Posts Tagged by Planting

Join Dave as he walks through Azalea Hill at the USNA. The garden puts on such an incredible display that thousands make a trek to view these blooming shrubs. Azaleas are easy to grow shrubs that thrive in high filtered shade or partial sun. The Azaleas Collection is just one aspect of the dramatic flower filled grounds. Then it’s off to explore the rich foliage filled gardens of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai. The McBryde Garden showcases a rich collection of rare plants endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, saved from extinction by the hard work of the NTBG team of botanists. Visitors can walk at their own pace along the Palm Walk or Canoe Garden to take in vistas of hillside, ocean and a rushing valley stream. In this episode of Garden Travels, Dave’s favorites include: Oakleaf Hydrangea and Matilija Poppy.
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You can have the most elaborated back yard from the entire neighborhood, but if it isn’t functional you have built it in vain. We all want to have beautiful and flourishing gardens, but when we have a family, we must also take into consideration the needs of the other members of it. Divide the space of your yard in two or three visual spaces, one for play and relaxation, one for gardening and maybe one for pets.

An open space, covered by lawn is ideal for your children. Here you can install a table for open air lunches or for a romantic summer evening dinner.

Do you have a fireplace? Keep a portion of your garden especially for depositing fire woods, but make sure it is at a considerable distance from the house or animals that can cause damage.

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How about pets? You can build for these little members of your family special spaces, in which they can play and exercise. Before you plant bushes and ornamental plants, surround the pet space. Cats and dogs tend to be attracted exactly by the things we try to keep them away from.

Keep the by-passers’ eyes away from your personal life. Before planning the scenery, you must have in sight a place for the garbage cans. It wouldn’t be very nice to have a wonderful garden right next to the garbage cans. These can be efficiently hidden in some kind of surrounded space, decorated on the sides with life fence.

Functionality is an important factor in your garden, so you have to think about children, little pets and family assets before you plant anything. Save a portion of the yard especially for you, in which you can plant whatever you want and leave for the others some space to breathe freely.

You will find it more satisfying this way, once the whole family is happy with your garden and they might even bring their personal ideas for it. It is important that personal space is respected and that is why the garden must not be very wide, taking up all available space. Build from time to time a pathway or some benches where you can just relax and admire your work.

Propagating your own plants from seeds is much more rewarding and less expensive than buying seedlings from the garden supply shop. One of the first things you will need is a box or tray approximately 3 to 4 inches deep, 12 to 14 inches wide, and 20 to 24 inches long.

Once you have your planting box, fill it with a suitable seed raising mix. A good medium would be 80-85% washed river sand and 15-20% peat moss. If you prefer to buy a bag of seed raising mix, visit your local garden supply store. One you have your medium, fill the box almost to the top, and then pat down the medium firmly.

Prepare the medium for planting your seeds by making rows across the box. They should be one quarter to half inch deep and 2 inches apart.

The seed should be distributed 8 or 10 to the inch in the rows and then be covered. Move the box to a warm shaded place.

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It is important to water regularly during germination, however the soil should be kept moist not wet. If the water starts running out the bottom of the box you are over doing it and the soil will become waterlogged. If this happens, the seeds could rot and fail to germinate.

If you can cover the box with a piece of glass or even saran wrap, this will hold the moisture, creating a microclimate, which will hasten germination. Once the seedlings germinate the lid can be removed and the seedlings can gradually be introduced to stronger light – next to a window would be ideal.

When the plants are one inch to an inch and a half high they should be thinned to one or two inches apart in the row, to give them space enough to make a strong stocky growth. If you wish to keep the plants that have been thinned, they must be planted two inches apart each way in boxes similar to the seed box.

When the weather becomes mild, the box of plants should be set out of doors part of the time so that the plants will harden in preparation for transplanting to the garden later. Give the seedlings a good watering just before transplanting so that a ball of earth will stick to the roots.

By raising seedlings in this controlled climate of germination, they will be hardier and flourish. You will also have the added satisfaction of having done all the work yourself.

This video describes the different basic things to think about when planting a garden… Should you use transplants or seedlings?
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Waterlilies and other aquatic plants can be planted successfully at any time from early spring into the summer. It is preferable to plant in early spring as then it is possible to achieve a good display during the succeeding summer. Aquatics planted during the summer rarely achieve full maturity until the following year.

