Exotic Flowering Plants for Indoor Gardening

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Kevin

Thinking about creating exotic indoor garden, tropical plants are best, and for people who live in zones where tropical plants and flowers are not hardy, growing them as houseplants an ideal way to remedy the situation. Before you actually go out and purchase any “exotic” plants, take the time to think about some basic considerations.

 

How much light do you have? Some plants will want full sun for as much of the day as possible. Where do you live? Are your winters very cold? If they are, and you heat your house, how warm is it during the day and at night? Some of the more exotic tropical plants require warm daytime temperatures and night time lows that don’t drop below 65 degrees. Unless you are willing to provide that much heat for your plants, you probably shouldn’t consider growing varieties that are that delicate when it comes to temperature. Some exotic tropical plants will require regular watering and fertilizer. Are you willing to take house plant care that may be quite demanding? If you are, here are some ideas.

 

Some varieties of elephant ears will grow quite well as houseplants. Some can be successfully grown in water and without any soil. Although many types of Elephant Ears can grow quite large, containing them in pots or in a large container filled with water will prevent them from growing as large as they would in the ground. Illustris, Black Magic, Black Stem and Nancyana are all varieties that though typically grown outdoors can be grown as houseplants. They will thrive best in full sun and when given lots of water.

 

Angel Trumpets or Brugmansias can be grown in pots and grown indoors. They produce beautiful large flowers that are often quite fragrant and that hang down. The flowers are probably called Angel Trumpets because the flower is shaped like the bell of a trumpet. They need full sun, they can tolerate cooler temperatures and survive. They do, however, require a lot of attention because they are susceptible to fungal disease and mites. They like to be fertilized often with a bloom boosting fertilizer and iron.

 

Bromeliads are quite fun. Most varieties require a lot of sun, but since they don’t have deep root systems, they don’t require much water. They produce beautiful flowers,

 

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Grow Green Eat Green Be Green

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Kevin

Eat your greens! And your reds, golds, purples – even hot pinks and oranges. Today’s zesty salad bowl is chock full of vibrant color, crisp texture and sweet, spicy, nutty and tangy flavors.

Delicious greens are quick-growing, adaptable and tolerant of close planting. You’ll reap maximum flavor in even the smallest garden or container planting.

Sow a mix of varieties and your salad will practically toss itself right in the garden. Simply snip, rinse, dry and dress. You’ll never look at expensive, wilted bagged greens or bland iceberg lettuce the same.

They’re easy to plant and grow . Watering is essential to successfully grow the salad crop. Their small, shallow root system cannot tolerate dry weather. They need at least 1 inch of water from rainfall or irrigation each week during the growing season. Always soak the soil thoroughly when watering. There is little or no value in a light watering that only wets the surface of the soil. Lettuce, endive, and celery will be crisper if they are watered several days prior to harvesting. The salad crops are slow growing and they have small root systems, so they cannot successfully compete with weeds. Frequent, shallow cultivation will control the weeds and keep the surface of the soil loose. The roots of the salad crops are very close to the surface, so it is important to not cultivate too deeply. Cultivate just deeply enough to cut the weeds off below the soil surface.

Plant mustard greens thinly 1.5 centimetres deep in rows 25–40 centimetres apart from April through until August (some can be grown in polytunnels and greenhouses all year round). Keep well watered, especially until they emerge, and thin the seedlings out to 10–30 centimetres apart, depending on the variety. Keep weed free and water during dry spells to prevent bolting.With these few House Plant Care tips you can enjoy more crispier healthier green salads to your diet.

Mustard greens are best harvested whilst still young, otherwise they become really powerfully flavored. Many can be left to mature, and these are best cooked, which lessens the intense mustard flavor. Harvesting mustard greens is simply a case of cutting the foliage from the base as required.

