Articles Index
Pruning Ornamental Grasses: How to Groom and Control Your Native Grasses
Ornamental grasses are fairly new on the landscape scene - they have increased in popularity in recent years. But there's not really a standard way to prune or groom them. And not every landscaper or gardening expert knows how to take care of everything in the garden, including these grasses that can grow quite big. Follow these steps to groom your grasses and get them to looking great. In some regions, that means your ornamental grasses will be show-offs year 'round.
Classics and Trends in Patio Furniture for 2012
Patio furniture -- or casual furniture, as it's called in the industry -- does not change drastically from year to year. The materials are pretty standard, and a true trend takes at least a few years to develop rather than a short 12 months or less. But that doesn't mean that the consumer -- you or I -- won't see anything different in our favorite stores or online retailers.
Best Pool Cleaner / Vacuum: About.com Readers' Choice Awards 2012
If you own a swimming pool or spa, cleaning and maintenance is a big part of the package. If your pool isn't cleaned regularly, nobody will want to -- or should -- go swimming in a big green swamp of algae. Fortunately, several pool cleaners / vacuums are available and reasonably priced to make pool cleaning less of the back-breaking chore it once was. The most popular models are automatic or robotic pool cleaners, which comb the surfaces of your pool and climb the walls, hopefully sucking up debris and algae along the way. The five finalists represent top companies in the pool and spa industry.
2012 Best Hot Tub / Spa: About.com Readers' Choice Awards
The About.com Reader's Choice Awards 2011 honors the year's top hot tubs and spas, as nominated and chosen by our readers. This is the first year that the Pool and Patio category has joined the Readers' Choice Awards. This year's Best Pool and Patio category seeks to honor the Best Outdoor Patio Furniture, Best Pool Cleaner/Vacuum, Best Pool Test Kit, Best Hot Tub/Spa, and Best Decking. Voting is Feb. 22 to March 8, 2011.
Landscaping With Ornamental Grasses: A Picture Gallery
For nearly nonstop performance, strength and visual impact, few plants compare to ornamental grasses. Don't confuse ornamental grasses with the types of grass used for lawns, though. Ornamental grasses are meant to grow - not be cut or mown - and most aren't used as a groundcover. Once you start landscaping with ornamental grasses you'll be amazed by how many varieties, sizes, shapes and colors are available. Enjoy this picture gallery of popular ornamental grasses.
About.com Readers' Choice Awards 2012: Favorite Outdoor Toy
The finalists have been chosen in the Favorite Outdoor Toy category for the 2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards. To help you make an informed choice, About.com Pool and Patio has researched each nominee so our readers / voters can become better acquainted with each product and finalist.
2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards: Best Decking
The About.com Reader's Choice Awards 2011 Best Pool and Patio category honors the year's top pool and patio products, brands and manufacturers, as nominated and chosen by our readers. This is the first year that the Pool and Patio category has joined the Readers' Choice Awards. This year's Best Pool and Patio category seeks to honor the Best Outdoor Patio Furniture, Best Pool Cleaner/Vacuum, Best Pool Test Kit, Best Hot Tub/Spa, and Best Decking. Voting is Feb. 22 to March 8, 2011.
Best Book, Outdoor Living and Design: About.com Readers' Choice Awards 2012
The Best Book, Landscape Design & Outdoor Living category is new to the 2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards. The five finalists include books about succulent container gardening, designing for privacy, outdoor structures, outdoor DIY projects and all-things related to backyard living.
Best Patio Furniture Finalists 2012: About.com Readers' Choice Awards
Best Patio Furniture honors the year's top patio furniture brands and manufacturers. Here, we present the five finalists -- as nominated by our readers. But don't simply go by looks or familiar name alone. Hint: there are some familiar names from last year's contest, along with some new ones. Voting runs February 22 - March 21. Winners will be announced on March 30, 2012.
2011 Best Outdoor Patio Furniture: The Finalists
The About.com Reader's Choice Awards 2011 honors the year's top Outdoor Patio Furniture, brands and manufacturers, as nominated and chosen by our readers. This is the first year that the Pool and Patio category has joined the Readers' Choice Awards. This year's Best Pool and Patio category seeks to honor the Best Outdoor Patio Furniture, Best Pool Cleaner/Vacuum, Best Pool Test Kit, Best Hot Tub/Spa, and Best Decking. Voting is Feb. 22 to March 8, 2011.
Best Outdoor Lighting: About.com 2012 Readers' Choice Awards
Ready to vote for the company that designs and manufactures what you consider to be the Best Outdoor Lighting? The About.com Reader's Choice Awards 2012 Best Pool and Patio category honors the year's top pool and patio products, brands and manufacturers, as nominated and chosen by our readers. This is the second year that the Pool and Patio category has participated in the site-wide About.com Readers' Choice Awards.
2011 About.com Readers' Choice Awards: Best Decking
The About.com Reader's Choice Awards 2011 Best Pool and Patio category honors the year's top pool and patio products, brands and manufacturers, as nominated and chosen by our readers. This is the first year that the Pool and Patio category has joined the Readers' Choice Awards. This year's Best Pool and Patio category seeks to honor the Best Outdoor Patio Furniture, Best Pool Cleaner/Vacuum, Best Pool Test Kit, Best Hot Tub/Spa, and Best Decking. Voting is Feb. 22 to March 8, 2011.
