Garden Topiary Frames

Topiary is the delightful art of creating sculptures in trees and shrubs. This much loved European art form date back to ancient Rome.

While it doesn't take an Edward Scissorhands to create the stunning, lush creations of topiary, it does take talent and years to perfect the craft unless you use frames!

Regardless of your skill level, topiary frames will make you look like a pro gardener

Topiary Frames How To's

• For years of carefree enjoyment look from frames made of sturdy and galvanized wire with spot welded construction.

• Soak sphagnum moss or green moss in water with a weak solution of fertiizer until it is pliable.

• Stuff the moss in the frame until it is fully packed.

• Secure the moss with clear craft or fishing line.

• Moss-only topiary are beautiful and require no care other than infrequent touch ups but if you want the wow effect, add plants, ivy or other vines.

• Chose your plants and make individual hole in the moss to receive the roots. Leave as much of the soil on the roots as possible. Add moss as necessary.

• Secure the plants to the frame with flower wire.

• Provide the nutrients, water, light and pest control applicable to the vegetation you selected.

• Have fun with training.  Use flower wires to train the plants' growth direction and don't forget to add some sculpting to your design.

• Plants can be easily replaced if they fail to thrive or changed with the season. Don't be afraid to add blooming flowers in the spring.

• Placement is everything.  Put a giraffe next to a trellis, a mermaid beside the pool, a sleepy cat on the patio or a boxer to watch over your roses.

Best Plants for Topiary Frames

• Baby's tears
• Begonia
• Boxwood
• Climbing Hydrangea
• Creeping fig
• Cypress Vine
• English Ivy
• Fleece vine
• Hemlock
• Lavender
• Myrtle
• Pine
• Rosemary
• Yew.

Don't limit yourself to the above list. Use your sense of color and whimsy to explore the wonderful world of topiary.

Lion topiary credit
Bunny topiary credit
Epcot topiary credit

Learn to Grow an Organic Garden

Do you worry about the toxic chemicals in your vegetables but hate the high price and less than optimal quality of organic choices at your local market?

Years of exposure to chemicals can not only make you sick, they can cause long term health problems for your children. Chemicals build up in your system and can cause fatigue, mood changes and weight gain, at best!

Growing organically isn't hard but too often it can feel that way. Go to your local nursery or garden department and you will see aisles and aisles of chemicals guaranteed to feed, protect and produce an abundant food supply... but at what cost.

Fresh organic food tastes better, is healthier for you and your family and is better for our environment. Best of all you can get it right out of your own garden.

Jeff Serland is an organic gardening expert.  His book My Organic Garden will take you through the entire process of getting your organic garden producing the freshest, healthiest food you have ever eaten and you will never go back to chemical laden commercial vegetable.

• Learn how to prepare the soil.
• Learn the right fertilizers.
• Learn about weeds in your garden.
• Learn how to raise your plants from seeds the easy way.
• Learn everything it takes to go organic.

Stop searching book stores and the internet and stop trying to piecemeal all that information together.

If you want to get started on a new way to garden, get Jeff's book today. Gardening can be healthy, fun and stress free if you have the right instructions.

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Setup a Hydroponic Garden for Year Round Growing

What's a garden without dirt? Hydroponics! While a whole lot of effort is put into tending to the soil in our gardens, soil itself is only the nutrient reservoir and otherwise totally inessential to growing plants. Provide the food source in water and your plants will grow just as hardily without a drop of dirt.

Whether you live in a New York high-rise, the desert of Arizona or Minnesota in the winter, hydroponics make it possible to grow fresh vegetables and herbs all year around.

Hydroponic kits are available in all shapes, sizes and price ranges. Some are even pretty enough to put on a kitchen counter to make clipping herbs into salads or soups quick and easy.  For do-it-yourselfer,  with a few supplies you can construct a system in an afternoon.  Which ever way you go, the basics of a home hydroponic system is simple.

Containers

• For DYI, fish tanks make the perfect hydroponic reservoir because they are solid, meant to hold water and have equal top/bottom dimensions. Any container with similar qualities will work just as well.
• Whether purchased or made, your container needs to block light or you will soon have algae growing along with your plants.   If using a fish tank or other clear container, spray it with black paint or cover with black plastic or fabric.