There are a number of varieties of green salads available that include standard mustard greens, other varieties that look more like headless cabbages, and some that resemble curly kale. They are usually quick to mature and are ready to harvest from three weeks for baby leaf and in around eight weeks for mature plants. Some varieties I suggest growing include:

* Kale: One of the hardiest and most productive vegetables, kale is tolerant of cool spring weather so you can sow seed or set out transplants for an early harvest. Pick larger leaves throughout the summer to braise or steam. Fall frosts and freezes sweeten the still-standing plants, which continue to produce throughout winter.

* Lettuce: Crunchy, buttery, crisp or tender, there’s a lettuce for every season. Butterhead types prefer cool growing conditions while the robust romaines stand up better in summer’s heat. Looseleaf varieties lend themselves to a continuous harvest.

* Mustard and Mizuna: This green’s sharp, spicy heat livens up cool-season salads. Sow it continuously for a constant harvest of young leaves; a beautiful plant.

* Spinach: These delicious greens are rich in vitamins and minerals. They are quick to mature in cool weather, so sow more heat-tolerant varieties for summer harvest.

Tips for Harvesting Salads:

* Cut-and-come-again: Cut the whole plant about 2 or 3 inches above the ground and leave the remaining crown to regrow.

* Harvest just the outer leaves, leaving the younger inner leaves to mature. Keep up with maturing plants as the outer leaves are the first to become bitter and tough.

* Harvest whole plants by thinning when young or at maturity.

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Red and Blue Hydroponics Grow Lights

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Kevin

Indoor gardening just got a lot more accessible. Dutch scientists have figured out how to grow fruits and vegetables, including cucumbers, beans, corn, peppers, zucchini and raspberries, using only blue and red LED lights. It had been previously thought that only decorative plants could be grown in this way; fruit and vegetable-bearing plants require more energy to create healthy produce, and scientists previously thought that LED lights would not provide a strong enough light source for these types of plants. The new findings have significant implications for indoor urban gardening and even for growing food in space. The new method also allows gardeners to forgo pesticides and insecticides and cut back on water consumption by 95 percent, compared to other indoor gardening methods.

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Hydroponics Gardening : Rejuvenate Your Garden

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Kevin

So what does “hydroponics” mean? Essentially it means the cultivation of plants, by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil – so, soil-less growth of plants.

Plants are grown in a bed or pots of sterile material such as perlite, vermiculite, rock-wool, or even lava rocks. This growing medium provides the physical support for the plants root system. Plant nutrients are fed into the water mix at set intervals so that the roots can absorb all the nutrients which they would normally find from soil.

For those of us who don’t have access to the wondrous mother earth, we can still grow some (or most) of our own vegetables using an organic hydroponic system. Now this may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it is possible to provide all the organic nutrients that our vegetables need via their water/food uptake, without having to resort to harsh chemicals.

It is a far more precise way of gardening and has to be monitored fairly closely or you can expect failures, but it is an interesting and alternative method to gardening with the soil. Some things you must be particularly mindful of when growing hydroponically are pH levels, right nutrients for the right part of the growth cycle and hygiene.

Now you don’t need a fancy glasshouse. Some people don’t have any space outside at all, so they use a dedicated indoors room. But this means they must use powerful lights to emulate the sun which is expensive to run, harmful to the environment and adds many hundreds of dollars to your set-up costs.

If you live in a temperate climate you can grow all year round in a glasshouse. If you live in a tropical or sub-tropical climate you don’t even need a glasshouse.

Hydroponic gardening is a great way to grow some of your own food if you only have a balcony, rooftop space, or you live in an apartment with a bit of space. It is also ideal if you are renting, as you can just dismantle your system and take it with you.

It also has the benefit of being lightweight, so you’re not having to bring home vast amounts of heavy potting mix. There’s no soil to turn over and no weeding to do. You can also design a big or small a system – depending on your own needs. Then you can add to it later if you want to. So all in all, there are quite a few advantages to growing hydroponically.

