Proper drainage should be a priority consideration in the planning stage of all landscaping and garden design. It’s especially important when planning enclosed areas such as courtyard garden ideas.

This video of the courtyard is the first of many that will follow the creation of a large Mediterranean landscaping project that we’re working on. We’ll start with the courtyard garden because it is in the center of the entire project. In a design like this with many stages, it’s a good idea to start in the center and work your way out. That way you’re not trampling over already finished work.

As I said, drainage should be a major consideration when making your landscaping plan. With improper grading and drainage, you could possible have some major problems, damage, and other inconveniences due to water and weather.

In courtyards and courtyard gardens that are enclosed or surrounded by walls, this is especially important. In heavy rains, a lot of water with nowhere to go can cause flooding that can even back up into the home.

In this video, we go over grading and a few different ways that you can channel and drain water from courtyard gardens and other landscaping projects.

As I said before, this is just the first of several videos that will showcase a lot of useful projects and plans and ideas for landscaping that you may be able to use for your own. And, as with this video, we’ll also point out a lot of planning and structural considerations.

All videos and pages related to this project can be found at Mediterranean Garden Landscaping Ideas

There are a lot of great articles this week but before we get to that I wanted to share a really great general diy site that I found. wikihow.com .  I spent quite a bit of time there just checking it out. It’s quite impressive and a site you’ll want in your favorites.

O. K., this week in the landscaping and gardening scene. Not everything this week is related to Springtime gardening. I’m sure I could have filled this post up with all Winter nad Spring related articles, but I’ll save that for a few more weeks. 

Planning Your Garden

This was a short little article from the Dayton Courier but I thought it had some good insights. Not really any ideas or plans but just a few things to think about for generating ideas. Winter is a great time to dream about your garden

Organic Biointensive Gardening

My career as a landscape designer started out 20 years ago as a lawn and garden boy. I had and still have a dream of propagating and developing new strains of Roses. Anyway, even then, I became aware of Organic Gardening and its benefits over chemical fertilizers and methods. This article on Biointensive gardening is really just basic and common organic gardening practices. However, it does go a little deeper and explains some good common sense points for better gardening. 

Preparing The Vegetable Garden

This article from The Dallas News gives some good insights and ideas for creating and maintaining the perfect vegetable garden. Read Garden Bounty.

Landscaping For Seasonal Interest

We take a lot of elements into consideration when creating a design. Besides a basic plan and specific plot issues, we plan ahead for things like seasonal interest and types of plants that will keep the landscaping interesting in every season. If planning a landscape or garden is in your future, this article,  A Garden Of Winter Wonder has some really great ideas for keeping the garden or landscaping interesting even in the Winter months. 

landscaping plans: front yard

I don’t see too many blog posts like this that have much substance. landscaping plans: front yard is a good do it yourself article that shows an actual design plan, some explaination, and ideas.

I hope you find some of this to be good reading. We’ll see more Spring and Springtime tips and ideas as the season arrives. I hope to get to some new tutorials for you in the next week or two. We’ll see.