlighted in this year’s event.

Vernel Vesbach

S1028 Ninety Meter Drive

West of Westby, off Hwy. 14/61, turn right on Lovaas Ridge Road, go one mile, turn right on Ninety Meter Drive and follow road to the end.

The home of Vernel Vesbach will surely delight anyone and everyone who visits.

Vesbach lost the love of her life, Brian Nelson, last year in a tragic farming accident, but his love of gardening and amazing green thumb lives on in every unique flower garden on the property. She bought the property from her father, Walter Vesbach, in 1983 and since then has painstakingly restored the home; a project of love down to the addition of new windows and residing the house with logs.

The flowered border along the driveway and elsewhere on property were all grown at Deep Rooted Greenhouses. Being in the outdoors and growing foliage was a labor of love profession Nelson owned and operated Ski Hill Greenhouses a business Vesbach’s daughter, Tiffany Cade, took over after his untimely death and renamed Deep Rooted.

Cade plans to expand the greenhouse business to include perennial plants in 2014 and she will be at the Vesbach home with home grown organic tomatoes during the garden tour.

In the back of the Vesbach house there is a garden in memory of Vesbach’s father, Walter. Along with the flowers this garden exhibits a quack digger and two mail boxes, one bearing her father’s name and the other in the shape of a cow.

The patio is decorated with large potted plants in unique containers and antique styled wagons are parked in various locations on the grounds and filled with flowering baskets of flowers.

The barn was also original to the site and resided with medal when it was restored. The barn is home to Vesbach’s horses which have one of the most scenic ridge tops in the Westby area to roam the pastures freely in. Her dogs, Marty and Nixie, greet visitors to the property with a bark, which soon subsides as they go about their business.

On the front lawn near the machine shed is a large flower bed, which covers the area where the cistern used to be and throughout the property anything old and discarded by others has been converted in a flowering conversation piece.

The 2013 Westby Syttende Mai royalty will be serving rømmegrot at the Vesbach home, making this a sure stop on your garden party tour.

Birger Phyllis Eklov

405 Ramsland Street

The deck at the home of Birger and Phyllis Eklov has become a relaxing area to view their flowers and watch birds and squirrels while they enjoy a full meal or a morning cup of coffee.

Gardening has become a family tradition started by Birger and Phyllis and aided by their daughter Karri and son-in-law, David.

David says “God put green grass to enjoy until you find something more beautiful to add.”

The terrain next to the barn style “shed” provides the perfect place for a raised garden area where flowers are displayed in a wheelbarrow, chair and chamber pot. A cultivator, tricycle and lightning rod and ball languish nearby.

The Eklovs were business owners in the city for decades and pieces of their history with Texaco have since been converted into tastefully decorated lawn ornaments in the yard.

In 2012, the house next door to the Eklovs was used in a practice burn for the Westby-Christiana Fire Department and the property is now covered in green grass and a decorative garden.

The 2013 Westby Snowflake royalty will be serving lemonade at the Eklov residence.

When you leave the Eklov’s lovely garden first please take the friendship path to Deb Olson’s garden close by on Washington Street.

Deb Olson

110 Washington Street

TThe yard at Deb’s home is filled with collections that look like they were gleaned from the pages of a country living magazine.

Each setting (vignette) starts with a rusty relic, rescued and repurposed. Some items which were found in local shops such as a Grain Belt ice chest, milk cans, pails and chairs are lovingly planted with various kinds of flowers.

One item of special interest is a memory watering can with broken pieces of china attached.

As you walk down the side of the house to the back yard you will see an iron bed frame, rusty gate and the backs of a pair of theatre seats.

Olson said anything rusty catches her eye including her first treasure, a toy fire engine.

In the back of her garage is an interesting room designed with the man in mind.

Olson will have a Watkins representative at her home during the garden tour for anyone in need of age-old tried and true remedies and one of a kind flavorings.

If you leave Olson’s house from the backyard first feel free to follow the friendship path to the home of Birger and Phyllis Eklov on Ramsland Street.

Branches Winery

Gene and Therese Bergholz

E6796 Old Line Road

West of Westby off Hwy. 14/61, take Cut-A-Cross Road, or follow West Sate Street out Old Line Road for three miles. Located on the corner of Old Line Road and Cut-A-Cross Road.

Branches Winery is owned by Gene and Therese Bergholz and located in the town of Coon, just west of the city of Westby on Old Line Road. Garden walk visitors can tour the lush vineyard and learn about growing cold climate wine grapes that were developed to survive Wisconsin winters, where temperatures can dip to 25 degrees below freezing and the vines root system remains unharmed.

The Bergholz grow seven varieties of cold-hardy grapes, wine grapes, plus table grapes in the vineyard, which will produce more than 40 tons of fruit this year.