Lights

• Essential if your hydroponics garden will be indoors.
• If you have a full scale greenhouse operation, use lights as needed.

Support

• Lacking soil something needs to hold the plants upright.
• You can use Styrofoam or Rockwool.
• If you opt for Styrofoam you will need to cut it about one-quarter inch smaller than your container as well as cutting a hole for the air pump hose and holes for your net pots. Your Styrofoam will float in the water so made sure it is able to rise and lower easily - thus the benefit of an even dimensioned container.

QTY 10 375 Mesh Net Pot Cup Hydroponics Aeroponic    US $8.48

• Rockwool is a growing medium that can be purchased in sheets or blocks/cubes. They must either come with center holes for placing your plant or you must cut your own. Rockwool isn't wool at all but is made from molten rock. It's used in hydroponics as well as for rooting cuttings.

Net pots

• These individual plant pots look like doll size clothes baskets.
• You will place plants in your net pot then into the Styrofoam or Rockwool and finally into the container.

Air pump

• Plants will not live by nutrients alone.
• Without air circulating oxygen to the bottom of the container and the roots, your plants will soon be taking their last breath.
• Air pumps come from mini to industrial sizes.
• Just make sure it runs quietly if you share living space with your hydroponics system.

Nutrient Solution

• If there is anywhere you can go more wrong in hydroponics,  it's with your fertilizer.
• Too little will product weak, spindly plants and too much will burn your plant to death.
• Chose hydroponics nutrient solution only as your plants need a full spectrum of nutrients, trace minerals and anti-microbial agents to kill off fungus.
• Follow directions carefully but also use your eyes, instincts and a meter to increase or decrease feeding.

pH and Nutrient Monitoring

• Yes, there is a meter for that.
• Monitoring the pH and nutrient levels in your hydroponic garden will help your plants grow healthier and produce abundantly and let you sleep better at night knowing you did it right.

Best Indoor Plants for Bonsai

People in every culture have been decorating with potted plant for centuries. However, no container plant has had more attention than the Bonsai.  This potted miniature tree's popularity took seed around 1800 in Japan when it evolved from the Chinese Penzai into an art form and was renamed Bonsai. The oldest known living bonsai tree is in the Tokyo Imperial Palace. It is thought to be at least 500 years old; making its way in the world in 1610.

If you want to train a bonsai, understand that it is an art form not a specific plant.  Traditionally, bonsai are outdoor trees and do not adapt well to the warmth of the typical home. However, its popularity, especially in American, has prompted the cultivation of tropical and sub-tropical trees for indoor use.

While you can train any woody plant into a bonsai, the evergreen and other temperate trees will not fare well indoor without some skill and exquisite care.  Make life and the art of bonsai easy by investing in one of these beautiful indoor plants that will happily be sculpted to your artist heart's desire.

Best Indoor Plants for Bonsai

Click to Buy Baby Jade

Crassula ovata arborescens or the BABY JADE plant is a very popular succulent bonsai. Native to South Africa with round, pale green leaves. Jades store water in their fleshy leaves as well as their trunk and branches.  They require less care than the average bonsai.  Just make sure they are dry before you water again. They can also stand less than bright full light. Good choice for the beginner.

Dracaena marginata or DRAGON PLANT is a palm style bonsai. Native to Madagascar, the Dragon  has a thin trunk and center focused mass of narrow pointed green leaves with gorgeous red to purple stripes. Dragons are easy to care for as long as you don't over water.  They can tolerate less than full light. The   Dragon is especially healthful for your home's air quality.

Click to Buy a Dragon

Click to Buy Weeping Fig

Ficus benjamina or WEEPING FIG train well in the classical, upright form. Native to India and Malaya it has bright shiny dark green leaves and develops a thick trunk at early age. Shown here is the Ginseng Weeping Fig, which  is especially durable for indoor living. Likes full direct sunshine for at least part of the day and dislikes drafts. You will find its care more inline with the average houseplant.

