Backyard Ideas

Imagine for a moment being in your backyard on a lovely, summer day. Looking up, puffy clouds drift across the sapphire sky and the warmth of the sun gives your skin tiny kisses. The sweet scent of flowers suddenly fills your senses and you open your eyes to see the masterpiece that is your backyard. Sounds great, right? Georgia residents you could turn this backyard fantasy into reality with Whispering Springs Nursery.

Winter is the perfect time to begin planning your landscaping dreams, especially if you hope to enjoy your yard during those fast approaching warm weather months. While planting flowers, shrubs or trees during wintertime may not always be ideal, right now is a wonderful time to begin creating a design plan and setting your budget.

While some landscaping projects are best left to the professionals, there are plenty of great DIY ideas you can use to jazz up your backyard. Some of these ideas you can even begin working on right now (if you don’t mind the cold)!

• Raised Garden Bed –  Create a unique raised garden bed for your yard with attractive, rot-resistant cedar or red-wood. This makes gardening easy; no more painful knees! It also allows for great water drainage through the soil, making it easy to grow phenomenal flowers and impeccable vegetables.

• Garden/Lawn Paths – If you want to steer people through your yard or garden area, paths are the best way to keep everyone on track (no flower stompers allowed). Paths can be created using various materials; many use flagstone, crushed gravel or pebbles, concrete, stepping stones or even a simple dirt path. Even if you don’t want to do the actual work right now (winter, brrr!), you can go ahead and put your design plan on paper. Draw out the dimensions of your yard and play with the ‘shapes’ you want your path to make.

• Arbors, Cabana’s and Trellis’ (oh, my!) – Adding a piece of backyard ‘furniture’ is a delightful, not to mention quick way of reinvigorating your lawn space. Add an arbor bench for the perfect outdoor reading space or a ivy filled trellis to make your yard more visually appealing. Cabana’s are great spaces for outdoor entertaining, and can be found in low and high price points.

These ideas are barely a drip in the watering can! There are a plethora of other great lawn options and inspirations out there to explore. At Whispering Springs Nursery we specialize in landscape design and installation. Want a waterfall or pond? Contact us today for pricing!

After the especially cold winter and finicky spring temperatures, we’re ready to grow! Growing a vegetable garden can make even the most patient of people get frustrated with how long things can take to mature, so we’ve got some tips on how you can speed up the process! Even here at Whispering Springs Nursery, when we are ready to grow, we’re ready to grow!

Plant Fast Growing Varieties

Rather than planting veggies that you know take a long time to harvest, mix them in with other options that mature quickly! Arugula takes only 25 days to grow to maturity and mustard greens typically only take 30 days. Rather than waiting almost 90 days for your tomato plants to produce, cultivate the Glacier tomato which will bear fruit in a short 55 days.

Grow Your Own Seedlings

Rather than waiting until the last frost has passed to plant your seeds outdoors, start them inside. This will give you an almost 12 week head start on the growing season. To do this, you’ll need fresh seeds, small containers that are about 2.5″ deep with plenty of drainage holes, and an appropriate seed starting growing medium.

Ready to Try Gardening for Yourself?

Gardening doesn’t have to take up a whole lot of space. Many of our clients will plant on their back porches to keep their tender veggies out of harms way (read: deer). Square foot gardening is a great way to maximize space and get the most out of a raised garden bed with limited size.

Come on by Whispering Springs Nursery today and see what we have in store for you. From beautiful bushes, trees, and hardscape to the perfect spring perennials to add a splash of color to your front lawn we have it all here in Jasper, GA. 

So, we’re going to have a little talk here about the birds and the bees. Believe it or not, if you build an herb garden and it’s not doing well, it’s somewhat because of the lack of bees.Whispering Springs Nursery has tips for you on what you need to do to make your garden more inviting for bees.

The key is making sure that you planted an option that will always provide enough nectar. These top six herbs will make sure that you have something delicious to cook with, and that you are inviting bees into your herb garden to pollinate and help the plants grow!

1. Lavender – It smells great, looks great, and can be used for a wide variety of things. Plant it as a ground cover for a large area.
2. Mint – This herb will not only invite bees, but deter moths that would otherwise feast on sweet leaves of your herb plants.
3. Rosemary – Rosemary grows early, which makes a great early source for nectar for bees.
4. Thyme -Thyme’s fragrance attracts bees and butterflies.
5. Sage – A great bee attractant.
6. Myrtle – This is a great herb that is not only functional, but beautiful. Plant it near the back of your herb garden as it grows rather tall and will add a new height dimension to your garden.

What else will you have growing in your herb garden this spring? Come by Whispering Springs Nursery in Jasper, GA and we’ll help you fill a container with herbs that are not only beautiful, but fragrant and delicious!