Visitors are invited to tour the winery and visit the tasting room to sample the winery boutique and sample its five original flavors of wine including: Coulee Crisp, made from La Crescent vine grapes, Celebration berry, a delightful cranberry wine; Flying Geese, made from Frontenac Gris grapes; Vine Dance, a German white wine; and Explorer, made from Marquette grapes.

Wine is also available for sale by the glass or bottle and a delectable selection of appetizers, featuring local artisan cheeses will be served. The winery features an outdoor patio and deck and an elegant banquet room for special events and business meetings.

Gene Bergholz said the winery is still a work in progress, but that it is slowly, but surely all coming together. On the west side of the building is a covered outdoor patio, with a large uncovered extension where customers can sit and relax while they enjoy their wine as a gentle summer breeze blows softly in. An outdoor wood-burning stove is under construction and will be encased by a large gazebo, where wood fired pizzas will be featured later this summer.

Branches is open Fridays and Saturdays 1-7 p.m., Sundays 1-6 p.m., May-November and by appointment for groups and private parties. It is located just off of Hwy 14/61 at Cut-A-Cross Road between Westby and Coon Valley.

Ken Ruth Rupp

Polly Rude Way

The train and tracks may have left Westby decades ago, but thanks to Ken and Ruth Rupp of Westby, a piece of the Milwaukee Railroad returned to the community in 2009.

The Rupps had an opportunity to buy the original Milwaukee Road Caboose that rode the rail between Sparta and Viroqua in the 1950s The caboose was moved from the Milwaukee area to Westby on November 13, 2009.

It was lifted by a large crane and set on its current foundation on Polly Rude Way, between Logan Mill Lodge (formerly Ben Logan’s Feed Mill) and the Old Times Assisted Living. Shrubs have been planted at both ends of the caboose and flowers purchased at local greenhouses each spring are placed around the caboose. A few perennials spontaneously arrived, when Connelly Law Office was thinning the flower garden in front of their business and offered Ruth some of the overflow of plants. The perennials were planted at one end of the caboose this summer.

The landscaping decision to have shrubs and flowers around the caboose was a difficult one for Ruth, as she is compulsive about accuracy in her historic preservation projects and said a railroad would never have shrubs and flowers along the tracks. A more important concern of the Rupps, was that neither one of them was blessed with the skills for planting and maintaining gardens.

“We knew something had to be done around the caboose to beautify what had been a very ugly steep bank of eroding dirt and debris left over from removing the old Cargill Grain Elevator. The residents of Old Times Assisted Living are often looking out the windows or sitting on the porch facing the caboose and we wanted to have something nice for the Old Times residents to view,” Ruth said.

So with some help from landscape professionals and friends, the beautification project moved forward in June, even though Ruth said history has shown that getting plants to grow in that location will be a challenge since the soil was the foundation of a grain elevator from 1905, until the elevator was torn down in recent years.

The landscaping around the caboose will continue to be a work in progress with plans in the works to convert the 20 x 40 foot shed to the south of the caboose into a replica of the original Milwaukee Road Train Depot. The depot will be used as a museum to display railroad memorabilia.

So despite continuous rains and flash flood downpours in June the Rupps hope to have the project well underway before the garden party on July 11.

The 2013 Vernon County Dairy Promotion Princess Riley Ingles will greet visitors at the Rupp’s caboose and provide them with information on the dairy industry and its important contribution to Vernon County.

Westby Area Historical Society

Thoreson House

101 Black River Avenue

The Westby Area Historical Society will be hosting its annual pie and ice cream social at the Thoreson House during the garden walk.

The Thoreson House was built in 1893 and purchased one century later by the Westby Area Historical Society in 1993. The Thoreson House has received some generous furniture donations over the past year which will be on display during the event.

Volunteers have pruned, trimmed and spruced up the property with foliage, including hostas, lily of the valley, ferns, hydrangeas and spirea. The rock formations were cleaned out and mulch is replaced as needed to add color.

Pie slices sold during the event is used for Thoreson House maintenance projects throughout the year.

Don’t forget to stop by the Westby Stabbur House Information Center next to the Thoreson House for other area points of interest in Westby and throughout the Coulee Region.

Lambton joined with two Los Angeles-based designers to come up with what they feel are the newest, most attractive and safest lighting options, but lets compare their choices to what Wakefield and Dargan have been doing for years.

First, Lambton, Jeff Andrews and Brian Patrick Flynn say that companies are now offering home owners the ability to duplicate their interior lighting fixtures for use outdoors, like chandeliers.

Atlanta’s Wakefield and Dargan Landscape Architects move more towards creating an ambiance outdoors that mimics nature, and which does not create undue stress on the habitats of wildlife, pets and plants in and around the home landscape. So don’t look for them to hang a chandelier.

What Chris Wakefield of The Outdoor Lights.com has done, however, is create his own design in a patio table umbrella, which can provide a unique and soft lighting option at the press of a button. The umbrella lights, which project enough small pinpoints of light to provide guests with needed illumination, are also subtle enough not to distract from conversation. And the lights in them are flattering, rather than garish.

