How to Grow Lavender Indoors

Lavender is an easy to grow herb and will adapt well to most indoor conditions. If it isn't growing in your home, you're missing out on the everything-lavender craze.

This herb has so many benefits it's hard to decide whether to use it in baking a sweet bread or to add elegance to a hot bath.  Indecision is perfectly ok because just by sitting in its pot, lavender will fill your home with fragrance and beauty.

• Never compromise on your potting soil for any plant or you will have a fish out of water quandary. Putting a plant in the wrong soil is a lot like exchanging money in a foreign country; you're bound to lose a few. To avoid losing your beautiful new lavender plant, add lime and sand to a high quality potting mix.

• This lovely herb loves to spread and most indoor growing ventures go wrong with this herb when it's put in a too small pot for it spreading root system. Check that the root ball has several inches of pot room but not so much more as lavender demands its soil be on the drier side.

• A clay pot will ensure that the soil dries out nicely for this arid herb. The pot must also be large enough to accommodate a 1-2 inch layer of gravel at the bottom or you will end up with root rot. Don't attempt to use a shallow pot.

• Lavender is a bit of a show off and likes the attention afforded by a sunny windowsill. Never put this herb in a corner, it simply will not tolerate anything but a day of bright sunlight.

• Lavender is neither a sipper nor a hardy drinker. It will not tolerate frequent watering nor a soggy environment. Let the soil become just dry to the touch then give it a good watering before leaving it to dry again.

• Never mist the foliage and avoid getting it wet when watering.

• Native of the Mediterranean, lavender can enjoy the warm temperatures in most homes. Just don't put it directly next to a heat source and check the soil more often if your home is very warm.

• Perhaps hypnotized by its own scent, lavender will quickly fail in a stuffy or smoke filled home. If not too cold for humans,  give it a bit of fresh outdoor air a time or two per week and especially if there is a light breeze.

• Despite it aromatic beauty, lavender is a hardy dessert plant and was born to wander. It can grow one to three feet tall and endless feet wide. Once your plant has reached the limits of its pot, put it out in the garden or prune it heavily (and cut back the root ball if necessary) rather than continue its confinement.

• Use a general purpose fertilizer sparingly just once or twice at the most in the growing season. Give your herb a nicely ground up eggshell a few times per year for an extra limey treat.

• Lavender is too fragrant for most pests but, while outdoors, an occasional caterpillar may dine on the leaves. Other than root rot, your herb is safe from all creatures except the over mothering or neglectful human.

French lavender is usually recommended for growing indoors. You will recognize this variety by its serrated leaves. However, it is the least aromatic of the three varieties; English and Spanish being the other two.

So if you're set on having the most fragrance possible, choose English first then Spanish. At some point, you will have to give them up the great outdoors but if you lack an outdoors planting area, with care you can at least enjoy a temporary relationship.

Should you want a more permanent relationship with your lavender, go with the French and summer it on a patio. Unless you live in Florida, this variety will not survive a winter outdoors so bring it back in with the first chill of fall.

Wind Chimes: The Chi in Your Garden

Scientist might not agree but wind chimes can powerfully influence your health, happiness, love life and your all around good fortune. Not only do wind chimes add artistic flare and acoustic serenity to your garden, they move Chi to bring positive energy to your surroundings.

Chi, also known as Qi, Ki and Prana, is the Chinese term for universal energy. Chi is everywhere; it's the life force that permeates our world.

The quality of the Chi you keep company with
determines the quality of your own energy and life force.

Think of how you feel in your beautiful garden, at church or in the company of a loved one. Now compare that to how you feel at a funeral or around angry people or frightening strangers. You have just experienced, in your mind, two very different qualities of Chi.

Naturally, we strive to be around life enhancing energy and avoid depressing or damaging elements, but sometimes the Chi in our environment just gets stuck. Use your imagination again and recall how stifling it feels in a basement or a room that has been closed off for awhile. Instinctively, we just want to fling open the windows and let the light and air in.

While a garden is hardly a place that needs light or air, areas can become stagnant and evoke a heavy feeling where even the hardiest of plants won't grow.

Feng shui, is the ancient Chinese practice of the proper placement of elements to enhance and increase a positive flow of energy. Proper placement in or outside the home is critical to keeping the Chi moving effectively.

Block the path for a smooth flow of Chi and you have blocked your and your plants' energy quality. According to the principles of feng shui, physical blocks can create energy blocks in your garden and eventually in your body if not corrected.

If you have an area with large plants or hedges, you have a disruption in the energy flow. Likewise if you have an area where plants have taken their last breath of carbon dioxide or where there is unpleasant noise such as traffic or barking dogs, you have tumultuous energy.

If your garden is uneven, Chi will settle and become stagnant in the lower areas. Try to hang a wind chime above the lowest point to lift the energy.

Wind chimes have been used for centuries to add a spiritual experience to the environment. They move stagnant air and increase energy with their physical movement, musical resonance and meditative vibrations. Wind chimes will restore balance and harmony to your garden and to your soul.