Ficus neriifolia or WILLOW LEAF FIG is also known as the Mexician Ficus. It has small enlongated, light green leaves and is a natural for the the traditional bonsai size and shape. Shown is the  Shohin (tiny thing) bonsai. Shohin should not exceed 10" in height.  It has all the beauty of a large tree in miniature.  Does well in low and moderate lighting. For the true miniature lover.

Click to Buy Willow Fig

Click to Buy Dwarf Jade

Portulacaria afra or DWARF JADE is one of the easiest indoor trees to care for.  It is not a true jade plant and is much hardier that its namesake. Will tolerate  low light and  short periods of dryness. Its  compact growth make it easy to train in many bonsai styles.  But take care with wire training as the leaf pads can easily break off. Great for beginners and bonsai artists.

Schefflera arboricola or HAWAIIAN UMBRELLA TREE is one of the most popular indoor bonsai.  It has tiny dense green umbrella shaped leaves that form a little canopy.  Tolerates low light but doesn't like to dry out.  Easier to train that the standard bonsai and can be done with just some pinching and pruning. It is not the best choice if you have children and pets because all parts are poisonous Recommend for the inexperienced or green thumb challenged.

Click to Buy Hawaiian Umbrella

Easy Grow Mushrooms for a Gourmet Bounty

To the average gardener, growing mushrooms can seem a little alien because they seem to fly in the face of all gardening logic.

Fungi are classified as a kingdom as opposed to the more earthly known plants and animals.   A mushroom garden can add a little gourmet to your harvest and you may just fall in love with growing this quirk of nature.

Good For You

Not only do they make a delicious addition to pizza and stir fry, mushroom are high in fiber, protein, B vitamins, selenium, potassium and phosphorus. You can easily grow most species of mushrooms including Shiitake, Reishi, Maitake, Oyster and the popular button.

Easy Grow How-To

Although you can grow your own spawn (fungi speak for seedlings) from spore (think seeds) and use mediums from mature to coffee grounds, the easiest way to produce a healthy, bountiful flush (harvest) is to purchase sterilized spawn and inoculate (fungi speak for plant) in a log.

• Just think of the last place you would grow anything. Mushroom need a dark, humid and cool environment so grow them in a garage, shed, basement, cellar or outbuilding. If your climate and yard allows (dark and dank), grow outdoors.

• Mushrooms are grown on hardwood. You will need a 3-4 foot log, cut 4-12 weeks prior to inoculating.

• Don't use a fresh cut log as it still has the tree's natural fungicide compounds and will kill your spawn. Likewise don't use an aged log as its nutrient and sugar content has depleted.

• Select oak, poplar, elm, maple or alder. Avoid cedar and pine as they are too aromatic.

• Purchase sterilized plug spawn.

• To inoculate your hardwood with the spawn, drill 2" deep holes at 4" intervals in your log.

• You should drill about 40 holes in a 3-4 foot log.

• Pound the spawn plugs into the holes with a hammer (one per hole).

• Seal the holes with a fine coat of melted paraffin wax to prevent insects from feasting on your spawn.

• Inoculate prior to the winter freeze as the spawn will need to go dormant in winter.

• Stand your log on end; just lean it up against something.

• Water every few weeks; never let the log dry out.

• Colonizing can take 9-12 months.

• Your logs have begun "fruiting" when you see dark mottling on the cut ends.

• You can force fruiting by submerging your log in cold water for 24 hours (or putting out in heavy rain) and then hitting it with a hammer or dropping it a rock (aliens!). This arouses the primal instinct of the fungi who apparently think the tree has fallen and it's time to produce.

• Once established and given the right growing conditions, your fungi will fruit in flushes for years.

• Harvest your mushroom with a sharp knife.

• Should you want a steady supply of mushrooms for the whole family, inoculate 1-2 dozen logs.

• By re-soaking with a 6-8 week resting period you can rotate through the logs and be totally flushed in mushrooms year round.

• Start a new crop every year or two.

An even easier way to grow your own mushrooms and make a fun project for the kids is to buy mushroom kits. There are kits for most gourmet mushrooms prepared just right for their specific species and ready to fruit in just weeks. Mushrooms make a great new hobby and a meal too!

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.