Getting the Most from Your Garden

A well-maintained and attractive yard is a perfect complement to a home. It enhances your personal taste and makes the surroundings look interesting and awesome. No matter how big or small your yard is, it is very important to neatly landscape it. It is the big factor in achieving the amazing finishing touches of your entire home.

William Schoellkopf,  a landscaping company that offers varieties of landscaping service that fits your needs, is expert when it comes to professional designs perfect for the structure and physical features of your garden. Their landscape design professionals are dedicated to coming up with a perfect result creating a breathtaking atmosphere.

To get the most from your out of your garden, there are low-cost alternatives offered by William Schoellkopf while you keep the beauty of your garden at the same time. They vary the design of a garden based on the shape and look of the space. You can showcase your creativity by adding personal touches to the design wherein you may choose something that suits your taste or personality.

Their professionals are able to identify if there are possible problems the garden may face in the future to prevent them from existing. In this way, you have a peace of mind that the landscape will last which gives value to the amount of money you may spend for the project.

Through proper plotting, these experts are able to determine the type of plants that can be planted in the specific area of our garden based on its needs like the sunlight and soil. You may be aware that plants grow healthily based on the type of soil and how it should receive the amount of the sun.

The professional landscapers can also offer affordable plants but will not make your garden look cheap through the application of excellent touches of design. They usually propose a cost-effective way of maintaining your garden to help you save money and time while taking care of its beauty.

Creating a focal point will make your garden gain the attention of whoever passes by. No matter how small the space used by your garden, it will still look striking through using clusters of attention-seeker plants, vibrant flowers, and ornaments, bird cage, similarly shaped rocks, bench, planter or a unique architectural garden design. These features add a sense of purpose to your garden, allowing each visitor to feel welcomed as they enter your home.

Aside from designs, you also need to add a texture to your garden. You may include steps and other artistic platforms to maximize the space. It seems like you are creating an illusion of several rooms in the garden through the use of platforms like flooring materials, defined pathways, and creative use of arches.

You can also choose a design with faux grass on it to transform the small yard into a pleasant outdoor area. It will surely look inviting and cozy once you achieve all these goals. Seek help from William Schoellkopf and they can master these designs for you.

Happy 4th of July

From the team at William Schoellkopf we want to wish everyone a safe and Happy Independence Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the awesome mothers out there.  We know how much you do and want you to know you are appreciated! As a Professional Landscape Design Team, we appreciate what it takes to keep everything in order and turning chaos into beauty!  Thank you for all that you do!

Kids and Photography: Numbers, and Letters and Colors, Oh My!

Young children are just naturally curious about the world. The work of adults is to cultivate that curiosity into a lifelong love of learning. Photography is an excellent medium for cultivating curiosity into love of learning.

Whether pre-school, school age, or adult, photos hold a seemingly endless fascination for us all. They are some of the best ways that we learn about our history, our ancestry, and our world. Recognizing colors, numbers, or letters; beginning word recognition and reading are all important skills for children to develop. Eye and hand coordination, thinking and reasoning are qualities you will want your child to learn. Each of these skills and abilities can be enhanced and supported through photography!

Developing a “good eye” for photography will also help your child observe the world around them and encourage creativity and critical thinking.

What You’ll Need

You will need an inexpensive digital camera for your child. Another option is to repurpose an older cell phone that is equipped with a camera. Good quality photo paper or cardstock. A good printer linked to your home computer, or one that allows for the attachment of digital cameras or cell phones to download and print photos.

Where to Begin

Consider where you want to focus the learning. In what has your child shown curiosity lately? Is it numbers, letters, or colors identification? Is it counting or word recognition? This will give you a starting place for the project. Present it as fun and enjoyable, not a task or learning to complete. Children learn best when they don’t realize they are learning. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on numbers, although the same techniques can be successfully used for letters, words, and colors too.

Let’s Get Snappin’

This is a ten day project if you do one number each day. You could divide the day in half and do one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That would allow a five day shoot for ten numbers, or a ten day shoot for numbers. Try not to make the activity last too long, so that it doesn’t become a chore and boring to do. Let your child guide you in deciding how long to spend each time on the project.

On Day One, whatever photos the child takes should have ONE item in it as its focal point. It could be a bird, a leaf, a fruit or a vegetable, one footprint in sand, one eyeball (that’s always a crowd pleaser!) as long as it is only one.

Each day add one more number to the items for photographing. Maybe it will be two feet, or two stuffed animals, or two fingers. Whatever photos they take on Day Two will have TWO items in them. Continue each day in the same manner, until you have reached ten or whatever number you have chosen as the finish, advises William Schoellkopf. Because you will have lots of photos, it would be a good idea to have a computer file with the child’s name, and subfolders for each day.

Then This Happens

Take time with your child to review the photos for each day. Let the child choose one photo from each day that they believe best represents that day’s “theme”. Decide what, if any, text the child would like on each page, using the theme of the day. What will be on the cover of the book itself? There should be an author page with a date so you can remember when the project was done.

Decide the size of the book you will make. Will it be full pages of half pages? Print those chosen photos and assemble the book.

Finally

Set aside time for your child to share their book with family. Make it a special event. Refreshments and the child “reading” what they have done. You could even make extra copies for the young author-photographer to sign! Make memories. Plant your children firmly on the road of loving to learn and watch them grow!