How To Plant Bulbs for Spring Flowers

It's Fall. Do You Know Where Your Bulbs Are?

Bulbs are a gift from the gods of winter. Knowing how lonely you will be for the sight of a brightly colored flower, the winter soil incubates the sleeping bulb through the coldest days and just when you think you can't stand another winter chill, a yellow daffodil or purple crocus will lift your darkest spirits and ready you for spring.

But until the thrill of spring, you have some work to do. Bulbs are easy and hardy flowers to grow so your tasks are few but important.

• Plant or store...but keep your bulbs between 50 and 60 degrees. If you aren't planting right away store in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator or in the garage or cellar. Protect from the rodents who will gladly make a meal of your bulbs.

• Don't delay. Bulbs should be planted about 6 weeks before the ground freezes, which is great because you would be hard pressed to dig a hole much afterward.

• Pick a spot in your garden that gets good but indirect light. Cold loving bulbs will die of heat stroke in direct sun.

• As bulbs are prone to rot in soggy conditions, add a little sandy to the soil and give them some protection if you live in a rainy climate.

• How deep you plant depends on the type of bulb. Four to twelve inches is the general range so check the package rather than guess wrong.

• Whoever thought of the bulb auger was surely a genius. They make the perfect hole and hold the dirt patiently until you are ready to refill your hole. Get one with a long handle for the garden and one with a short handle for the window boxes.

• Again, depending on the type of bulb, make your blub holes one to six inches apart. Don't guess or you will be pulling out bulbs all spring.

• Now most bulbs have distinct top and bottom sides. However, in the case of tubers, its another story.  Should you be totally stumped by the top-bottom dilemma, just plant sideways. The bulb is forgetting and God only know how but it will find its way to the top of the soil by spring.

• Drop a couple of bulbs in each hole; they like friends to winter with.

• Fill the hole back up with the dirt your auger held neatly for you while you worked.

• Cover with mulch, bark and/or dry leaves to protect from winter conditions and to keep the soil moist. It's a good idea to really camouflage your bulbs if squirrels roam your garden. They are sure you have planted this tasty treat just for them and will dig them up should they find them.

• Water well and you're done except for an occasional check of the soil as you never want it to completely dry out.

• The debate rages on whether to add manure or other fertilizer to the hole before adding the bulbs. I personally feel the bulb don't appreciates a hardy meal before a long sleep anymore than I do.  However, for last year’s bulbs, it's a good idea to refeed the soil at this time.

• Keep checking the window, spring will come again. As soon as the first shoots appear and the ground unfreezes you can add a slow release bulb food and be oh so glad you planted your bulbs last fall.

Caring for Playful Pansies

How can such a delicate looking flower be so hardy?

Pansies love the cool weather and if you live in a milder climate, you can enjoy the whimsical-face of this five-pedaled beauty into winter.

Pansies comes in vibrant shades of pink, purple, blue, red, orange, yellow, white and a variety of multi-colors.

They are fragrant and edible flowers and make amazing decorative garnishes
for summer salads and fruit parfaits.

Pansies are biennials meaning they have a two year life cycle. The first year they grow leaves and stems then go dormant over the winter. The following year they flowers and, sadly, die.

Pansies are natural wanderers and, given space, can spread a foot or two. To keep in check, plant in pots and baskets. Otherwise, plant 6 to 12 inches apart and let them go.

Growing Your Pansies

Pansies are fairly easy to grow from seed but bedding plants are ready to bloom while your seedings will need their first year development. Should you want to grow from seed, you'll need to start indoors 8 to 10 weeks before you want to transplant outdoors.

Lightly cover seeds with moist soil and place in a dark location that stays a cool 40-60 degrees. After 2 to 3 weeks the seedlings should have a leaf or few and be ready to move to pots. They will need a new location as they must now receive daily light. Move outside after another 6 to 8 weeks as long was the temperature is still between 40-60 degrees.

Plant in early spring for spring/summer blooms and in all for winter/spring blooms.

Pansies are the perfect flower for creating a pattern or color scheme design. Try a circle with light to dark rows and mutli-colored centers or diagonal stripes bordering a walkway. Their little faces look especially delightful paired with garden ornaments.

Caring for Your Pansies

• Pansies need well drained soil and can tolerate either full sun or partial shade.
• Set in individual holes about 6 inches deep with enriched soil.
• Mulch around the plants.
• Don't neglect watering as pansies will not tolerate a dry spell.
• Keep the soil moist not soggy at all times.
• Over watering will also cause leaf spotting and root rot.
• Fertilize every 3 to 4weeks during the growing season.
• Keep your pansies pinched back to promote bushy growth and prevent self-sow.

Pests

In keeping with their hardy nature, pansies are not prone to insect infestation. They may occasionally become victims to aphids and spider mites. Slugs and snails love pansies as much as you do so watch for the slim and take defensive action quickly.