« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
May 25, 2006
Solving Your Weed Problem
Author: Paul Duxbury
When I was a child, I loved to pick Dandelions. The pretty yellow flowers were small, colorful, and looked nice tucked behind my ear! However, if one had popped up in the front yard, my hair accessory would have been considered an atrocity! I often feel sorry for weeds. They are plants too. In fact, if you flipped through a botany field guide, you may be surprised at the plants you find classified as weeds! But simply put, a weed is really defined as a plant out of place.
Clover in one persons flowing lawn may be considered fashionable, whereas on another, not. Golf greens are often covered with bentgrass, but if it crept up in some yards, it would be considered a weed. While perhaps pretty on their own, weeds stick out like a sore thumb in yards because they may be of a different color, size or texture. This is distracting from the beauty of the otherwise sprawling green turf. Aside from aesthetic values, weeds can also drain nutrients from grass and other plants, and this competition of resources can thin what should be lush. And what’s worse is that weeds are fighters. They can withstand conditions that your wanted greens cannot, so they are almost inevitable!
Treating weeds begins with correct identification. There are two classifications of weeds: Grassy and Broadleaf. These are further broken down into groups like perennial, biennial, and winter and summer annuals. These, as you may gave guessed, depict their growing patterns. Grassy weeds are, as they sound, like grass. However, they are unwanted grass, or grass that is growing in a different type of lawn. Some examples are annual bluegrass, barnyard grass, crabgrass, creeping bentgrass and foxtail. Broadleaf weeds may appear more to be what most people picture weed-like growth to be. Since they are broad, they are more easily distinguished. Some examples are yarrow, knotweed, chickweed, clover, ground ivy, thistle and my favorite, the dandelion.
Once you understand what is growing in your lawn and decide that it is unwanted, you can treat it and/or control it. Weeds can actually be controlled by your lawn care maintenance. If you maintain a dense and vigorously growing lawn, you are already combating the problem. Weeds can be a sign of underlying problems in the environment beneath. So by just killing them, you are simply putting on a band-aid, not solving the problem. For example, some weeds grow in situations of compacted soil, such as knotweed. You can also control the growth by taking better care of the grass, rather than focus on the weeds. You can raise or lower the mowing height, change the frequency of mowing and changing the amount of time between irrigating. Also, you can increase or decrease application of fertilizer and aerify the soil. This will maintain better grass, thus keeping the growth dense and vigorous, which as discussed above, does not attract weeds.
In addition to culture practices, sometimes the assistance of chemicals is needed to control weed growth. In that case, there are several types of herbicides that can be used. Pre-emergence herbicides will affect seeds that are germinating. Since they are best used two to three weeks before the seeds start to grow, these work best to combat annual weeds. Post-emergence herbicides are used, as their prefix implies, after the weeds have sprouted. Since they must be absorbed through the leaves, this types of herbicide works best with a spray. These can be used at any time, but are most effective when the weed is still young and growing. Selective post-emergence herbicides are usually used to control annual, biennial and perennial broadleaf weeds, as they will not damage grass. But, they can kill trees, shrubs and flowers. These have to be used in proper conditions as well, with no rain in the forecast for two days to follow, air 60-80 degrees and no winds. Finally, non-selective post-emergence herbicides kill all types of weeds, and are best used to spot treat grassy weeds that are not affected by the selective herbicides.
So next time you see a Dandelion plant growing, don’t make a wish and blow the seeds toward in the direction of a lawn fanatic- they may not get the perfectly manicured lawn they wished for!
About the author: Paul is Head of Training for a major UK Charitable Organisation with a wealth of experience in personal development, management development, e-learning and operational management. In addition he owns PK eBooks (http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk) and has just published a Create the Lawn You want! eBook which can be found at http://www.pk-ebooks.co.uk/createyourdream_lawn.htm
Posted by Richard at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2006
Japanese Bonsai Trees
Author: Christopher Chase
As you go through the history of Japanese bonsai trees (among others), you will note that this term is used to refer to a ‘plant in a pot’. As per the information provided on Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum site, “the ancient Chinese were the first to miniaturize trees for ornamental purposes, around A.D. 200. Later, the Japanese, who used it to create beautiful gardens, adopted the bonsai technique.
Basically, the bonsai are outdoor plants and they flourish in cool and humid conditions, away from the bright sunlight for most parts of the day. In case you want to keep them indoors, you have to create the same cool and humid environment for them; otherwise they tend to wither away.
Podocarpus, Serissa and dwarf Pomegranate are suitable for bonsai along with some common plants, such as Schefflera, jade plant, Ficus benjamina, Bougainvillea, Citrus and Hibiscus. You can also make bonsai out of several woody herb species like bay, rosemary, myrtle and lavender.
How to care for your Japanese Bonsai Trees
All bonsai need a light and well-draining soil, but the actual soil can vary from plant to plant. So, the soil mixture suitable for growing bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) cannot be considered ideal for cultivating the southern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana).