Award-Winning Outdoor Toys to Get Your Kids Out of the House
These are among the hottest toys of the season, and it's easy to figure out why: they are flying fish and shark. The air -- or your yard -- is their ocean in which they swim above it all, with the guidance of your remote control. Because it's such an unusual sight and experience to witness, the Air Swimmers appeal to both children and adults.
Vertical Gardens: Plants for Walls
Walls add permanence and establish boundaries within a yard or landscape design. They also offer privacy and block undesirable views, like your neighbor's side-yard junk pile. Plants that adapt best to walls are those that are climbers or that spill or trail over the walls. Other types of wall gardens are living walls in which plants are fitted in crevices or planted in containers that allow them to grow vertically and cover all or part of the wall. Take a look at a few plants for inspiration.
Plastic Blow Mold Christmas Decorations: A Holiday Photo Album
The soft glow illuminating from plastic blow mold Christmas decorations reminds many of us of our childhoods. Blow molds are those lighted holiday figures like Santas, snowmen, choir singers and reindeer. Displayed outdoors year after year, they had a tendency to become faded or scratched from the December weather -- snow, rain or sun. Because they were made by injection-molded plastic, they looked pretty, well...plastic. But when they were plugged in and lit-up the lawn at night, they were magical.
The 12 Days of Christmas Decorations
Need ideas for decorating outside for the Christmas holidays? We've gathered 12 days-worth of DIY projects, inspirational ideas and photos to make you drop everything and go decorate your yard, like, now! Sing this to the tune of the beloved holiday classic, "12 Days of Christmas," just like the hundreds of other parodies that exist. Better yet, hum it to yourself.
How to Make a Christmas Wreath for Double Doors
Have you seen those wreaths in catalogs or online that are split wreaths or double-door wreaths? Basically, it's one large wreath cut in half, with each half placed on either side of a double front door, to give the appearance of a single, centered in the middle wreath. It's a great idea -- whoever came up with it -- but the higher-than-normal prices for this kind of novelty wreath make it unobtainable for most of us. Until now. Here's how to make a split wreath for under $10.
How to Hang Outdoor Christmas Lights
You are going to hang holiday lights. Unlike Christmas lighters decorators before you, you will resist the urge to be impulsive and buy too many lights, not read instructions, install lights during a storm, stand on the top of a ladder or lean over and look at the lights while standing on your sloping roof. If this is your first time, keep it simple. You can always add to your holiday light collection. That way, you get a feel for what works, what doesn't, what you like and what you don't.
The Best Inflatable Christmas Decorations for 2011
The Christmas season brings out the decorator in most of us, and is the one time of year that home dwellers and whole neighborhoods show their holiday spirit with lights and often-extravagant yard displays. While those lighted plastic blow-mold figurines dotted lawns and porches of Midcentury, Post-World War II homes, giant airblown inflatable decorations have taken over holiday yards of the early 21st Century.
Tomato Cage Christmas Tree: Repurposing Project is Clever, Fun & Inexpensive
A faux Christmas tree made from a tomato cage? Seriously. If you view ordinary objects through a creative eye, you can repurpose all kinds of things. I was rummaging through old pots and "stuff" in my side yard, looking for some kind of inspiration for a holiday project. The tomato cage, turned upside down, was an obvious - the perfect form upon which to build some sort of holiday porch tree. With white garland a glue gun, strings of beads and a few hours, I had my tomato cage Christmas tree.
Taylor Swift Buys 'Traditional' House in Beverly Hills
Superstar Taylor Swift bought a house in Beverly Hills in late April 2011 for $3.5 million. While Nashville will remain her home base, Swift's Los Angeles home will be a much more welcome respite when she's in the city than the hotels at which she's been staying. And what brings the chart-topping songstress to L.A. so often? In the months and weeks before the real estate transaction occurred, Swift has been in the area for awards shows and been spotted with "Glee" star Chord Overstreet.
How to Make Floating Ghosts for Your Outdoor Halloween Display
Anyone can throw a white sheet over a pole in their yard and call it a "ghost." But how about lightweight ghosts that appear to be flying? Follow this easy step-by-step using store-bought or DIY ghosts to learn the "magic" of making your spirits soar.
Fall Door Decorations: How to Make a Wreath
Say 'welcome'`
How to Make Fake Moss for Halloween Tombstone Props
How do you get your Halloween yard props to look more authentic without having to buy genuine antique tombstones, statues, pedestals and columns? Those fake tombstones you buy or make, usually from foam, can get some instant aging by applying faux moss made from common, everyday clothes-dryer lint. Dsigners Shawn and Lynne Mitchell, authors of "How to Haunt Your House," the go-to book for Halloween yard-haunt DIYers, reveal step-by-step tips for "weathering" your tombstones with lint moss.
Roger's Gardens Halloween Decorations 2011: Blackstone Back-Alley Theatre
Fans and visitors of Roger's Gardens in Corona del Mar, California, look forward to the upscale garden center's annual Halloween display. No, it's not a bunch of pumpkins and bales of hay. The talented designers and buyers at the internationally known home and garden destination in Southern California's Orange County create a production that wows the crowds each year. In 2011, the theme is "Blackstone Back-Alley Theatre." Prepare to be entertained and surprised!