All aquatic plants enjoy a heavy soil, so use a clay-loam soil from the garden or a proper formulated aquatic planting compost. When collecting soil from the garden, ensure that it is weed-free and does not contain any other organic debris that may decompose and pollute the water. It should not be from land that has been recently dressed with artificial fertilizer as this is likely to be very soluble and leach out into the pond water, thereby providing ideal conditions for the establishment of green water discoloring algae.

Waterlilies and other aquatic plants should always be fed using a slow release aquatic plant fertilizer in either a tablet or sachet, which during the growing season can be pushed into the compost next to the plant. Plant waterlilies and marginal aquatics in the same manner as when potting other plants into pots, but ideally use proper aquatic planting baskets.

Although marginal plants will grow in traditional pots, they will not prosper in the same way as when cultivated in planting baskets. Always plant a single species or variety in one container. Never consider mixed plantings as these will end in a tangle with one species or variety almost certain to dominate. Once planted, top-dress the compost in the baskets with fine gravel to prevent fish from stirring up the compost in their search for aquatic insect larvae.

Submerged aquatics are planted in a similar fashion, except that many more are used in a container. The larger sized planting basket will accommodate ten or twelve bunches, for most submerged aquatic plants are sold as bunches of leafy cuttings fastened together with a lead strip. Be sure to bury the fastening in the compost when planting. If left above the surface of the soil, the lead rots through the stems of the cuttings. These then detach and come floating to the surface of the water. Top-dress the planted baskets with well-washed fine gravel.

Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl, shows you techniques to get more out of limited landspace, by growing up. Read the companion article on Vertical Gardening with Cucumbers: www.gardengirltv.com Check out her website at www.gardengirltv.com This video is available through closed caption(cc) enjoy in any language. FULL TEXT Vertical Gardening Part 1 As urban gardeners, we have a limited amount of space to grow our vegetables and flowers. What I have done is I have employed verticle gardening. Right here as you can see, I have a variety of different cucumber plants. Now, a cucumber is vining crop, which means that with vertical support like this one, you can train it to grow up and the fruit, Take a look right here, can grow perfectly fine on the vine. Different types of crops that work well in a vertical garden are watermelon and pumpkin. Let us go take a look. Here, as you can see, my pumpkin plants are thriving. Pumpkin plants are also vining crops. Now, in the country, where you have a lot of space, you can just let this grow along the ground, but here in a city environment, we do not have all that space. So, what I have done here is, I put together a dog kennel. This is actually really nifty. It is exactly 4 x 4 so it fits perfectly in your raise beds. And, these vines just slough on themselves eventually. You do not have to continuously train them. Okay, so you can go vining crops on vertical supports, but there are other types of plants that also need support like my …
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Anyone who has climbed a mountain above its lower reaches will know that as the climate becomes colder the range of plants, and indeed their size, is rapidly reduced, until only tiny alpenrose or edelweiss cling in the lee of rocks at the tops of mountains. Another obvious range of plant material, having its own peculiar style, is that suitable for moist locations, though within this there are sub-divisions of plants which need just damp soil, through moist to wet. The cultivated forms of wild plants will grow in alien sites and conditions, they must be mixed within the garden carefully. A yucca will probably grow quite well next to a fern, but you should not site them in that way for their original locations were totally different and they will not look “natural” together. However, this is a difficult area in which to be specific, for it concerns the individual’s personal response to plants in the light of his own experience.

All of the plants we have discussed have their own particular shape, leaf characteristics and flower colour because they have adapted themselves to their location. Plants with large leaves, for example, tend to originate in shady areas, for the size of the leaves is designed to catch the maximum amount of light. Plants from desert areas often have fleshy, sword-shaped leaves, adapted to conserve moisture and deflect sunlight. When mixing garden plants, it is these characteristics of shape with which you should juggle for they remain constant throughout the year whereas flower colour is transitory. Only when you have built up the outline character of the planting of your site, and styled it according to its location, should you consider plant colour.

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Planting is fraught with hazards but these can be identified and, once a plant’s suitability to a particular situation is established, you can begin to think of the plant’s uses in building up your composition. There is a definite order in which this should be done.

