Hummingbirds are indeed amazing creatures. Among those who were given the gift of flight, they are the only ones who can fly backwards! Their wings also beat the fastest among any other bird. It is definitely a treat to see one of these incredible birds up close.
These birds love the nectar from honeysuckle flowers. But these plants are not as common as they were before. So, to encourage these creatures to visit your home, try putting up hummingbird feeders in your backyard. They will surely flock to your garden and grace you with their presence. You can find these bird feeders online at reasonable prices. In exchange, you will have priceless hours observing these magnificent animals.
One of the advantages to having spring take an interminable time coming (there HAS to be an advantage or the anxious gardener would go nuts!) is that without all the greenery we can see exactly what needs painting and repair. The roses have been pruned back and it’s clear that the arbor needs a new coat of paint, and the little stone benches tucked around the property have begun to peel. And after five years, the gargoyle lamppost is starting to chip. And I’ve GOT to do something about all the odds and ends of mismatched pots scattered around the house and yard.
Take a step and make note of what you need to improve and you can spend your fall enjoying the labors of your summer garden decor planning.
Bird watching is a popular hobby among many senior citizens. Something about watching the frenetic movements of those feathered creatures is so satisfying. My grandmother is one of those avid birdwatchers. She used to get up early every morning in order to sit by the kitchen window to watch the finches and blue jays that frequented her backyard feeders.
Last year grandmother fell and broke her hip. Her greatest sorrow wasn’t that she couldn’t walk—it was that she couldn’t make it to the garden to watch her beloved birds. I found the greatest solution: a window bird feeder was the perfect way to let her rest in the bed while watching the birds on her outside of her bedroom.
Metal garden stakes are one of the easies ways to enhance your garden décor, and they come in all kinds of shapes, some of the most popular are birds or other animals. There are all kinds of creatures you can choose to decorate your garden these days, from gargoyles to butterflies to fairies. If you wish to show your sense of humor when decorating your yard, you can choose signs and stepping stones with sayings that will do that.
While flowers and other flora come in and out of bloom, these pieces of garden décor add beauty any time of the year. These pieces can also add a certain idiosyncratic flare that plants can’t. Many of the figurines and stakes available for placement in your garden illustrate a healthy sense of whimsy all on their own.
I loved the backyard of my childhood home. My parents took such pride in taking care of the lawn, and the flowers were beautiful. I remember we had daisies, daffodils, roses, geraniums, dahlias and carnations. Many a summer evening I would bring a blanket outside and lie on the grass admiring the flowers and watching the birds. My parents were also avid birdwatchers and had put several birdhouses out in the yard.
One evening when I was sitting outside I kept hearing a weak chirping noise coming from a nearby laurel bush. After a while I decided I would go see what was causing the little noise. When I neared the bush I spied a tiny little blue bird. It looked as though the baby bird may have injured his wing in a fall because the wing drooped a bit. I knew what I had to do; I fetched a clean towel and scooped up the little bird. After conferring with my parents we decided we would nurse the bird back to health. By the end of that summer the bluebird was as good as new. We let him go on Labor Day. The whole experience was so beneficial to me that I still think of it whenever I look at the birdhouses in my own backyard.
Windchimes go back in history almost 5,000 years and are thought to be one of the world’s first known musical instruments. Primitive windchimes have been discovered at archeological sites in Southeast Asia and are thought to date about 3000 B.C. At that time, they were usually made of bone, bamboo or other wood, stone or shells, and were believed to ward off evil spirits. Indonesian digs indicate that farmers were using windchimes and other sound-producing wind instruments to scare birds and other animals from their crops and predict wind and weather patterns during ancient times. By 2000 B.C., windchimes had been independently developed along the Mediterranean Sea and in ancient Egypt, where they had been cast in bronze. Ancient Celtic tribes used them to intimidate enemies by making wooded areas appear haunted. Windchimes were also useful for ancient people who lived on or around the sea, as they were believed to provide evidence of impending storms and the possibility of choppy water. Around 1100 B.C., the Chinese created a bell that didn’t have a clapper, known as a yong-zhong and used in their spiritual rituals. Following the yong-zhong, the Chinese developed a form of the modern wind bell called the feng-ling. The feng-ling was hung from the eaves of Chinese shrines, temples, pagodas and caves, believed to be a positive religious talisman that would attract benevolent spirits. The usage of a version of the feng-ling spread from China to Japan and eventually to the Western world, when Asian art, design and philosophy began to influence tastes in Europe and the United States.
Over time, the secular world began the frequent use of windchimes as home and garden decor–sometimes to scare away negative supernatural influence, but often because the sounds prove soothing, calming, or somehow pleasant.
People who enjoy bird feeders are often extremely frustrated with a flock of “bully birds” descending upon their feeders, draining them of all the food and chasing away their favorite songbirds in the process. Some of the most common varieties of “bully birds” are blackbirds, grackles, pigeons, and house sparrows. These invaders are usually attracted to a bird feeder by readily available birdseed or suet on the ground or in easy-access feeders.
Some solutions are to lock out the bully birds, which are usually larger in size, by limiting the accessibility of feeding ports. Keep the areas under your bird feeders as clean as possible to keep pigeons away. Selecting only certain kinds of foods to dispense in your feeders can be beneficial, because bully birds tend to prefer bread, corn, wheat and sunflower seeds. Finches will be drawn to hanging tube feeders with only nyjer (thistle) seeds. Cardinals, chickadees, and nuthatches like safflower seed in hopper or tray feeders.
Often times, when buying someone a gift, the thought you put into purchasing it matters more than the gift itself. For example, if someone loves birds, try finding that perfect decorative birdhouse to shelter their flying friends! I know that I love animals, and if anyone were to get me a gift, I would be impressed if it was something addressing my favorite creatures. This could be anything, from a birdhouse to a cat tree, it matters most that they had my thoughts in mind.
There are some many pet gifts available in the stores these days that it can be hard to choose which one is best for your loved one. Find something out of the ordinary, like a cute little casino-themed bird house. The recipient will be charmed that you spent the time to pick out something perfect for the feathered friends in their back yards.
In the past few months, my husband and I have been remodeling and improving our home in the hopes of selling it. We had attempted to do the very same thing around this time last year, but the housing bubble burst and the economy forced us to change course. This time we’re determined to make the house as desirable to potential buyers as possible. As much as interior design and amenities matter, I realized that the exterior of the home must look good for people to even set foot through the front door.
We began with a small landscaping job in the backyard and garden area, then bought solar lighting to highlight the new dimension and depth of the space even at night. To spruce things up even further, I found some decorative garden stakes that truly complemented the flora I had planted earlier in the year. At this rate, we should be bringing potential buyers to the property in droves.
Every day there are many negative events in the daily news and stress in our lives. Making or buying garden décor will help to counterbalance these. A whimsical wind chime, a decorative stake, a garden statue or a birdhouse gives us something pleasant focus on when the stress starts mounting up.
Garden accents help a person to create meaning and inspiration in their lives as they put time and effort into their lawns and gardens in such a way to reflect their deepest thoughts and feelings