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Enter your keywords:Posts Tagged ‘Jazz’
Some Unusual Rose Conditions
This year the rose problems have been a bit different from other years. I thought it might be useful to list some of these to assist Master Gardeners when clients present problems with roses.
1. Symptoms of the first problem: In early June blossoms failed to open up normally This is referred to as “balling” of the blossoms. The edges of the petals were brown. The symptoms are more likely to occur on light colored roses. There are two possible causes listed in the textbooks. The first is botrytis, which occurs when we have periods of damp cool weather, so that’s hardly the cause this year. The second possible cause is an invasion of thrips. To check this, I opened the blossom and examined the petal base areas. There I found small, (1.0 nun) tan insects running around. Thrips do their damage by sucking juices from the petals. The trails for their successive penetrations shows a rasping pattern.
Your Garden’s Flowers : In Consideration of Why They Bloom
I will admit that I love flowers. I also love gardening. I am not the most proficient or the neatest of gardeners, and I have a taste for the less than manicured bed.
Why do most of us garden? I think there is a combination of an appreciation for the plants themselves and their attributes of beauty such as foliage, shape, stem color and, of course, their flowers. We wish to surround ourselves with the beauty of plants. We do so by in a sense, playing God on our little acre (or 1 /3 of an acre in my case). This is not altogether bad. But any time we pretend to be omnipotent, a little bit of humility is a good thing.
There are two aspects of our obsession with flowers that we have to think about: 1) do they bloom just for us, and 2) do the plants in our gardens exist in a vacuum separate from the surrounding environment? The answer to both questions is no.
WHAT IS A LANDSCAPER?
A landscaper can be any individual or company offering services ranging from lawn care to maintenance, installation of plant materials, the contractor offering site construction services such as patios, desks, grading, or roadways, or the licensed landscape architect that offers design services. Generally, the businesses that offer landscape installation services beyond the services normally offered by lawn care businesses prefer to be called landscape contractors. Many nurseries and garden centers offer installation services and consider themselves landscape contractors, as well. Landscape contractors are not licensed, but are usually members of one or several organizations that set up standards for their industry. These associations include a Landscape Contractors Association, the American Association of Nurserymen, The Maryland Association of Nurserymen and the National Landscape Association (Division of the American Association of Nurserymen).
When is a plant considered native?
Interest in the horticultural use of native plants has grown considerably in recent years. Evidence for this includes numerous articles in gardening publications about natives and their uses, seminars organized by botanic gardens that feature principles of garden design using natives, and the increasing availability of native plants or their seeds in catalogs and specialty nurseries.
The question of “When is a plant considered native?” is a question that has arisen on more than one occasion in discussions among the staff at the State Arboretum of Virginia at Blandy Experimental Farm. At the grandest scale, a plant might be considered a North American native if it was present in the native flora when Europeans colonized the New World. Red maple, Acer rubrum, is an example.
The Earth: Plant Your Own Orchard
Through the years I have found great satisfaction in growing my own vegetables and much enjoyment from growing my own fruit trees. Orchard fruits and nuts not only supply essential nutrition and fiber to a diet but also opportunities for joy and beauty. Growing vegetables can be very productive, but no food-production system is complete without a small orchard.
In one way, an orchard is easier to grow than a vegetable garden. Once planted, fruit and nut trees will produce for years. Some apple trees can still be productive after 50 years.
