Thursday, August 28, 2008

Solar Garden Fountain What Are the Advantages?

Solar powered electric appliances become popular these days. A good number of home owners buy solar powered home appliances, and of course solar fountains for the garden. You can see many advantages when installing a solar fountain for your garden, but there are some disadvantages as well.

How do solar fountains operate?

Usually garden fountains with solar pumps don't requare much installation. As all solar appliances they use solar panels with Photovoltaic (PV) cells to collect energy of the sun. Since a fountain pump doesn't require a great deal of energy, the panels are small.

There are two main types. First are fountains where solar panels are incorporated in the design of the fountain itself. This type is the easiest to install, but you have to make sure that you place your new fountain in a sunny spot otherwise it won't work.

Another type has remote solar panels, which can be positioned several meters away from the fountain. If you chose this type, it doesn't matter whether your fountain is in a sunny or shady spot as long as the panels are exposed to the sun. Most solar fountains with remote panels come with easy to set up mounting system for the panels. As a general rule you can mount them on the wall, use grass stakes to position them on the loan or use a tall wooden stake to put your panel high up above all the plants.

Advantages and disadvantages of solar powered fountains

There are many benefits!advantages of investing into a solar garden fountain rather than the electric one. The most obvious advantage is that the energy is free. An electric pump won't add much to your energy bill in a day, but if you want your fountain to work all summer, you can save a lot by using sun energy instead of electricity or batteries.

Another advantage is that you are not limited by proximity to a power source when selecting a place for your fountain. This gives you freedom to install your fountain whereever you want. You can place your fountain in the farthest corner from the house, as long as the solar panels are on a sunny spot.

Also solar fountains are very easy to install. Solar powered fountains with panels built into a body of the fountain don't require any special installation at all. This type is perfect as a solar pond fountain that sprays water from your pond. Since there is no cord the fountain can just float on the surface.

The main disadvantage of solar powered fountains is its reliance on the sun for energy. Most pumps will still work on a slightly cloudy day, but if it is really overcast the flow of water will be much less. And, of course, your fountain won't work at night.

Also, it is best to disconnect your fountain from December to March. It would work fine on a sunny day without snow, but snow and frost can damage your pump.

Get more ideas on outdoor decorating visit Outdoor Landscaping Ideas

Monday, August 25, 2008

Don’t Ask Geeks About Home Landscape Design Software

Since you are a smart shopper, you just don’t buy the first home landscape design software you come across. You want to do a little research first. Perhaps part of that research is taking a look at people who review software and computer stuff. However, going to get home landscape design software reviews from geeks is not going to tell you how practical or helpful the software is for your property. They will only tell you how easy or hard it is to tinker with.

Geeks Verses Gardeners

Geeks or "tech-heads" have far different requirements from home landscape design software than a gardener would. A geek would want to know how exciting the program is – does it offer anything new, and how fast? How are the graphics, how fast is it to download and does my computer act peculiar after downloading it? Those are the sort of questions a geek would be worried about and would base a review on.

A gardener or landscaper, on the other hand, has a much different set of expectations from their home landscape design software. They want to see how easy it is to use, how practical it is for their work and if it helps them get a great garden or outdoor space planned out. For that reason, you need to get reviews of home landscape design software from gardening magazines, gardening clubs and gardening web sites.

Top Ten Reviews

If you don’t already know of a good gardening magazine that you can trust or a gardening web site, then there is a short cut you can use. You can go to a web site called Top Ten Reviews, which is like an online version of "consumer Reports" magazine. Every year, Top Ten Reviews puts out a list of the landscape software they think is the best.

You could get the names of these home landscape design software programs and put them through your favorite search engine to see what others in the gardening web world have to say about it. This can help whittle down the list very fast. You can even place the name of the software with the word "sucks" next to it to see if someone hated the program so much, they devoted a whole chunk of bandwidth to cutting it into little sarcastic pieces.

That being said, before you buy your home landscape design software, be sure you know the return policy of the store and if there is a free trial period you can take advantage of.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Introduction To Lawn Care

When you buy a house, or when you have a lawn that you are legally responsible for taking care of, there are many things that you should keep in mind. When it comes to lawn care help, there are many places on the internet and in books that you can get lots of help for dealing with your lawn. The best lawn care help would include first having a plan of what you want to do with your lawn. In order to get the unsurpassed lawn care help, it is important that you know precisely what you'd like to do with your lawn before you do it. Having an overall vision or a plan of what you require in your lawn is a good way to make sure that your lawn gets done the way you want it. If you can take the time to draw out a sketch of what you want your lawn to be like, you will have much more success.

Even if you have little or no artistic ability, drawing a sketch of what you require your lawn to be will afford you some of the unsurpassed lawn care help, because you can take it in to a lawn care store, or show it to the professional who is going to be working on your lawn. Both of these things will allow you to have superior control over what you want to do with your lawn, and you will be even that much more cheerful with the end result. Whether you're dealing with a store that sells lawn related goods or a professional who is going to be doing your lawn for you, a sketch will give you the lawn care help you need because it will let others see exactly what you are talking about.

Ask for Help

When it comes to lawn care help, you should always ask for advice and help when you need it. There is nothing wrong with needing some help, and there is certainly nothing wrong with asking others to help you with the things you don't know how to do, or the things that you have seen done in other places and would like to somehow replicate in your own lawn. In order to be successful with your lawn, you should make sure that you are asking for help. Remember that in order to get the unsurpassed help possible, just ask.

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