Growing vegetables hydroponically is a great alternative if you don’t have access to garden beds, or even if you want to prolong your growing season or even grow out of season.

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Enjoy Beautiful Hydroponics Gardening

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Kevin

Let start with the basics. Hydroponics is basically growing the plants (for food, mostly) without using soil as growing medium. As to meet essentials requirements plants absorb nutrients in ion form from water, and so with the right amount of nutrients and minerals, plants can flourish without soil. It is a common misconception that the soil that plants grow in directly provides the nutrients to the plant. In reality, some of the nutrients get dissolved in the soil, and when the water is absorbed by the plant, the nutrients are absorbed along with the water. The technique of hydroponics was first used by Sir Francis Bacon in 1627, who discovered that spearmint plants grew better in less-pure water as compared to distilled water. Eventually, hydroponics was used to grow crops in order to feed members of communities in which there is little to no soil and to supplement crop production. Today, general hydroponics has developed into a widely studied discipline and is a standard learning tool for both biologists and botanists.

The advantages of hydroponics include mobility, conservation, stable and high production, and more control. Since there is no soil involved in hydroponics, plants are more easy to move around, resulting in pest and disease control since we now can just move plants away from the source of the problem. Because water is recycled in hydroponic systems, there is conservation of water, which is good for the environment and also reduces costs. Hydroponic systems will yield stable and an extremely large amount of crops because nutrients, sunlight, and carbon dioxide are in plentiful supply, and in addition to the elimination of pest and disease problems, farmers are guaranteed a big harvest every time. Lastly, since the plants are taken out of the natural environment and into a more controlled setting, farmers can manipulate almost every variable so that plants will grow without any problems.

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How to Make a Plant Enrichment from Used Teabags

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Kevin

Used teabags make a great plant supplement. Suitable for indoor and outdoor potted plants and flowers, Tannin, a substance found in tea, is ideal for healthy plant growth.

Steps

  1. Collect used teabags and allow to dry.
  2. Remove the contents from the porous tea bag and place into a separate dish or bowl.
  3. Crush one iron tablet into a fine powder. This iron supplement should be available from your local pharmacy, clinic, hospital, etc. Add it to the bowl and mix well.
  4. Add 500 mL of water, allowing the remnants of the tea and tablet to dissolve in the water.
  5. Mix well for approximately 3-5 minutes until the liquid appears brown in color. You may use a spoon or simply swirl the container or bowl.
  6. Add to the soil of potted plants and flowers, before watering these plants. Add as much as you wish. Large quantities will do no harm to the plants.
  7. Plants will grow healthier and even flower more abundantly.
  8. The absorbent nature of the loose tea will also help retain the moisture content in the plant pot or plant holder.

Tips

  • It is advised to work with latex or rubber gloves.

Things You’ll Need

  • A minimum of 20 used teabags
  • A large bowl or container
  • One iron tablet
  • 500mL (1/2 liter) of water

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make a Plant Enrichment from Used Teabags. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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Factors Influencing Perfect Growth of Seedlings

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Kevin

When choosing seed plant propagation, every agriculturalist wants to actualize optimal altitude for their plants to get off to an acceptable start. There is a lot that goes into germination, and if alike one factor is missing; it can accept abstruse furnishings on your absolute crop. Here are the factors that best abundantly access how able-bodied your seeds will germinate.

Water – Assimilation up water is the aboriginal footfall in formation and accordingly acknowledged seed plant propagation, so it should be at the beginning of the apperception of any hydroponic gardener. The factors that access water uptake are the bulk of water accessible in the average and the array and body of the plant covering. You can access water uptake by authoritative abiding that you accept a average that holds water well. Rockwool, for example, is a actual accepted best for absolutely this reason. You can additionally amusement your seeds in a cardinal of agency to abate the shell. These techniques can be as simple as application sandpaper to accomplish the carapace thinner to as avant-garde and circuitous as assimilation the seeds in acerbic until the shells are beat off.

