Plant Gardens 101

Orchids

There are more than 25,000 species of this rare and beautiful cone-shaped flower. Some of them are extremely expensive and hard to come by, but other varieties are affordable, available and simple to grow at home.

Hibiscus

There are 10,000 named varieties of the tropical Hibiscus flower. These beautiful and colorful flowers are emblematic of the tropical environments they come from, such as Florida, Hawaii, Jamaica and India. Hibiscus are wonderful for decoration because the flowers will not wilt until their natural time to close –even without water. Opening buds may be picked early in the day, stored in a cool place and brought out for the evening. Storing Hibiscus in the cold slows down the flowers closing by a few hours. (more…)

I’m sure that if you are reading this, you have used some form of mulch during your gardening career. However, you probably didn’t know that there are many other options for organic mulching that you can explore. These days, many gardeners are discovering new sources of free mulch that has been there all along; an untapped resource. These include clippings from a lawn, or woody prunings from other plants in your yard. You will be surprised by how beneficial all these things can be, and how often the opportunity arises to use them.

Many gardeners have taken to spreading out their excess grass clippings across the rest of their yard. You may think this will look tacky, with big piles of grass just sitting in your yard as if you were too lazy to rake them up. However, if you spread them out enough then you won’t even be able to tell that there is an excess amount. Leaving the extra grass on the yard acts as a sort of mulch by preventing evaporation and weed growth. With this extra water, you won’t have to water nearly as much to keep your grass green. When I started leaving my grass clippings, I had to adjust the frequency of my sprinkler system because I was worried my yard was getting too much water! (more…)

The cellular body containing chlorophyll and thus the place in which photosynthesis occurs.