Dr Copa

One of my dreams about a perfect lawn and garden is to install a an underground automatic system of lawn sprinklers that you can program to rise up out of the ground at dusk every night for twenty minutes and then drop back undetected into the lawn when finished. My in-laws have a system like that in their yard and I have to admit that I am very envious of that luxury!

When I first got together with my wife, she had several flower garden patches around her house, and her irrigation supplies consisted of some of those drip irrigation system hoses winding through the beds that she would manually turn on and off when she felt that the gardens needed to be watered.

Before I met my wife my own favorite method of watering consisted of portable lawn sprinkler that I would move around from one area of the lawn to another, and when I first met my wife I thought that my wife’s system was over-kill, but after we got married and she started to ask me to pitch in and help around the house I realized that her system was really quite smart after all!

When I was running our landscaping business up in New England, one of my favorite items to put at the entrance to a garden was a trellis. Something about trellises covered with climbing flowers just seemed to add a romantic, charming feeling to a garden that my customers really seemed to enjoy.

The biggest problem that we had with maintaining a garden trellis, however, was the severe winters; the bad weather could really take a toll on them. So I encouraged people to either protect them with wooden tent-like covers, or to plant annuals on them and then bring them into the house for the winter. People who had their trellises up against the walls of their houses did not seem to have as much trouble with that, as the house acted as a shelter for them.

One of the many various reasons that the wife and I enjoy going to numerous trade shows through out the year is because we get some really good and creative ideas on how to solve some problems and some great ideas on things like landscaping and decorating. Not to mention all freebies that we come home with that always seem to come in handy from time to time.

Last spring when we went to the home and garden show we saw several displays using rain chains as part of the landscaping. My wife was especially pleased to see and enjoy the different garden chains rain that she saw – she especially liked the ones that looked like water was coming out of a watering can.

I liked the gutter rain chain and copper rain chain corner leaderhead that I saw. I thought that they were great solutions for a couple of the problem drainage areas we have on our roof. A very unique way to channel our precious rain water each and every time in rains.

I really am wanting to get an early start on next year’s planting issues, both indoor and outside. I want to find some nice window flower boxes for the place. I did a lot of planting this year and learned a lot from the experience and plan on utilizing the lessons learned for next year’s plantings.

Of course the Internet has become a valuable tool in finding what I need. On the Internet you can find the nicest window boxes for decent discounted prices, due to the season being over at this point. I have been keeping my eyes open for a nice windowbox to use for the front of the house. The front of the house needs that special touch and is very important.

As far a a garden planter goes, I like the look of the ones that come with a nice iron stand that supports the planter and gives it that special authentic design. These vessels, often used to keep wine in, were very heavy back in the early days in Turkey and Egypt and needed a stand, I really enjoy the look and look forward to finding the perfect one for next year’s spring and summer season.

One of the things that I’ve noticed around here is that quite a few of our neighbors have custom mailboxes at the end of their driveway. We live in a rural area, so I notice that a lot. Having
personalized mailboxes can make it easier to help people find your house when you live out in the country; you can tell the person who is looking for your place to look for the mailbox that has birds, or flowers, or lighthouses, etc painted on the side.

The bacova mailboxes website has a very nice variety of personalized mailboxes. To be perfectly honest, if I had to choose just one mailbox from their variety, I don’t know if I could pick just one favorite. They have birds, flowers, pets, boats, light houses, each one is beautiful. Their prices seem reasonable, as well.