You should seek to develop an everchanging plant arrangement to make up your garden mass, remembering that ultimately you will see little earth. This as a basic theory of planting design. Your aim is choosing and using plants is to achieve a recognisable overall form and to fulfil your garden plan.

Whereas common names of plants vary widely from area to area, use of the scientific Latin name allows you to be certain of a specific plant.

The first word in a plant’s classification is the genus name, for example Acer, Berberis or Cotoneaster. There are, however, approximately seventy sorts of cotoneaster, of which half are generally available. Some are barely 30mm high while others become trees. The second Latin name identifies the species of a genus (for example, Cotoneaster horizontalis) and it often describes the character of the plant in question. You might see Cotoneaster sp. Written. This is the accepted abbreviation of Cotoneaster species and refers to all the species of the genus Cotoneaster or, alternatively, one of the species of the genus Cotoneaster without specifying which. If there is more than one natural variety of the same species there will be a third Latin name to identify each. If a variety has been produced by human intervention it is known as a cultivated variety or cultivar (usually abbreviated to cv.). In this case the third name will be in a modern language, and may be something like “Crimson rose”. Sometimes  two genera or two species are crossed (hybridized). A hybrid is usually denoted by a x (multiplication) sign before the species name.

Reading about tomato gardening tips can be tricky because some of the advice depends on which part of the country you live in. Advice on basic care is pretty universal, but when it comes to the question, “When should I plant tomatoes?” so much depends on your climate. This article aims to compare the needs of different USDA hardiness zones in regards when you should plant your tomatoes.

You must be informed of your hardiness planting zone or you will be in trouble. These zones are based on average winter temperatures. Each zone has an average winter temperature that are 10 degrees higher(or lower) than their nearby zones. They use winter temperatures because trees and shrubs need to endure winters and annual flowers and vegetables must not be planted until all likelihood of frost is past.

The most crucial hardiness zone information concerning tomatoes is when that magical date for the last frost is. For instance in the Mid Atlantic states it is early May, but in Upstate New York it will be closer to June. Tomatoes require warm soil to develop. The tomatoes themselves will not really develop until the overnight temperature is in the 60′s, There are some great tomato gardening tips for beating the system and plant a week or two sooner, but you should not push it much earlier than that.

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If you live in a place that either gets no frost or the temperature only goes below freezing in January or early February, you will be able to plant tomatoes from seeds or transplant greenhouse plants whenever you want to! The local gardening store, or nursery will have all sorts of tomato gardening tips for you that are geared for your particular no-frost climate.

Anyone living in hardiness zones where it isn’t until late April, May or early June can benefit from growing tomatoes from seeds only if you start them indoors and plant outdoors when that magic no-frost date comes. If not, you will transplant your tomato plants grown in a greenhouse when that date arrives. To find out your hardiness zone, search online or go to the United States National Arboretum Website.

People do not always think about the consequence that the sun has on a newly transplanted tomato plant. It is another aspect of when I should plant tomatoes to think about. The hot sun can make a new seedling shrivel up in front of your very eyes if you are not careful. Hazy days work the best, or coming up with some kind of temporary shade for a day or two. If you use good tomato watering practices you can prevent them from drooping away, but the sun will still exhaust energy needed to send energy to nurturing the developing plant.

There are quite a few tomato gardening tips that help you be sure to plant your tomatoes the right way. One of the most important is knowing which of the USDA hardiness zones you live in. this will make sure you questions on, “When should I plant tomatoes?” are answered. When growing tomatoes from seed or when transplanting hearty tomato plants from your local nursery, you will be sure you are getting them planted at the right time.

Growing your own garden is something that every grown up should do at least once. There is a lot of joy that can come from growing and caring for a graden. Even if you have no gardening experience you should be able to grow a few basic plants your first time out. With the wide variety of information that is available all over the place for beginner gardeners today there is absolutely zero reason that you too cannot have a very successful garden when you are just starting out. Obviously gardening isn’t easy. It can sometimes be very hard work! Here are a few hints that you can use if you are thinking of beginning your very own garden.

