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Landscape Design and Gardening Newsletter
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06-05-03 Issue#302
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Written by Steve Boulden
Owner of S&S Designed Landscaping,LLC
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Hi,
Welcome!
First, I would like to apologize in advance for any delay or
inconsistency in delivery of this newsletter. The spring and
summer months are way busy around here and may or may not keep
me from putting this out in a consistent manner.
Thanks for understanding.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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o Landscape Tips - Creating a radius point
o Garden Tips - Proper watering
o And Another Thing - This section may or may not have anything to do with landscaping
OR gardening. But you may find it interesting.
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LANDSCAPE TIPS - Creating a radius point
On our last project, our client was very taken by the method we
used to create radius in her landscape. Actually, I think she
was more intrigued by it's simplicity.
So I figured that this may be of interest to you as well and may
be something that you can use in your design work.
If you're designing on paper or computer screen, it's important
to use exact scale such as 1 inch equals 8 feet or whatever. And
it's also important to use fixed radius when using circles and
curves in your design.
Design can and should be flexible. However, having fixed
starting points can save a lot of guess work and messed up
projects. From a landscapers point of view, there's no
difference in home and landscape designs. You need a good
blueprint.
But how do you get those circles and curves in your design from
the paper to the ground in exactly the same place, shape, and
size?
First, we design on paper or screen using a compass or radius
tool and keep track of exact distances and points. This will be
our reference when we get outside.
Once we're outside, we'll construct a large, simple compass using
a pivot point (screwdriver or stake), a string, and a marking
tool.
The rest of this example is online since we have some photos and
diagrams to explain the detail. Please be patient while this
page loads. Go to:
http://www.the-landscape-design-site.com/landscapeprojects/radiuspoint.html
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GARDEN TIPS - Proper Watering
This is basic and elementary but still good to know.
Knowing how and how much to water is not only vital to the
optimal health of your plants, but will also save you time,
money, resources, and energy.
Most people don't realize how much water plants actually use.
During high heat and low humidity, a large mature tree will use
over two hundred gallons a day. That's surprising.
Smaller plants use less but the fact is that water is vital.
You can accidentally spray your plants with herbicide, over or under
fertilize them, or hit them with the weed whacker, and they will
survive. Let them go dry for an extended period of time just
once, and they could be stunted forever or die.
No rule applies to all plants. However, for lawns, most garden
plants and trees, a good rule of thumb is to supplement rainfall
until your plants have received one inch of water a week.
In order to measure this accurately, you can place wide top rain
guages or even one gallon coffee cans throughout the watered
areas. Make a one inch mark on the containers. Once they reach
an inch from either rain, sprinkler, or both, you can empty the
containers and start over.
Plants like deep watering rather than frequent shallow
waterings. Water on the top few inches of soil is wasted by
evaporation and plants never get a chance to use it.
Top growth of your plants depends on a continuous supply of deep
water because roots will dig deep into moist soil creating
support for more growth. This is really important for large
trees in windy areas.
In flower beds, automated drip or flood irrigation is the most
efficient and trustworthy way to ensure your plants get enough
deep water. Most people don't have the time or patience to hand
water all of their plants efficiently.
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AND ANOTHER THING - Tankless Water Heaters?
Usually, by the time I hear about something new, it's not new
anymore. In this case it's been around for over two decades.
I really did think I'd stumbled on to the neatest things that
noone had ever seen. A water heater without a tank. One
that heats the water you need only as you need it.
I'm sure that you and most everyone that's reading this has
heard of tankless water heaters or even already own one. But I
hadn't.
So for those of you (like me) who've never heard of these, I
thought I'd mention it here.
I did a little checking into them and discovered that they have
indeed been around for over 25 years. I also discovered that the
U.S.A. is one of the few countries left that still use tank type
water heaters.
Most other places have caught on to the energy and money savings
that tankless water heaters have to offer. Anyway...they're
worth checking into.
If you want to find out more go to:
Tankless Water Heaters
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That's all for this issue.
If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at:
steve@the-landscape-design-site.com
See you in a week or two with the next issue,
Steve Boulden
S&S Designed Landscaping,LLC
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