The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
Improve Your Home Landscaping
A pool in the garden highlights the good features of your setting, and it should always be placed so that its surface will be seen from several points, or at least from the most frequented spot in the garden.
The shape and materials of the coping around the pool have much to do with its appropriateness in the setting. Flagstone, brick and tile are all good depending on the degree of formality of the pool. Sometimes the best solution is no visible coping.
Fountains can be made with only a small supply of flowing water, and the same water can be used over and over if you install a small motor and pump for an electric pumping system.
Equipment for the Gardener
WHETHER your grounds are large or small, the right tools and equipment can speed routine tasks and help you to successful gardening. Taking good care of your tools and keeping them in one place will pay dividends in time and effort. If you do not have a tool house or room where you can keep all your tools, and the insecticides, fertilizers, stakes, wire, paint and other equipment a well-prepared gardener should have, arrange to make space in your garage, or build a locker in a corner of your carport or breezeway. A tool shed that is like a giant kitchen cabinet can be added lean-to fashion to your garage.
There are basic tools everybody needs. These include a metal shank spade or, better, the easier-to-handle and extremely useful spading fork, and the small and handy planting shovel. Then, to carry in a handbox or basket, so you will have them when you neeti them, your steel shank hand trowel, hand fork and hand cultivator. An iron or bow rake is fundamental, of course, and so is the bamboo or broom rake. A weed spud for hand removal o( weeds is a favorite instrument, and a good pair of shears or hand pruner is indispensable. The other musts are your hose, hand mower, roller, watering can and wheelbarrow.
Not as vital but very useful are an edging sickle which utilizes old razor blades; lawn edger and grass-edging shears; long-handled or pole-pruning shears, hedge shears and lopping shears. Also, a good sprinkler; a deep cultivator such as the potato hoe; a dibble for seedlings; a stapling gun; a pruning saw and soil sieves. For your hose, a reel is good to have, and a canvas hose and a wand for soaking the soil without getting water on the leaves are valuable attachments.