Before you plant your first seed take a few days to improve your soil quality. Dirt is not always the same as soil. In fact, the dirt that is already in your yard is probably not the best for growing plants at all, which might be why you’ve had trouble growing a garden in the past. Soil and nutrient needs are unique to each type of plant.

Your ground will need to be worked before you plant your seeds. The easiest way to prepare the ground is to spread organic stuff over the top of the ground you want to use. A few months before you start planting spread compost (the best organic material for preparing soil), mulch or grass clippings (also good) over your potential garden. Your plants will benefit from the nutrients left behind by the compost that you have spread. The majority of gardening activities are little more than following a schedule. As time goes on you’ll figure out a routine and you’ll just know what you need to do in your garden each day. Over time you will learn to recognize weeds, signs of nutrient deficiency, signs of dryness and signs that more compost should be spread. Let yourself develop a routine and then stick to it. Many new gardeners fail to keep their gardens alive because they either don’t realize how much work is needed or they decide they don’t care about how much work is needed to keep a garden plot healthy.

Prepare the ground before you begin planting. You might not believe this but your garden probably won’t grow if all you do is put some seeds in the dirt and hope that they grow. You want to work the ground in your garden before you start planting. You want to get rid of all of the rocks and clutter. Till the soil so that there is oxygen moving through it. If you plan on doing any container gardening (or building an indoor garden) prepare your seedling pots and get your containers ready to hold soil and water weight. Everybody can have a garden. The trick to having a thriving garden is to take steps to ensure that you approach your new hobby the right way. Planning your garden in advance and learning how to care for your future plants is key if you want those plants to thrive. Once you’ve learned about keeping your garden healthy and have established a nourishment routine, doing your “gardening chores” will take on a far more enjoyable feeling. You might even find that you look forward to playing in your garden every day!

A DIY instructional/information how to video on planting a hedge garden and general hedge information. Appears on www.gardeningcentral.com.au Editing, motion design & post production by Toast Design – www.toastdesign.com.au
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Joy. We all know the word and we all want to have joy, but do we know the joy of being used by God? Do we know the joy of walking by faith day after day? We can have joy.

We as children of God are to mediate on His Word every day and we are given joy according to Psalm 19:8. We can have comfort when anxiety comes according to Psalm 94:19. As we are obedient to his commands and we walk in love he gives us joy unspeakable. And as we His children sit with Him in His presence we are filled with His joy; Psalm 16:11. And another one of my favorites is having perseverance during the trials we face in our day to day lives. We know the Word of God tells us that hard times will come, but we must not give up. God promises in Psalm 126: 5-6 “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.”

I found this cute little poem about planting a Garden of Joy which I want to share with you:

Plant 5 rows of Peas:

Prayer, perseverance, politeness, promptness, and purity

Plant 3 rows of Squash:

Squash gossip, squash criticism, and squash indifference.

Plant 5 rows of lettuce:

Let us be faithful to duty; let us be unselfish; let us be truth- full; let us follow Christ; let us love one another.

No garden is complete without Turnips:

Turn up for church; turn up with a smile; turn up with new ideas; turn up with determination to make everything count for something good and worthwhile.

We can experience joy in spite of our circumstances!

Sure, we all know that planting a vegetable garden can put money in your pocket from the savings on grocery bills – but did you know that it can also help reduce stress in your life?

Stress wreaks havoc on our lives AND our overall health. It takes the joy out of many previously loved activities and causes headaches, chronic fatigue, depression, migraines, eating disorders, heart disease and much, much more. Stress is a part of everyone’s life. The small stressors that we deal with everyday are common place for all of us. How to use one car to deliver 3 children to 3 different locations in one hour, what to serve for the main meal at a dinner party of your boss, what to do about a report that is due tomorrow – these are situations that almost all of us find ourselves in t one time or another.

A vegetable garden is so easy to look after, gives you time in the fresh air and sun and provides you with a healthy alternative to canned and processed foods – all stress relievers.

The weekends are perfect to unwind and make up for stressful hours during a week-long of taxing hours spent at the workplace. Different people have different ways of getting rid of stress. Imagine if you have a vegetable garden in your backyard; just don your gardening attire, step out and you can immediately get in touch with nature and put behind you the stresses of life. Now compare that to a weekend at the beach. Just the long hours of travel, heavy traffic, and the additional expenses for gas and accommodation will only add to your already stressful life.