Img via Flickr. 

One of our specialties here at Whispering Springs Nursery is helping our customers fill up whatever containers they bring us with a beautiful, growing flower arrangement. We love seeing all of the different creative containers that our customers come up with that always make unique planters. To inspire you, here are ten out of the box ideas for where you can find a container for your next flower garden. 

1. Garden Tools – Watering cans, wheel barrows, old boots, etc.
2. Vertical Gardens – Think, up! Vertical gardening is extremely popular right now.
3. Kitchen Tools – Remember that pan you just burnt beyond belief last weekend? Rather than wasting any more elbow grease trying to get it clean, give up the fight and use them as a quirky planter.
4. Reuse Old Cans – Whether you were a junk collector or if you are just of the era to have decorative cans sitting around, they make perfect little planters. Whether you are growing succulents or you are trying to force a bulb, the old time tins were absolutely beautiful.
5. Wall Planters – If you have a large bare wall somewhere outdoors, this is the perfect solution. Simply hang the wall planter on the wall and you have a beautiful piece that is not only meaningful but memorable.

Img vir Flickr.

It’s the perfect time of year to encourage your kids to get out from in front of the TV screens, iPads, iPhones, and whatever other “i-Technology” they have in their hands, and get outside! Teaching your kids to garden has many benefits. Here are 3 great reasons to take your kids outdoors with you today. 

1. Health

Not only is it obviously more healthy to be outside moving around, gardening and playing, but gardening has other benefits. Give your kids the opportunity to grow their own food and they’ll want to eat what they’ve worked so hard to grow. This is a great way to get more vegetables into their diet!

2. Environmental Awareness

Gardening gives you a unique appreciation for the earth and the beautiful landscape that surrounds us. Connecting kids to nature will make them more aware of their surroundings and how important it is to protect nature through appropriate gardening practices and other responsible lifestyle habits such as recycling.

3. Education

This is probably one of the last things that comes to mind when you are thinking about getting your kids involved in gardening, but it’s true! Gardeners need to understand science, math, nutrition, health, and more. Gardening is a great way for your kids to see principles in play that they’ve learned in school at work right in front of them in their garden.

So, this weekend, bring your kids with you to Whispering Springs Nursery and pick out the next flowers you want to plant. We look forward to hearing about how much your youngest green thumb loves gardening!

Img via Flickr. 

With spring here, it’s time for readying your garden for the spring blooms. Many of you will have damaged plants from our harsh Georgia winter, but before you get frustrated and give up on them completely, here are some tips to help you boost your spring gardening plans from Whispering Springs Nursery. 

1. Put the Clippers Away

Before you break out your clippers and try to cut off every ounce of dead branches and leaves from your shrubs, wait! If those shrubs are showing any green leaves or signs of growth, give them a few more weeks. Temperatures are still up and down here in Georgia, so those shrubs might just need a few more weeks before they are ready to come back.

2. Fertilize and Feed

Give your plants the nutrients they need to take off and grow when the time comes. Go ahead and apply an all around fertilizer to all of your bushes and shrubs.

3. Accept the Facts

Some of your shrubs, you simply aren’t going to be able to save. More delicate shrubs such as gardenias probably aren’t going to come back after the harsh winter storms. Go ahead, yank them out, and come by Whispering Springs Nursery this week to pick up replacement gardenias or another more cold hardy shrub for your Jasper, GA landscape! 

Img via Flickr. 

Around Bent Tree and Big Canoe, people have an appreciation for the natural beauty of our surrounding landscape. We often work with clients that rather than changing the landscape around their home, simply want to add to its beauty with woodland landscaping techniques. One of our favorite ways to do this is by planting gardens of low maintenance flowers. The flowers we suggest are suited to our Georgia climates and will grow wild with little to no maintenance. These are Whispering Spring Nursery’s top picks for flowers to grow in Jasper, GA: 

• Obedient Plant
• Iris
• Canna
• Lilyturf
• Southern Shield Fern
• Black Eyed Susan
• Cast Iron Plant
• Phlox

Any of these flowers will make great additions to your garden. Although, if you historically have a problem with the deer feeding on your landscape, these might not be the best options. Instead, choose flowers that are deer resistant. (No plant can be called “deer proof.”) Or, come by our nursery today and talk to us about creating a landscape design for you that enhances your natural surroundings, but will not become dinner for your deer the day after it’s installed.

Whispering Springs Nursery specializes in deer resistant gardens, custom carpentry, water features, landscape design, landscape maintenance, as well as providing beautiful flowers, trees, and shrubs to our clients at our garden center in Jasper, Ga. Come by and see us today!

Img via Flickr.