Category: Blog

If your home needs livening up, be it in the garden or lounge, it’s not practical to use real greenery, instead consider using faux plants. Decorators recommend skipping the fake stuff to stay classy, but improved materials and manufacturing are giving silk greens a fresh reputation. Artificial plants look real now that it’s hard to tell.

Selection Savvy

Pay attention to detail when you’re buying fake flowers (buy from www.artificialplantshop.com.au/artificial-flowers-sydney/). Manufactured plants should resemble their live counterparts. Visible stems, trunks and limbs must appear realistic. The same goes for texture, density and colour. Minute, intricate details make innovative greens more natural-looking than their predecessors.

An array of products could leave you spoilt for choice. But when it comes to creativity, there’s no wrong or right way to choose. The great thing is that faux plants offer the leeway to pick what you want, when you want, no matter your region or the season.

New trends in greenery include succulents and palms, as well as potted herbs like rosemary and lavender. Small ivies and leafy plants suit interior gardens. Dahlias, peonies, hydrangeas and sunflowers are popular silk floras.

Perfect Presentation

Easy to manipulate and maintain, artificial plants are suitable for garden design and interior décor. You can bend limbs and stems to make them fit into a certain space or vessel. Change it up from time to time so they don’t always look similar. Touch up your silks with chic containers and accessories like soil, sand and pebbles.

Outdoor Interest

Add artificial greenery to your rockery, in areas where real plants don’t thrive. It’s that side that has no light. For a lusher look, mix fakes with reals. Topiaries like small boxwoods maintain their glow come rain or shine. They’re a great choice for dark or drab areas where nothing can grow.

Minimal Maintenance

Because faux floras need no pruning, watering or fertilising, they’re perfect for folks who lack a green thumb. We all love real plants but detest maintaining them. Keeping silk plants looking their best requires no more than a dusting. Wiping with a damp microfiber cloth preserves good looks. Many can be rinsed off outdoors or in the shower with a hose. It’s time to replace your artificial plants when you spot signs of fading.

Real vs. Fake

Even if you have green fingers, real plants can be treacherous foes that like to break your back and make you look bad if you don’t give in to their demands. They fade, wilt and die even after showing them mob love. That’s why faux greens and blooms are the best fake pals you’ll ever have. If you have a rockery that’s out of the sun, a shelf that’s out of reach, or a cat that likes digging up plants, don’t put up with a plant-less home, coz artificial plants are here for you.

Silks can do without water and light, and won’t punish you by dying a slow death like real plants on a “dry spell”. Bottom line is; high-quality fakes (well chosen, exhibited and maintained) are way better than ill or dying reals.

References: www.artificialplantshop.com.au

Wondering what great lighting can do for your garden? Read on.

Garden lights are plenty in multiple colours, styles and sizes. Bet you’ll be spoilt for choice. Here are some recommedations from LED Outdoor Lighting Solutions.

Spotlights

Also known as bullets, spotlights are versatile and available in a range of outputs, beam angles and mounting options. Mostly used for highlighting trees and fixtures.

Floodlights

Brighter than spotlights, floodlights cast lots of light on an area, making it usable for security or night strolls. Normally affixed by an electrician, so don’t DIY.

Wall-lights

Similar to floodlights, but not that bright, wall-lights are either mono-colour or RGB, changing colours to create subtle effects on walls.

In-ground Lights

Well hidden, in-ground lights look great around pillars and trees, where an above-ground fixture would create a trip hazard.

Area, Path and Deck Lights

Lidded and angled down, path lights illuminate walkways. Also slanting down, area lights produce a wide beam, lighting a large area. Pointing straight up, deck lights perk up the edges of paths and decks.

To find different styles of garden lights, visit: https://www.ledoutdoor.net.au/garden-lights.html

Solar vs. Electric

Garden lighting is either solar-powered or electrical. Each option has its pros and cons. Solar fixtures are easy to install, inexpensive to buy and safe in-and-around water. Electric lights are complex to affix, costly to purchase and can’t be used where there’s water.

Getting Started With Garden Lighting

Illuminating a garden is a fun project. Highlighting certain features and creating effects with dark and light contrasts, brings your garden to life. But your garden won’t be lit and lush as you pictured it if your lighting plan is dull. For lovely, long-lasting results, this guide is it.

1. Set Goals

What do you wanna achieve? Is it highlighting plants, accentuating a water amenity, or illuminating walkways to eliminate trip hazards?

2. Pick a Strategy

Review your goals. For each one, determine what’s needed to achieve it – preferred lighting effects, type and number of fixtures required, etc.

3. Shopping List

Buy light fixtures, cables, transformers and other essential accessories. Cheap fittings are more trouble than they’re worth. Quality fixtures will return dividends with long-term use.

4. Create a Plan

Using a marker or paint, identify transformer locations, where you’ll place the lights and where the cables will run.

5. Install Lights

Setting up electric lights is pro work. DIYing is synonymous with electrocution. Try your hand at installing solar-powered fixtures.

6. Wait Until Dark

Turn on the lights, grab a glass of wine and enjoy your garden. Make adjustments as required.

Garden Lighting Techniques

The best lighting technique makes your garden and its features stand out.

• Highlighting: A spotlight is positioned at the base of a tree or feature.
• Silhouetting: Light fixtures are installed behind a feature facing a wall, creating a lit backdrop.
• Moonlighting: Spotlights are placed on trees and angled down, creating moonlit effects.
• Wall Washing: Creates soft, even effects on walls.
• Uplighting: Used well, uplights create contrasting levels of shadow and light on a surface.
• Accenting: Well positioned and angled spotlights highlight a sculpture or plant.
• Downlighting: Fixtures are placed on a wall or under an eave, shining downwards.
• Path Lighting: Stem/spike fittings are mounted on the edge of a path.

Indoor gardening is a quite similar activity to outdoor gardening. The major difference is that for indoor gardening you are caring for the plants in your home while outdoor will be in the garden outside. One major advantage is that you will get access to gardening even if you live in the city and don’t have access to land. For people who are also confined indoors like grown-ups, this will be an interesting hobby.

Since plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen which we breathe this will be a very healthy exercise to undertake. Indoor gardening is very suitable for people who live in very hot or very cold climates. This is because you can change the atmosphere in the room where they are to make them flourish.

When you finish selecting the kind of plants to grow, then it comes to choosing the container to house them. It is good in bigger pots to allow for plant growth but small ones can also be tolerated. A small one can be positioned on a counter. The big one can be placed just next to the door or at a sunny spot in the corner of the home.

After gathering all the information on the plants and choosing the container then you will have to decide where to place them. As much as possible, place the container with the plant near the window so that it can access the bright sun. There are some plants that require indirect sunlight or artificial light. These should be put in a more relaxing spot with low access to the sun. Failing to do this will lead to the destruction of your plants.

Indoor gardening can also accommodate the planting of herbs. If you love to cook then this will be suitable for you. The herbs will require about four to six hours of sunlight each day coupled with a loose easily drained soil. They will add a lot of spice to your meals. It should also be possible for Indoor gardening to be done alongside the existence of pets in the home. Select those plants that are not toxic to pets so that they can live together. Put crushed seashells or ornamental rocks on top of soils if your pets like to stay in the soil dirt.

Do as much research on the internet as possible before starting your garden indoors.