Relishing the sunlight

Getting enough sunlight while tending your vegetable garden alone will already significantly improve your mood. It’s also a great and productive way to have enough vitamin D, which is necessary for proper absorption of calcium in your body. Try to picture some of the happiest moments of your childhood; it is without a doubt that most of them were spent under the nourishing radiance of the sun.

Hours spent at the office means exposure to unnatural light. Not that it is bad to be exposed to light coming from incandescent bulbs, but the lack of being exposed to natural light of the sun is. For sure those skyscrapers are blocking out the sunlight from directly hitting your skin even as you walk to work in the morning.

You Are Surrounded With Life!

Being surrounded with plants alone is both invigorating and encouraging. Days and days spent indoors and at the workplace prevent us from getting in touch with nature, thus we tend to have limited means to appreciate everything that’s grand and beautiful in life. Picture yourself being surrounded with plants that teem with life and growth, and their edible parts improve the appetite and nourish the body with essential vitamins and minerals.

Having your own little piece of nature can help you get rid of stress. Just the sight of your vegetable garden growing in your own backyard helps gets rid of stress by giving you that rewarding feeling, knowing you raised those healthy plants with your own hands. Raking, digging, weeding, pruning and harvesting – all these activities done while planting vegetable gardens provide a constructive outlet for all the tensions that your body amassed during a week of stressful work.

Start small and as you achieve success with your garden you will want to increase your potential harvest by added more of your favorite vegetables. Tomatoes, carrots, beans – all yours for the picking! There is nothing comparable to the taste of fresh-picked vegetables either and growing organically only increases the superb quality and taste of your vegetables. No way can they compare to canned or frozen veggies from the supermarket!

Your mind is a garden. It is comfortable to think that you are the only gardener of your mind, but in reality, there are thousands of people, organizations, programs, and companies scrambling to plant seeds in it. Ultimately though, you decide which ones get planted. You decide by choosing who to listen to, who to trust, who to confide in, what to watch, what to listen to, what to do with your time, who your friends are, what to read, and what you believe.

Some people plant beautiful flowers in your garden with seeds that blossom for all to see. These seeds are based on truth. They affirm you, give you hope and liberty, and grow deep roots. A garden planted with love, care and truth can be seen for miles because of its beauty. It draws people to it, and inspires with its beauty.

However, destructive weeds are everywhere, encroaching on your garden, trying to get in. These lies pervade the media – television, radio, books, magazines, movies. They say that you are not beautiful enough, rich enough, or loveable enough. They say truth, morality, and values do not exist. They sow the seeds of relativism, pluralism, “tolerance”, all of which sound good, but are really based on faulty premises and can have frightening conclusions.

With the billions of seeds flying around in the Information Age, it’s more important than ever to diligently watch what gets planted in your mind. Yet today, it seems people spend more time pondering what to wear than what ideas they base their life upon. There are consequences to the ideas you let in your mind.

Your worldview is a very precious part of you, and it’s worth thinking about what kind of seeds you want growing in it and shaping it. If you let lies shape the way you view the world, your whole life will be less effective, less successful, and you will not be able to fulfill your potential. Lies ruin lives everyday.

Think of a rebellious teenage girl who wears dark mascara, heavy make-up, and immodest clothing. The way she dresses is not the real problem. Her mother can lecture, and make her put on better clothing, but that will not change the internal factors that made her dress immodestly in the first place. The real problem is a heart issue: lack of self-esteem. Internal ideas have external ramifications.

The internal ideas that make up your worldview will have external consequences for how you live your life. Your current life is the result of the thoughts you have had in the past, and the things you have spoken and done are a result of those thoughts. If you want to change your future, you have to change the thoughts you have about your life, and the words you speak that affirm or belittle those ideas.

If you want to live in liberty, and live up to your full potential, base your life, your garden, your inner world of ideas, on truth. Choose what to plant in your garden, rather than letting society plant it for you. If you plant your garden in truth, you will discover more liberty, more success, and more effectiveness than you could have ever dreamed of. The truth will set you free.

The preservation and sustainment of Liberty depends on you. It’s time to discover liberty or lose it.