A typical bonsai soil mixture comprises 1/3 part coarse sand to help the drainage of excess water; 1/3 part organic matter like ground sphagnum moss or pine or fir bark, which are capable to hold moisture and nutrients and 1/3 part a coarse, fired clay like Turface that also has the capacity to hold nutrients and moisture. You can adjust the proportions according to the needs of your trees.
You can select any suitable place, such as the terrace to create your traditional Japanese garden. Planning an outdoor Japanese garden is an intellectual pursuit that also requires artistic visualization and imagination. The key element of its lay out and planning is that you should not let the gardener’s personality influence the garden. In this way, the viewers can visualize the garden in their own distinct ways. Another core element is simplicity in terms of the design and lay out.
Don’t keep anything that competes with the décor of the garden or distracts the attention of the viewers away from the garden. In your bonsai garden, you can plant clumps of Fargesia nitida, a pretty clumping bamboo. Japanese maples are also ideal and they can be transplanted into containers as well. In order to make your bonsai garden look more natural, you can put some moss over the soil beneath your bonsai tree that will look like real grass. To promote the growth of your bonsai, you have to rewire the bonsai every year and trim its center roots after one year.
Things to remember about Japanese Bonsai trees
When you see a bonsai, you must remember that it is a Japanese expression that refers to an artificially miniaturized potted plant or collection of plants, which are cultivated to recreate a natural scene. Generally, a twelve inches tall bonsai having an outcropping of strong roots can give the appearance of a very old tree.
Likewise, a symmetrical crown adorning the top of a straight trunk can provide the impression of a stately and ancient shade tree. The Japanese people possess centuries old dwarf trees and hand it over to the next generation as their living heirlooms.
About the author: About the Author: Christopher Chase is a respected Bonsai enthusiast. He is the author of dozens of articles on the subject of Bonsai, subjects include Shohin Bonsai, Bonsai and Suiseki and Bonsai Art.
Posted by Richard at 07:31 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2006
Summer Lawn Care
Author: Josh Gray
Summer is just around the corner, and your lawn could probably use a little maintenance before the summer season of backyard BBQs and swimming in the pool. So what are you doing now to get your lawn ready? Lawn care is often feared as a difficult and time intensive process, but with a few guidelines and tips, you can easily have a healthy green lawn in time for the first backyard party of the season.
First of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don’t hire a lawn care “specialist” or professional landscaper. Buying your own lawn care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds of vendors offering products online and in Do-It-Yourself stores. A wide variety of products such as weed controllers to fertilizers can be found online, and usually can be found at reasonable prices, especially when you do a little online coupon searching.
Starting off on the right foot is important to reviving your lawn after winter. Fertilizer is the key to ensuring strong healthy growth of the grass in your yard. Fertilizing the grass does more than just make it green. Of course it will make it grow too, but lot’s of things happen when you fertilize. Fertilizer makes the seed germinate faster, and get started out of the ground. After the grass has a good start fertilizer will make the grass get thicker and send off beneficial chemicals like Rhizomes, Stolons, and Tillers all making the grass thicker and healthier.
What most people want to know about fertilizing is - how much and when? Typically, you want to fertilize 4 times each season, spread 60 days apart. Start in early spring approximately 30 days before the growing season begins in your area, continuing through the growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing gets the grass off to a fast start giving you that rich green color everyone wants. A word of warning though, don’t use too much fertilizer, follow the listed guidelines on the bag.
Mowing is the most misunderstood part of lawn care, and the most often incorrectly performed part of lawn care. Far too many people will set their mowers too low or “scalp” the lawn. How many times have you spent time mowing your grass in hopes of a beautiful result only to end up with brown spots? Cutting too much off the top leads to thinned out grass, and shallow root systems.
Now once you have achieved the perfect lawn, you must do regular maintenance to prevent it from going back to being a pasture. Spend a little time and money and keep it watered and you will keep the lush grass you spent your hard earned money and time on. The ideal way to water your lawn is with an Automatic Underground Sprinkler System. This way the watering is done every day that it needs it, you don’t have to drag hoses, you don’t waste water from over watering, and you get all of the lawn watered, not just where you happen to set the sprinkler. If you implement this type of sprinkler system, make sure to water shrubbery and annuals separate from the lawn. If you applied the same amount of water on your landscape as gets put on the lawn you would surely kill some plants from over watering.
Now that you’re ready to care for your lawn, you’ll need to get your supplies. Lawn care products can be found at many local gardening centers, or through many online merchants. Buying gardening supplies online is growing in popularity, and made even more economical by online coupons and discounts. For coupons on everything from fertilizers to lawn tools and equipment, check out www.CouponChief.com and easily save yourself some big bucks. Spend the extra cash on your first big BBQ of the summer and invite all your neighbors over to drool over your well manicured, lush green lawn.
About the author: Josh Gray, President of UC San Diego’s Gardens Club, is a consultant to CouponChief.com. This online coupon website provides free coupons and discount codes to many favorite gardening websites on their home and garden coupons page.
Posted by Richard at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)