Posts Tagged ‘flowers’

In our hurried, stressful world, we’re often looking for ways to relax and enjoy the things around us. Your own flower garden is a terrific way to do that. As the saying goes, you can improve life simply by stopping to smell the roses.

And those roses smell even better if you grew them yourself!

You’ve probably noticed that some people just have a knack for growing nice, healthy flowers while the rest of us seem to mostly grow weeds. Often the difference between a lush, wonderful flower garden and a gnarly weed bed are a few simple factors. Do the right things and you’ll find growing beautiful flowers is easier than you imagined.

1. Plant flowers that do well in your area. Temperature, rainfall, and more that determine your local climate will favor some flowers, while making others almost impossible to grow. For example, if you endure the super hot summers of Texas or Arizona, you will have to grow different kinds of flowers than people in cooler New York or Utah.

To some degree, you can check the backs of seed packets to know which plants grow in your area and what time of year to plant. Gardening guides can also help. Your best bet is often to talk to someone who knows plants. Usually you can find these people working in smaller stores, greenhouses, and nurseries. It’s usually not hard to identify who these plant experts are, as just about everybody in town knows about them and repeats their advice.

2. Pay attention to the quality of the soil you’re planting in. Often adding richer potting soil or light fertilizer can give your flowers a much better chance of turning out healthy. The right soil is one of the major reasons why some people grow terrific flowers while others can’t get anything to sprout.
Read the rest of this entry »

10 Beneficial Insects For Gardening

1. Aphid Midge: These insects look like a delicate, small wasp. The larvae eats more than sixty varieties of aphids from the garden. You can attract them by growing plants with a lot of pollen and nectar.

2. Big-Eyed Bug: This is a fast-moving bug with large eyes and very small black spots on it’s head and thorax. They are usually found in field crops and orchards. The big-eyed bug eats leafhoppers, spider mites, plant bugs, aphids, and small caterpillars. This bug is a real asset to gardening.

3. Ladybug: The ladybug ranges in size from 1/16 to 3/8 inch and have round red, orange or yellow bodies with black markings. They prefer gardens that have a large amount of pollen and nectar-producing flowers. The ladybug is fond of aphids, mealybugs, small insects and scales. The Mexican bean beetle is related to the ladybug but is not beneficial.

4. Minute Pirate Bug: These bugs are 1/4 inch long in adulthood and feature a black and white pattern. Fast-moving like the big-eyed bug and attracted to gardens where goldenrod, yarrow, alfalfa, daisies, and other flowering, pollen-producing plants are grown. They eat small caterpillars, thrips, spider mites, insect eggs and immature leafhoppers.
Read the rest of this entry »

The only way to keep up with the latest about Caring For Your Plant Bulbs is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you find about Caring For Your Bulbs, it won’t take long for you to become an influential authority.

How can you put a limit on learning more? The next section may contain that one little bit of wisdom that changes everything.

Bulbs are generally among the easiest of all plants to care for, and this hardiness makes bulbs one of the most popular among all kinds of gardeners. Even though bulbs are easy to care for, however, it is still important to care for them properly to ensure you will have a garden full of dahlias, lilies, daffodils, tulips and other bulbs.

One great thing about bulbs is the colors they come in. Bulb plants come in a wide variety of colors, and a flower bed full of bulbs can be one of the most colorful parts of any garden.

As with any type of plant, it is important that your bed full of bulbs receive plenty of water, plenty of sunlight, proper fertilization and a good quality soil. Providing these basic elements is the best way to get your bulbs off to the best start.

When it comes to watering bulbs, it is important to remember that all bulbs need regular watering during their growth and blooming period. For most bulbs, the active growth period begins shortly after they go into the ground, and it continues until the foliage on the plant has died back. The die back generally occurs after the flowering has stopped, or in the autumn of the year.
Read the rest of this entry »

Bring The Smell Of Nature Into Your Home With These Fragrant Flowers

A lot of money is spent in this country to reproduce fragrances for perfumes and air fresheners. The majority of these manufactured fragrances have alcohol and other additives that can actually irritate the membranes in your nose. Nature has done it the best and these are some of the most heavenly fragrances you’ll ever smell.

1) Hyacinth! This highly fragrant flower is actually a member of the lily family. Lily’s tend to grow much larger than the hyacinth but if you look closely at this flower you will see that the clusters of these blooms are tubular in shape just like the lily. Hyacinths have been a popular garden flower since the 17 hundreds because of the brilliance of there color (of every shade) and because of the incredible fragrance they have. Whether you have them planted out doors or in a pot in your home, this beautiful flower will brighten up any space and give off a constant heavenly fragrance, but, it is not overpowering. I just can’t imagine a perfume that smells any better than this. And men, instead of giving her some fresh cut flowers, try giving her a hyacinth plant. It will last longer and she can replant it again next year if she wants to put it in a garden.

2) The most fragrant flowers are the pure white Casa Blanca and the dark pink Stargazer lily. They are absolutely beautiful, but beware; the fragrance they give off is so strong, that, one bouquet of lilies can fill up an entire room. Don’t place them where you are going to sit for any length of time unless, that is what you want. They don’t do well in direct sunlight or drafts so place them in a more diffused lit area. If you replace the water every couple of days and add flower food plus a new snip of the ends, you’ll have a long lasting, beautiful fragrant arrangement.

3) Tuber roses are not actually roses. Like the hyacinth, a tuber rose has a stem with clusters of flowers that are all white. Once again, the smell is fantastic. I once picked off one little petal from the cluster and put it in my car. A few hours later I return to my vehicle and was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful it smelled. My children noticed it as well. It was the perfect natural air freshener.
Read the rest of this entry »

Does the mere sight of fresh flowers make you sneeze? Are you like the many thousands of people that are allergic to the pollen in flowers? Do you like colourful pretty things around you? If so then read on……

Its quite sad to say, but there are thousands if not millions of people who can not enjoy the both the sight and scent of having a bunch of flowers around the home or office for fear that they will end up with a running nose and/or itchy eyes.

So what is the solution? Yes you guessed – artificial flowers!. Not only do artificial flowers stop you sneezing but they can last forever if you look after them, and as such will save you more money in the long run so that you have more money in your pocket.

Today there are many homes, hotels, offices and restaurants that use the alternative to real flowers. Artificial flowers if arranged correctly can give any environment a touch of elegance without the hassle of all the maintenance one would expect with real flowers and plants. (i.e. no watering, no having to change the water regularly, and as such no spillages).

Not only can you get artificial flowers, but also plants and trees. So if you want something a little large in order to decorate a room or office then this could be the answer for you.
Read the rest of this entry »