And whereas a chandelier might prove a cumbersome and awkward lighting object to quickly remove during threats of inclement weather, the lights wired and created by Wakefield can be left outdoors, even in winter. However, dismantling the umbrella mentioned is as easy as unhooking one small connection.

Where Flynn and Dargan and Wakefield agree is in the move toward creating ones own lighting fixture for hanging outdoors. Dargan seeks to use items that either have a personal sentimental value to her clients or which fit into the overall theme of the landscape being created. She’s fond of rustic and natural-looking lighting fixtures that blend in unobtrusively with the landscape.

LA designer Jeff Andrews says he favors vintage lights and likes to put them in trees, hiding the wiring in the tree. Chris Wakefield is a pro when it comes to hiring wiring. One recent guest at a home garden tour in Cashiers actually thought Wakefield’s lighting fixture in that landscape had to be solar powered, as it was impossible to tell where the wires were, according to Hugh Dargan of Dargan Landscape Architects.

Lambton uses faux stone blocks which contain LED lights when he wants to illuminate a garden or landscape area without flood lights or porch lights. Wakefield has gone with glass sphere lights, instead, which provide his customers with two perks instead of just one.

The spheres are made of sturdy glass and decorated in colorful designs and available in different sizes. In the daytime they appear as decorative lawn, garden and landscape accessories, which then double at nighttime as a unique and soft lighting source. And they conveniently plug into outdoor electrical outlets, and are weather-proof. Some can even be submerged into ponds and pools.

Year-round lighting is the ultimate goal, which Chris Wakefield and his employees at The Outdoor Lights.com seem to have mastered. And that’s why Mary Palmer and Hugh Dargan choose only Wakefield’s company when they are designing landscapes for their high-end clients. They need the assurance that everything will be done right and to perfection.

The Dargans insist on making sure that their clients’ lights always work, that wiring is never seen, and that when it comes to lighting up an outdoor landscape spring, summer, winter or fall, that their clients aren’t having to try and take lights in or out of their landscape in time for guests. And Wakefield’s service plan makes sure that clients never even have to change their own outdoor light bulbs too.

Flynn, on the other hand, says that “The only type of lighting I’m worry-free about for the outdoors is festival-style string lights.” And isn’t that a shame, when he could have The Outdoor Lights company ensure a totally worry-free lighting experience?

© Radell Smith

A lot of folks have home gardens. I, myself, plant tomatoes, peppers, green beans, and all sorts of herbs with a varying degree of success.

But, Sarah Hermes of Hermes Landscaping in Lenexa takes it several steps farther. She specializes in what she calls “edible gardens.”

“The first project my dad assigned me was to redesign our office’s landscape,” she said. “He thought it would be fun to have some edible plants incorporated. I decided to just go all out, so I created a completely edible landscape.”

Hermes is the Marketing Manager for her family business, and the granddaughter of the company’s founder, John T. Hermes, who built the Lenexa headquarters in 1969.

Some of the original elements, like a creek and a bridge are gone, but an edible garden, filled with natural delights, like purple Echinacea and persimmon and espalier pear trees, is growing up with a new generation of landscaping elements.

Hermes said she visited the Heartland Harvest garden at Powell Gardens for inspiration and education about how to design the Hermes’ garden, and says the landscape is admittedly a test, trial, and risk.

The most challenging part of building an edible garden, Hermes said, is choosing plants that are productive as well as visually appealing. Additionally, picking plants with a seasonal interest is difficult because during the winter, productive plants generally go dormant and are no longer aesthetically pleasing.

The edible garden at the Hermes main office is not only a way to revive a single landscape, but it literally feeds into a larger trend of edible gardening, and the whole movement toward sustainability.

“As a society, we invest a lot of land, water and resources into cultivating beautiful landscapes. To find ways to make these landscapes productive will not only have a huge impact on our food system, but I think it also provides an avenue for people to connect with their landscape in a more meaningful way,” Hermes said. “It is a fulfilling experience to cultivate your own food. It’s empowering, and I believe it will be the way of the future.”

Clearly, not everyone is up for their own edible garden, but if you are, Sarah Hermes is the woman for you. Armed with more than 30 varieties of trees, shrubs and perennials in her own garden-all with a medicinal or edible benefit, Sarah Hermes is like a much more diverse Johnny Appleseed.

Check it out for yourself, and you might find that you can no longer do without the Texas Scarlet Quince, Contorted Filberts, or Pawpaws. Don’t worry if that happens. Hermes can easily, and deliciously, hook you up.

Dave Eckert is the producer and host of “Culinary Travels With Dave Eckert,” which aired on PBS-TV and Wealth TV for 12 seasons, or nearly 300 half-hour episodes produced on six continents. Eckert is also an avid wine collector and aficionado, having amassed a personal wine cellar of some 2,000 bottles.