What are the implications of Butterfly Gardening? It is basically the method of cultivating plants and flowers in a garden, so that the delicate and bright butterflies are invited to it. Please your relatives and comrades with these lovely insects. However, ascertain that you have a secure home for them. If one has cats, one should reconsider his decisions, for cats may be the cause of the end of butterflies.

Plan a Butterfly Garden according to your private choice. While planning, the common issues to ponder upon are the dimensions of the garden and the kind of flora and vegetation one would like to cultivate. While choosing a garden of your choice, remember that the garden should have the flora and vegetation that invite butterflies.

It is necessary to discover the types of vegetation and flora, which invite the variety butterflies dwelling in ones locality. The library of the area will provide with this data. Any sort of water is necessary for the formation of the surroundings that will invite butterflies. Birdbaths appear striking. They also help to protect the insects from wandering cats and naughty dogs, by making them remain above the earth. A low, not very deep saucer, hanging from a tree or kept on a stick, will also serve the purpose.

While seeding a butterfly garden, one has to remember how he harmonizes the hues he has selected for his bed of flowers. Even though butterflies are least bothered by the selection of hues, one would hate his garden if it was a jumble of mismatched hues and surfaces. Lavender, Day Lilies, Yellow Sage, Purple Coneflower, Valerian, Daisies, Milkweed, Honeysuckle, Summer Lilac are some of the flowers which invite butterflies, for they are fascinated by flowers with nectar and not pollen.

It is convenient for a few people to sketch and paint a design of their butterfly garden diagram, to discover how their garden would look once completed. It has to be remembered that temperate hues such as red and orange are ostentatious and gaudy. Such hues leave a powerful impression when set in a dominant green backdrop. Hues having a calming and subdued effect, like calm blue and purple, look good against a white background, and generate an appearance of newness and brilliance.

Your outdoors will look marvelous and full of splendor if you decorate well with artificial topiary trees. Imagine having a garden thats so scenic and majestic. Each morning you wake up and you look at it, it blows all lifes problems away. One sight of it makes you feel proud about your grand work, and when your friends come over, they tell you just how wonderful your garden looks. All of us would love to have a garden that is that perfect and it is possible for us to have one. But we must go about it a certain way. This page will help you make any artificial topiary tree blend with your outdoors.

The first thing you must do is know what you want. Know exactly what you want to accomplish. What area of your outdoors do you want to enliven? Which area do you want to make look more like yourself, your personality, your style, and your mood? Pick the exact area of your outdoors that you want to place the artificial topiary tree in. Notice the shapes in the garden. What about the other trees and plants? Do they blend well? Do you see a pattern? Is there a style? If not, and if you want to create your own style, note that you may have to do more work than just picking and buying an artificial tree. You may have to do a lot of land work first to prepare the environment.

Next, determine the shapes in the garden or outdoors. Is there a natural pattern in the trees and plants? Is there an overall shape being emphasized? What shape is it? How can you make it better or more beautiful? If you have to design your garden from scratch, take a piece of paper, sit back and look at your garden. Look at it with the eyes of creativity. What exactly do you want to make of this area? What mood do you want to convey? Sit back and start drawing shapes on your paper. Dont get discouraged when you dont get the best ideas. Keep doing it and youll soon come up with an idea for your outdoors that will please and that you know will work just fine for you.

Now, here is something that probably most topiary designers dont consider when designing their outdoors or designing a garden. Look at the position of your home. Look at the other major structures around your outdoors. Do you know that they impact the way people look at your garden. For example, if your topiaries and your magnificent design work is next to the area where you dump your leaves in the Fall, your design work will be related to that and will also appear messy. Try to design your outdoors so there is no sharp contrast in perceived beauty. Let the messy stay with the messy, and the beautiful with the beautiful. This little tip could mean a lot once your hard design work is complete.

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Gardens are increasingly becoming a center of attention for homeowners and more and more, gardeners are looking for ways to create beautiful and harmonious landscapes. Part of this trend is the desire to make our outdoor areas exude tranquility and peacefulness. A cornerstone in that movement is feng shui.