Temperature – A favorable temperature is additionally capital for germination. This can be tricky, as optimal temperature can change from bulb to plant; the best temperatures for formation are usually a little college than the best temperatures for seedlings. Optimal formation temperatures can ambit as low as seventy or seventy-five degrees F for plants such as lettuce, celery, appearance and asparagus. Those that advance in the average of the range, about eighty to eighty bristles degrees, accommodate cabbage, tomatoes, turnips, beans and peppers. On the aerial end, with plants that do will in temperatures of up to ninety bristles degrees, you will acquisition squash, watermelon and pumpkin.

You charge be alert about it accepting too hot in your abound room. Temperatures of over one hundred degrees accept apparent to annihilate seeds in beneath than a day. Alike instances breadth seeds can survive in such aerial temperatures, it may blot the damp abroad from the medium, and authoritative it added difficult for your seeds to germinate. This is why purchasing a brace abetting admirers absorbed to a thermostat is a acute advance if you appear to alive a decidedly balmy allotment of the world.

Oxygen – The amount of respiration increases in the seed badly during germination. This factor states that there is an added requirement of oxygen. You may try to accumulate your abound breadth able-bodied aerial to anticipate it from acceptable too stuffy, and use admirers to broadcast the air.

Light – Light is basic at all stages of plant development and formation is no exception. Accomplish assertive that your seeds are not buried so abysmal aural your average that they do not accept able light. At this aboriginal date and through the bulb stage, it is accessible to use a absolutely white ablaze source, such as florescent or white LED lights. Past that, however, you will charge to about-face to black LED lights or aerial acuteness acquittal (HID) lights.

 

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10 Wonderful Trees for Small Gardens

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Kevin

Even the smallest garden can accomplish allowance for a tree. Whether it’s an elegant abridged Japanese maple or a clear magnolia, trees are capital in baby gardens. Not abandoned do they anatomy the foundation of the landscape, they can adumbration ablaze patio, block an awkward appearance or accommodate abundant bare privacy.

Small gardens accept affluence of allowance for tress to abound upward. Columnar, fastigiate and cocked forms of trees, such as beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Dawyck Purple’), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus ‘fastigiata’) and tulip (Liriodendron tuliperifera ‘Fastigiatum’), are attenuate abundant to fit into small areas.

Following 10 trees are top choices for small gardens.

1. Amur maple (Acer ginnala) is a compact, dwarf anatomy of maple timberline that’s abundant added adapted for small areas than its abounding arty relatives.

2. Cornelian blooming (Cornus mas) produces a barm of yellow flowers in aboriginal spring. There are additionally different and aureate forms.

3. Paperbark maple (Acer griseum) is account growing for its exfoliating biscuit coloured case alone, but its amazing abatement colour is a bonus.

4. Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) cultivars appear in an advanced ambit of forms and leaf shapes.

5. Magnolia (Magnolia) hybrids and cultivars appear in a ambit of sizes, but one of the best for small areas.

6. Serviceberry (Amelanchier x grandiflora and A. laevis) cultivars affection delicate white flowers in spring, blue-black bake-apple in summertime and ablaze abatement foliage.

7. Siberian backtalk angel (Malus baccata ‘Columnaris’) is a narrow, upright flowering crab apple with tiny yellow or red fruits in autumn.

8. Different Japanese angelica timberline (Aralia elata ‘Aureovariegata’) has cream-edged foliage and summertime clusters of buttery white flowers followed by amethyst berries.

9. White cedar (Thuja occidentalis) cultivars can abound as alpine as 20 metres, but not often do they advance above two metres. Compact, cone-shaped forms accommodate the actual attenuated ‘Degroot’s Spire’, ‘Emerald’ and ‘Holmstrup’.

10. Witch Hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia) and its cultivars aftermath abiding yellow or red flowers in aboriginal bounce and abundantly coloured abatement foliage.

