Considering The Color Of Your Garden
The four major characteristic of any gardening design are: shape, form, perfume and color. The last is usually ignored by most gardeners, which can lead to a very dull garden. Even So the vast majorities of gardeners either omit it from their plans, or (worse) group together plants that clash and offend the eye. We would be unlikely to paper our walls with a pattern incorporating flowers of red, blue, green, violet, yellow and orange, all fighting to outshine each other, but that is just the effect that many people create in their gardens.
The reason why so many gardeners fall into this trap is that they easily forget that the rules of color coordination are just as significant outside the house as inside, and they apply to natural as well as to man-made decorations. Evidently, accomplishing harmony is easier with the latter as any color you wish may be easily obtained. In the garden, this problem is further heightened with the background of the sky – bright blue during the summer months, and so different in the winter.
Winter skies are less tricky, and there are also far less brightly-colored flowers in bloom at this time of the year – indeed, color represents such a welcome diversion that we tend to accept with gratitude any that appears. This you can overcome with thorough planning. There are a surprisingly large number of plants that do flower and provide color throughout the winter months, as well as numerous twigs and branches (such as dogwood) that all contribute relief during the short dull days.
There is just no reason to neglect a consideration of color just because plants are natural. Nowhere in nature will you find so many different flowers growing in such close proximity as in a flower bed. The flowers may well bloom in our gardens in their natural seasons, but gardeners do bring together in one small plot plants from all over the world which would not normally co-exist.
In the natural world there is no clash of colors. All natural plants must vie for resources, such as the services of insects, birds and other animals for fertilization. The first plants to bloom naturally in the spring are the yellows – during late March and early April this color takes over in both the garden and the countryside. It is believed that this is due to the pollinating insects that are flying at that time of year being attracted only to yellow.
Whilst this is important to the survival of the wild plant in its natural habitat, it is of no consequence to the imported garden species which do not count upon the forces of natural selection. Other plants are bred and have no really close equivalents in the natural world -these are plants which have been produced by crossing two species, and sometimes these two species may even come from unique continents. Nature itself does not create colors that clash and you should try to do the same.
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Rooting Plants Simplified – Layering
Layering is a safe, sure, simple way to increase many types of plants, and particularly the climbers and danglers with which this book is concerned. The first requirement is that the plant have long, lax or drooping stems – which vining plants do. The rest is easy, because the stem is not severed from the parent until the new plant is well rooted and can survive on its own. Humidifying devices, bottom heat, and close protection are seldom called for.
Garden plants layer readily, sometimes even spontaneously. And layering is equally easy for indoor or greenhouse vines. A wandering stem or runner is simply pinned down on the soil in a nearby pot, and severed when it is securely rooted.
Ground layering in the garden takes place at the base of the parent plant. Loosen and lighten a small section of soil, and mix in some peat or other humus to help hold moisture. Select a firm, semiwoody stem, and open the thick skin in one of several ways to speed up rooting. The stem can be nicked underneath with a sharp knife, or split and held open by a small piece of toothpick or match, or simply twisted just enough to break the outside skin and separate a few of the inside tissues. Some plants insist on rooting at or near a node, others don’t care where. And some softer stems don’t even need to be nicked.
Now, bend down the long branch and bury the portion to be rooted in the prepared soil, leaving the tip section of the branch sticking up. Anchor it with a stone, clothespin, or crossed sticks. When the buried stem is well rooted, cut the old branch between new and parent plant, and transplant or pot the offspring.
Simple ground-layering can be modified or embroidered so that more than one plant is produced from each operation. In serpentine layering the stems are covered with soil at intervals, with sections of the stem looping up in the air between. Multiple, or continuous, layering works on plants and vines that root readily all along the stem or branch. The entire stem is buried, except for the tip, and new plants that come up at intervals are cut apart and transplanted.
Air layering is a procedure for thick, upright, canelike stems. The stem is nicked or opened near a node or not, depending on the plant; and that section of the stem is enclosed in a ball of moist sphagnum moss. This is held in place by a firm bandage of polyethylene, a plastic that permits passage of air but holds in moisture, tied to the stem at each end of the ball with soft cord. Check occasionally to make sure the sphagnum has not dried out. When you see roots inside the plastic, cut off the stem just below that point and pot up the new plant, its root ball intact in the moss.
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Start Protecting Your Vine With Root Moisture
Young or newly transplanted vines are more likely to survive their first winter in a cold climate if they receive some special protection. Questionably hardy vines, or those planted in exposed areas, may need protection every year of their life. In any case, a vigorous, well-grown plant has the greatest chance to resist winter damage.
All vines in general, and evergreens in particular, need plentiful moisture in the soil until it freezes. This is your best insurance against late winter and early spring “burning,” in which warmth and sunlight draw moisture from the leaves before the soil is thawed and the roots are ready to send up moisture from below.
For extra protection, mulch the soil over the vine’s roots with several inches of buckwheat or cottonseed hulls, salt hay or straw, ground corncobs or sugar cane, or similar material. Snow is an excellent mulch, while it lasts.
Or make an eight-inch mound of soil over the roots and around the base of the stems, and wrap the rest of the stems in burlap. In extreme climates, loosen the roots on one side of a deciduous vine, lay its trunk or stems down in a trench dug out from the other side, and cover the whole with soil until early spring.
Don’t plant vines and kentia palm in open areas where gusty winter winds can whip them loose from their supports. After a sticky snowstorm. gently push or shake off heavy drifts caught by upper branches. Or provide a windbreak of trees or shrubs, or a screen of burlap or evergreen boughs.
In any climate, keep in mind that plants can stand a gradual drop in temperature more readily than a sudden frost or freeze, particularly if it occurs very early or very late in the dormant season. When unseasonal cold threatens, the simple expedient of covering the top of a vine with a tent of newspaper or plastic overnight may often save its life.
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