Feng shui, often called the Chinese art of placement, offers homeowners a method for creating spaces that are both harmonious and balanced.

In feng shui, there is a place for every element, and good feng shui relies on incorporating and balancing all of the elements. In the landscape, this would include landscaping features and objects, such as timbers, stone, trees, flowers, windmills or windchimes, and even compost bins, with each having a specific place according to feng shui.

To incorporate feng shui into your landscape, it is important to include all the elements, such as water, metal, fire, wood, and stone. This creates harmony and balance outdoors — and this is what creates that serene and comfortable feeling.

To get started, begin by sketching the layout of your yard and be sure to note where your house, large trees or other landscape features are. Next, and as much as possible, divide the sketch into nine equal squares. Using a compass, determine the four corners of the yard by direction (north, east, south, west). Then, determine the subdirections (northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest).

Now you can plan and place your landscaping features and elements as they correspond to each direction. This ensures correct placement of the element. By using feng shui this way in your landscape, you can create an outdoor environment that is an extension of your indoor environment, making you more comfortable and relaxed both indoors and out.

Enhancing Your Landscape with Feng Shui

1. Be sure to remove outdoor clutter first.
One of the central ideas of feng shui is making sure that good energy, called sheng chi, can flow. If you have dead trees or plants in the yard, your landscape may be dull and lifeless. To improve this, be sure to remove dead or dying plants. This is important to do even in winter when plants die back. Remove frost-bitten and dead plants right away, rake up leaves, and remove fallen branches.

2. Install a water feature to boost outdoor relaxation.
Nothing is as soothing as water, and a water feature in the yard is a wonderful way to bring movement, sound, and visual beauty to your yard. Even a small fountain can create instant relaxation in the backyard. Better still, fountains create a calming effect and often drown out nuisance noises such as traffic or noisy pets. Water is best placed in the north, east, or southeast corners of your yard.

3. Fire up your landscape with a fireplace or barbecue area.
A wonderful place to add these is in the south sector of your garden. If this is in your back yard, all the better. If it is in the front yard, then add your fire element in the form of lighting. Add landscape lighting to trees or walkways, or install a lamp post. Lighting adds instant warmth and energy to any area. Fire or lighting is perfect in the south, southwest, and northeast corners of the yard.

4. Add a touch of Asia to your garden.
Another popular design element in the garden nowadays is Asian design. Add Asian flavor by planting a clump of bamboo in the east sector of your garden or plot. Or, if you have a northeast or southwest area of your yard that needs attention, add an attractive Zen garden made of raked gravel with some strategically placed boulders. Asian design relies on the use of all the elements in a landscape and on their proper placement.

5. Give your garden some weight.
Adding boulders is a wonderful addition to any garden or landscape and helps to anchor the landscape. Boulders are especially effective in the southwest, west, and northeast. In the southwest, a collection of boulders with one boulder for each resident of the house is thought to create better relationships.

6. Bring movement to your yard or garden.
Every yard needs some movement. Place a windmill or other spinning or twirling object to your yard to create movement and energy. Even outdoor flags flapping in the breeze create visual interest. Windmills and windchimes are wonderful in the west, northwest, and north corners of the yard.

7. Add sound to your outdoors.
Windchimes or bells are perfect in the landscape because of their beautiful tinkling sound. For good feng shui, be sure to hang them on a shepherds crook rather than from a tree, where the metal energy is considered harmful to the tree. These are best when placed in the west, northwest, and north corners of the yard, where they are thought to benefit children and careers.

8. Put a touch of gold into your landscape.
Select shrubs and plants with gold accents or flowers to plant near the center of the yard or in the north, northeast, or southwest. Gold is also considered a very auspicious and wealth-attracting color. Planted in these locations, they are believed to benefit career and relationships, respectively.

Kathryn Weber is the publisher of the Red Lotus Letter feng shui e-zine and is dedicated to helping her readers develop successful, prosperous, and supportive environments with feng shui. To subscribe, logon to www.redlotusletter.com and receive this special report Fr*ee 16 Feng Shui Secrets for Greater Prosperity.

kweber@redlotusconsulting.com