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Hydroponics Gardening – Advantages

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Kevin

Idea of growing plants without soil is completely amazing and bodies might wonder if it is ever possible. Hydroponics is one such adjustment to abound plants after soil. Hydroponics is believed to advance the crop of assertive terrestrial plants back compared to the crop while they are developed in soil. This arrangement of growing plants has been around for the thousands of years. Vegetables or fruits developed from this arrangement are hygienic, advantageous and fresh.

Terrestrial plants can be developed without difficulties if their roots are absorbed in a mineral comestible solution, the roots can additionally be absorbed in an apathetic average like mineral wool, alluvium and perlite. Outstanding examples for hydroponics are the floating garden of China and the hanging garden of Babylon. Countries like Holland, Australia, and Germany accept been utilizing hydroponics to grow plants and accept benefited a lot from it.

Benefits of Hydroponics

* A bulb developed in this arrangement grows 30-50 % faster back compared to plants developed beneath agnate altitude in soil.

* Crop of the plants improves drastically.

* Hydroponics cultivation requires almost 20% amplitude appropriate of soil area for an according acquiescent capacity.

* Hydroponics advance average has balance oxygen back compared to soil average appropriately announcement bulb bloom and basis growth.

* The root systems has able oxygen appropriately they are able to blot added mineral nutrients.

* The bulb gets its mineral nutrients beeline from the water. This saves the plant’s activity appropriately promote the crop and the all-embracing advance of the plant.

* Hydroponics plants are convalescent when compared to soil plants as they are not afflicted by any diseases.

Why practice Hydroponics ?

* Plants can be developed after a backyard or garden.

* Plants can be developed with affluence alike indoors.

* Crop is more good back compared to clay gardening.

* You can abound plants throughout the year immaterial of the season.

* The blend of weeding, no digging and common watering is avoided.

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Books for Hydroponics Indoor Gardening

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Kevin

Gardening Indoors with Soil & Hydroponics
The Fifth Edition
Author: George Van Patten
A Best Seller since 1986, now expanded and completely rewritten with all new information!
More than 670 full color photos, drawings, charts and graphs illustrate every detail of this authoritative easy-to-understand book. Numerous simple cultivation solutions make it appealing to novice gardeners. Seasoned gardeners are also able to find answers to all their questions. Discover how to achieve the biggest best yields even with limited space and a small budget. Learn how to grow while taking an exclusive photo tour of some of the most interesting indoor gardens and greenhouses in the world.

“Everything you need to know about hydroponics and then some! George Van Patten is the author. (Need I say more?) The book is written in layman’s terms and is complete with illustrations and photos. A necessity for all indoor gardeners!”
Jim Jesson, Maximum Yield Publications

“For over twenty years, Gardening Indoors has been considered ‘The Bible’ of indoor growing. It is literally a one stop gardening encyclopaedia of information for both the beginner to the very experienced gardener. If I was to buy only one book on indoor gardening, this would be the one.”

 

Beginning Hydroponics Soilless Gardening
Hydroponics, a method of gardening without soil, has developed over the past fifty years. While it has been proven both reliable and effective, and has received much attention in some quarters, it is still an unfamiliar practice to many gardeners. This book is designed to introduce you to the principles and methods of hydroponic gardening.

 

 

 

 

Hydroponic Questions & Answers
Author: Howard M. Resh
The purpose of this book is to review many questions associated with hydroponic culture and to offer useful suggestions. The questions related to hydroponic systems, plant varieties, plant nutrition, plant culture, plant disease and pest management, environmental factors, optimum ranges, production and marketing. Recommendations come from experiences over the past twenty years of hydroponic growing. Includes such topics as: nutrition, essential elements, greenhouse site, water, physiological disorders, disease, environmental conditions, harvesting, storing, sterilization and much more. Soft cover – 200 pages.

 

 

[Botanical Books]

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