AMES, Iowa – An online course in landscape design will be offered by Iowa State University. The course runs from Nov. 28, 2016 to March 12, 2017 and will cover landscape graphics, plant materials, garden composition and garden history.
The course is being presented by the Iowa State Department of Horticulture and is taught by Ann Marie VanDerZanden, professor and director of the ISU Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching.
There will be five courses in the online workshop
- Introduction to Landscape Graphics
- Plant Materials and How to Design with Them
- Garden Composition Development and Garden History
- Advanced Landscape Graphics
- Final Capstone Project
Each module includes a combination of guided drawing and writing exercises, video lectures and tips from industry experts that correlate with specific module learning objectives.
By the end of the course, participants will have refined their landscape graphic skills, furthered their ability to select appropriate plants for a landscape design based on environmental and aesthetic considerations and increased their understanding of the impact landscape design history has on current designs.
Source: www.extension.iastate.edu
Landscaping Tips
Though your home is your castle, there is no necessity to surround it with a moat. Here are 5 tips that will help you to make your landscaping feel more warm, welcoming and cozy.
1. Put some flowers nearby your entrance. Flowers make any area look more welcoming and attractive, so greeting your guests with Petunia, Snapdragon, Lily-of-the-Nile or some other garden flowers is always a great thing to do. What is more, to add some space between your house and the entrance, you can consider adding a little white fence. It will create an illusion that your front yard is bigger than it actually is. What is more, adding fence will create a great space for planting flowers to add some color and coziness.
2. Add rambling vines to make your yard look absolutely lovely. You can not deny that rambling vines always create romantic and even magical atmosphere. So why not to use this tip while decorating your yard?
3. To hide the unattractive driveway, consider adding some color, texture, and height. You can easily do it by adding various sorts of flowers. To start, create an island of green lawn right in the hub of a drive. Then add a couple of low boxwood hedges with flowers toward the back of your island.
4. If you want your yard to blossom and flourish bust still do not have enough time to maintain it, consider planting low-fuss lilies. Such flowers look absolutely gorgeous and come in the variety of rainbow hues, so you can pick the one you love most. What is more, low-fuss lilies do not care about the sort of soil, they love the sun and welcome hot, they do not afraid of drought. In other words, Crinums is an ideal flower for all those who are looking for low-maintenance solutions.
5. The last tip also touches the low-maintenance aspect. To make your life easier, group plantings into beds and islands. This will help you to avoid mowing and trimming around each individual plant, save a lot of time and even money.