DIY Life

Each week, Diane Rixon brings you Avant Yard, a look at all your lawn and garden could be. Diane shows you how to give life to everything inside your fence. We promise that your yard will be the greener "other side" and the neighbor's envy to boot. Alright, we don't really promise, but you get the idea.

Is there a dead tree in your yard? Let it live on -- repurpose it! Here are a bunch of suggestions, with an emphasis on projects that are both easy and inexpensive.

LEAVE IT ALONE
1. Leave it standing. If it's not a danger to people or structures on your property, of course. Let it be a home for birds, bugs and assorted critters.
2. Leave it standing and turn it into yard art -- hang colored bottles from the branches or string it with colored lights that change with the season.

CUT IT UP
3. Use planks for fencing.
4. Build a big brush pile, which is a fantastic refuge for wildlife.
5. Use it for garden mulch. You will need to hire a mulching machine or mulching service for this, however.

I just discovered You Grow Girl and I love it! This fabulous blog is the creation of avid green-thumbed-girl Gayla Trail. The YGG motto is "gardening for the people." Unlike the stuffy and old-fashioned garden-society-type garden sites I'm used to seeing, this site is fresh and cool, hip and funky. It's aimed at a younger and more environmentally-conscious audience. People like myself, perhaps, who want to garden...but don't want gardens like their parents have, with neatly clipped lawns and stiffly symmetrical shrubbery.

For Gayla, gardening is about more than just growing stuff. It's about cherishing the environment. It's also about the art and creativity involved in gardening and the inspiration that a beautiful garden can provide. Gayla's gardening style is also about the basics that well-planned gardens can bestow on us -- like nutritious and delicious foods and all-natural products for health and beauty. She's enthusiastic, too, about all the crafts associated with life in the garden, like sewing aprons and converting old, junky items into eye-catching yard art and cool garden containers.

Ms. Trail even has a book: You Grow Girl: the Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening. You can buy the book through numerous vendors including Amazon. Have a story, photo or project you'd like to share with You Grow Girl? Post it to the ever-expanding forum page.

Put on a happy face this Fall: plant container mums by your front door! The chrysanthemum is an inexpensive yet high-impact plant that will provide a colorful focal point for your home. Its cheerful, compact blooms look good in any context, while the myriad rustic shades of brown, red, orange, and yellow are perfect for autumn.

Here are a few tips for success with container mums this Fall.

First, consider impact. One lonely pot of mums does not look good unless your home or apartment is right up close to the street, in which case you might be able to get away with it. A much better strategy is to mass at least three plants in separate pots. Place them in a casual-looking cluster or in a row descending your front steps. Another option is to plant several chrysanthemums in one large pot.

Garden centers and hardware stores sell top soil pretty cheap. The more specialized mixes, however, can cost you big-time depending on the size of your garden beds or the number of containers you need to fill. The last time I purchased a large bag of container potting soil, I remember the price tag made me do a double-take.

Yes, these ready-made soils are convenient. But have you considered mixing your own to save some money? It's pretty easy and there are tons of "recipes" out there on the web and in gardening books. It works like this: buy a basic, cheapo potting soil and mix in special ingredients as you need them depending on what you're planting.

Here's a very simple mixture I have used many times: