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Decorating your front porch for summer can add to the joy of the bursting forth of nature during this season as well as add to the curb appeal of your home. Each time you arrive home or sit on your front porch in pleasant weather, you will be delighted with your efforts. It does not have to be expensive to decorate your front porch for summer, nor does it have to be a labor-intensive project.

Bring out the Potted Plants

If you live in a region that experiences freezing weather in winter, you have probably had to over-winter some of your specimen potted plants indoors. One of the first steps in decorating your front porch for summer is to bring out these potted plants.

Check the soil and repot if the plants have been in the same soil for over one year. Plants use the nutrients in the potting soil and the soil becomes “dead”, leaving little or nothing to sustain the plants. Replant, using later pots if the plants are root bound or nearly root bound. This will give them a fresh start and a fresh look as well.

Arrange the plants in attractive groupings. They can be placed along each side of the steps to the front porch or along the front edge of the porch. They can be placed on each side of seating groupings. A pair of matching large specimen plants looks great when placed on either side of the front door.

Decorate the Front Door

Bring summer to your front door by adding an attractive wreath that incorporates artificial summer flowers. A grapevine wreath can be crafted or purchased for a small sum. Silk flowers are inexpensive and will last for years, even in bright sunlight. Choose dogwood blossoms, magnolias, or any of your favorite summer flowers to add to the wreath. Add a beautiful, large bow and you have a great door decoration for your summer entryway which will add to the impact of your front porch decorations.

Hanging Baskets

Another great way to decorate the front porch for summer is to add a selection of greenery or flowering plants in hanging planters or baskets, hung at even spaces along the front porch. Ivy, hoyas, asparagus ferns, Boston ferns, or any of your favorite green plants make great choices. For flowering plants, choose petunias, sweet pea, or any of your favorite flowering plants that drape well.

Cypress vine is a great choice if you wish to attract humming birds to your front porch. Planted in hanging baskets or in planters with a trellis or other support for the vine to climb and you will have humming birds coming right to your [front porch]

Curb appeal ideasfor the winter months can provide your landscape just what it needs to get through the long, dreary cold winter months while you await the budding of springtime. If you are one of the millions of people that find winter's long, dark days to be quite depressing, so you want to make your yard and garden as inviting and heart warming as possible.

Including evergreens into your year-round landscape will help alleviate the drabness provided from bare deciduous trees. Pines, hemlock and spruce can make the winter landscape interesting and, when the boughs are burdened with snow, they can be very picturesque. Holly, when used as a shrub with its bright red berries, adds color and greenery. These evergreens will provide shelter for wild birds and, when you hang suet balls or bird feeders from lower limbs of trees, can provide hours of entertainment watching the birds play and eat. A tall ornamental grass such as plume grass, which will extend beyond any snow drifts, is another way to add interest to the winter landscape.

Bring Pizazz to your Property

But, what can you do if you don't have any of these elements to work with in your winter landscape but you still want to add some curb appeal to your property? And, what do you do if you want more than simple elements to bring the pizazz your property? Here are some ideas to help you plan a beautiful and inviting winter home.

Potted poinsettias with their bracts fully colored can really add curb appeal during the winter. Available from around Thanksgiving until well after Christmas at any lawn and garden center, you'll find colorfully wrapped pots in various sizes. You can display these on your steps, along walkways, grouped around the base of a lamp post, on your deck or patio, or any area you have that is somewhat protected from hard freezes. If your area experiences hard freezes, you may need to protect the potted plants by covering them with a blanket, sheet, plastic, or other protection during the cold nights.

Add lights to your landscape to add lots of curb appeal at a very low cost. You can purchase solar powered landscaping lights and place them in areas of your lawn and garden to provide lighting to walkways as well as highlights to add impact to your winter landscape. These lights are attractive when not producing light and add a warmth to the winter evenings like few other additions to a landscape.

Add these little Touches

Simple techniques such as neatly piling fireplace wood in a visible location can add a homey feel to your lawn and garden, adding curb appeal and making the passerby feel as if they wish they could come inside. A basket filled with pine cones, decorated with a large ribbon is another homey touch to consider as an addition near your doorway. Choose a basket that is weather resistant or simply spray paint a basket you have on hand with polyurethane so that it will withstand the harsh winter weather. You can add matching ribbons on your lamp posts, mail box, front door, railings along door steps, or along a privacy fence. You'll easily find ribbons that are made of plastic or other weather resistant materials to use for this purpose.

The whole idea of curb appeal is to make your home a welcoming place. Add these little touches and you'll be every more happy than usual to come home at the end of your busy day. You'll find yourself enjoying the winter landscape instead of thinking of winter as a drab time of year.

Fall is in the air and one of the first rituals of the fall season is to prepare for Halloween. The hard work of the summer landscaping season is over and it is now time to enjoy the fall leaves changing by adding to the scenery of your lawn and garden for the entire neighborhood to enjoy. This means transforming your lawn and garden from a colorful array of summer flowers to a collection of fun or scary Halloween decorations.

 

Keep in mind that many of the best Halloween decorations can come right out of your lawn and garden. There are several fall flowers that will still provide blooms as a nice backdrop to your Halloween decorations. Chrysanthemums come in a variety of deep shades, like maroon or even a deep orange, which will provide a wonderful backdrop for your Halloween display. Marigolds are also a great choice for adding color to your Halloween lawn and garden decorations. You can also use items from your own lawn and garden that would otherwise be thrown away this time of year. These include gourds and squash or even cornstalks or dead leaves that have fallen from the trees. All of these natural items help to create a wonderful [Halloween display] and many of these items can be used with other things from the home to create lawn and garden decorations. Using items from the garden will help to create a Halloween display without spending a great deal of money. Another way to keep from going broke when creating your Halloween lawn and garden decorations is to use items from around the house. This is also a great way to get the kids involved in craft projects. Of course, one of the most popular homemade items for a Halloween lawn display is a simple white sheet. You can help your kids cut out eyes and a mouth, stuff the head with cotton or other sheets and tie it off to be hung on the front of the house. Consider using old yard clothes that have been ripped or torn. After a season of gardening, you are sure to have a variety of different clothes that need to be cleaned out of the closet. Before throwing these clothes out, why not stuff them with old leaves or dried grass or hay, add a few rips and maybe some fake blood and make a scary display on the front lawn. If you live in a house that is dark, a great way to provide light for the trick-or-treaters is to line small carved pumpkins along the driveway and place candles or small glow sticks inside. This can also be done with paper bags that have Jack-O-Lantern faces carved on the front, but be extremely cautious as an unknowing or unfriendly trick-or-treater may knock them over. Pumpkins are a bit safer as they will not catch fire as easily as a paper bag. Remember when adding to your Halloween lawn and garden decorations that using features already available in your landscaping is the best way to go. If you have a lamp post, use it to tie up a scarecrow or a cornstalk. If you have shrubs around the front of the home, consider some fake spiderwebs. For those with large trees in the front yard, consider creating a witch to hang from the trees or even a homemade ghost. There are endless ways to add the Halloween spirit to your lawn and garden without having to rearrange the landscape you spent all summer creating.