“Creating a beautiful landscape doesn’t have to be expensive,” says Rick Wiedemer of Hinkley Lighting. “A few well-placed, low-voltage path or accent lights can make a huge impact on a well-manicured landscape.” No lawn is too small. “Even modest homes or those with limited yards or gardens can benefit,” he says.

All that is needed are some basic tools, a transformer (which reduces standard 120-volt household current to the safe 12-volt level), outdoor low-voltage copper cable, and low-voltage lighting fixtures – all of which you can find at your local ALA-member lighting showroom.

“The best thing about using low-voltage lighting outdoors is you don’t have to do everything at once. I recommend purchasing a transformer that is larger than you immediately need,” says Lew Waltz of Philips Hadco. That way when you are ready to install additional lighting, the larger transformer will already be in place and ready to handle the task. “You only pay for the energy consumed by the fixtures,” says Waltz. “In other words, a 600-watt transformer that only has 200 watts of fixtures on it, uses 200 watts of energy, not 600.”

When laying out your project, remember a little light goes a long way outdoors. Consulting with a lighting professional at your local ALA-member lighting showroom can help you avoid making the common mistake of too many fixtures in one area. To find more information about lighting all areas of your home, go to www.AmericanLightingAssoc.com.

Turn Your Backyard Into an Outdoor Resort was posted at Copyright Free Content. | http://www.copyrightfreecontent.com

Amateur gardeners reign supreme on the Internet, and the expert gardeners’ expertise is being challenged throughout the blogosphere. Bloggers are less apt to follow the gardening experts and pave their own way, perhaps a result of a lingering “damn-the-man” mentality due to the economic slide and rise in unemployment in the U.S. Many amateurs are even sharing their foliage failures via blogs to show and educate other gardeners. With social networking continuing to rise, Americans throughout the blogosphere are showing that it takes a village to raise a rosebush.

Urban farming is also prevalent in the U.S. A push for sustainability and green living has growers from Oregon to New York creating their own version of Eden in any small space available. This includes indoor growing of herbs and plants used in kitchens for cooking purposes. With a focus on fresh, local ingredients and self-reliance, urbanites are now more apt to pluck a leaf of basil from a pot in their kitchen than sprinkle dried-up plant crumbs on Wednesday night’s chicken parmesan.

Jay Dahlin, an urban gardener in Chicago, Ill., said that gardening, for him, is an obsession and addiction, noting that he thinks about it constantly from March to October. While growing mostly native plants in his garden, Dahlin says he likes to think that he is re-establishing a very small part of the lost prairie ecosystem.

With spring right around the corner, weathered wintered minds around the U.S. are turning towards all things green. Husqvarna and Gardena, manufacturers of high-quality gardening equipment, identified trends in thirteen different countries after analyzing nearly 1.4 million blog posts worldwide. As experts in the gardening industry, they offer guidance on multiple types of agriculture from farm acres to flowerbeds. For more information on these companies and gardening trends, you can visit www.gardena.com and www.husqvarna.com.

Global Garden Report 2010: Survey Reveals Trends in U.S. Gardening was posted at Copyright Free Content. | http://www.copyrightfreecontent.com