Outdoor room

KAUNO COLLEGE LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT FACULTY FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT Outdoor room Self – study Paper Student: Birutė Kryžanauskaitė, ZD 3/1 Supervisor: senior teacher N. Zinkevičienė Kaunas 2004 Designing Your Outdoor Room Americans are sticking close to home. They’re doing remodeling and landscaping to make their home more comfortable. Think of your garden as an outdoor room. This can become a haven for the entire family during the growing season. A deck or patio can serve as an indoor-outdoor room. In a poll these two were among the top five add-ons when it comes to remodeling jobs. Over 40% of all the new homes built in 2000 had a patio, and half of them had porches. Nearly one-third had decks. All of these features can perform a very important role in landscaping. They can provide a connection between the indoors and outdoors. Being outdoors is part of being human. It’s just natural. Even when we’re indoors we crave connections with nature. That seems to help explain why these garden features are so popular. When we’re indoors we want decorations that reflect the outdoors. We want home nature-inspired home furnishings. At one time outdoor furniture may have been very cheap and poor quality. That is no longer true. Now it tends to be more comfortable and have deep cushions. All the fabrics and finishes that are used outdoors tend to be very decorative. At one time it was utilitarian waterproof plastic. In recent years various items have become very common on patios, such as portable fireplaces and special lighting. Some lights are even solar-powered. Other products often used in our garden rooms are wind chimes and fountains. Americans have embraced water gardens in a big way. For patios this often means container water gardens or fountains. The sights and sounds of nature are all around us when we’re outside. What would life be without the songbirds? Birdfeeders, birdhouses and related items have become increasingly popular within the last decade. Like an interior room, an outdoor room will have walls, floor furnishings, furniture, and decorations. Creating such a room isn’t hard. But it does take careful planning. Though we may think of the outdoor room as a new concept, it has existed for years, particularly in Europe. Historically, Roman farmhouses and villas had courtyards. In Spain and Latin America, the courtyard is often in the center with rooms off to each side. We all should have a haven in the outdoors; it is soothing to the soul! It can be done with little money, little space, and just a bit of creativity! Check out these five great ideas for creating your own private hideaway! 1. Carve out a space, an outdoor room if you will! It can be a large patio or deck, a corner of the lawn, even a small porch or balcony. If you look hard enough, you can almost always locate a place to make your special room! 2. Treat your room as just that, a room! Create walls, a seating area, and a floor. No, I don't mean a visit to the home improvement center, just place objects to suggest these boundaries. It offers the emotional comfort and security of a real room. Suggestions? Place planters to create walls, paint on your porch floor a faux rug, outline your area with found stones or brick from construction sites (always ask first!), pick up yard furniture from yard sales, create benches from a piece of lumber laid over concrete blocks, hang plants to offer partial privacy to your space. Use your imagination, and think as you would decorating an indoor space! 3. Add container plants. As mentioned before, they can add structure to your outdoor room, but also add accent color, texture, scent, and charm. Buy I inexpensive terra cotta pots at your local discount store, and paint them to add your distinctive touch. Using ordinary craft paint or leftover house paint, you can sponge, stamp, or stencil any design you like! Try choosing colors that will compliment your flowers! Or to pull together a "room" full of unlike planters and furniture, choose one beautiful color and paint all your items with that! My favorites are a vibrant periwinkle blue, or a pale lime green, but hunter green, terra cotta, and earth tones all look very natural in a planted setting. Also look for unusual containers at garage sales to add whimsy to your room. Old cast iron pots (spray with a sealer to prevent rust) wooden boxes, even old boots can be converted to a new plant home! 4. Plants themselves can be quite costly, so here are a few ideas to fill those containers! Division or cuttings can propagate many plants quite easily. Most perennials actually prefer to be divided every few years! Ask your gardening friends if they have any divisions they might like to share with you; most gardeners love to pass on their passion! You might even have some in your own yard ready for dividing. A great site to learn more about plant propagation on the web is

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