General gardening tips and hints
Early November before heavy frost. This Hydrangea bloom still looks very attractive despite flowers fading.
After heavy frost, this pond in Oxford Botanic Garden is frozen over, though this duck doesn’t seem too displeased.
Modern homes and modern materials can have an effect on your health. Plants that filter the air or react with pollutants can make your home a better place to live in several well-being ways.
Air filtering plants in an office can help reduce air conditioning energy consumption according to a study by K Meattle.
Better blood oxygen supply increases productivity.
See video
Give links and credits such as this to Gloxinia
Globe Artichoke or Cynara cardunculus is a perennial thistle with an edible flower head. If you need help growing Globe Artichokes remember the plants grow 6-10 feet tall with arching, deeply cut, silvery green leaves.
Do not confuse Globe with Jerusalem Artichokes the later are root vegetables related to Sunflowers not Thistles.
‘Green Globe Artichoke, Concerto F! hybrid and other seeds are available from Thompson & Morgan
Globe Artichokes grown from seed can take a long time to mature and it is easier to buy ready-rooted suckers to plant in the spring.
Globe Artichokes are architectural plants growing 5 feet tall and make big clumps of arching, jagged silvery leaves that are at home in the border or veg patch.
Cynara scolymus blown open
BBC Tips on Growing Globe Artichokes include
‘In the first year, plants need to put all their energy into making growth.
Remove any flowerheads as they form.
In the second year, allow the edible heads to develop for harvesting in summer.
Pick the bud at the top first, when it’s large and swollen, but before the scales have started to open. ‘
Globe Artichokes, are related to Cardoons. The thistle like plants, 2-5 feet tall, are grown for their edible flower buds. Normally raised from rooted suckers taken in spring or sown in April and transplant the following spring at least a foot apart. The delicious traditional green heads can be eaten cooked or raw.
The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about 3-6 inches diameter with numerous triangular scales. The individual florets are green-purple. The edible portion of the flower buds consists primarily of the fleshy lower portions of the bracts and the base, known as the “heart”. The immature flowers in the center of the bud is called the “choke”.
Though technically perennials which normally produce the edible flower only during the second and subsequent years, certain varieties of artichoke can be grown from seed as annuals. Some varieties produce a limited harvest at the end of the first growing season even in regions where the plants are not normally winter hardy. This means that home gardeners can attempt to produce a crop without the need to overwinter plants. The recently introduced seed cultivars ‘Imperial Star’, ‘Northern Star’ and ‘Green Globe’ or ‘Purple Globe’ are organic varieties.
The plants have enough character to be grown in an ornamental garden if space is limited.
3rd October 2011
September 15th 2011
Chrysanthemum From Harrogate Flower Show 2010
Rose with Dew
Taking flower photos is often seen as an easier aspect of photography. Even with a simple point and shoot camera you can have very good photos for little effort. However, these tips will enable you to get even better photos and push you into the ‘pro’ category.
Taking flower photos is very much a learning experience. I have added an extra two tips at no extra cost 🙂
1. Shoot From Different Angles
There’s a big difference between shooting down on top of flowers and shooting at the same level as a flower. Shooting at same level as a flower, means you might have to get down on your hands and knees but, it gives a more interesting less conventional perspective.
2. For close ups Shoot with smallest aperture your lens will allow
If you have a f/5.6 lens use f5.6
3. Try Macro Lens for really close shoot up.
A macro lens allows you to get exceptional close up shots. A macro lens has such shallow depth of field that when a photographing a flower, some petals at back can even be out of focus.
4.Good Quality Tripod
A good quality tripod enables the sharpest picture, it also enables you to use smaller apertures and a longer exposure time.
5. Other Tips to Reduce Camera Shake.
6. Canon Filter
A Canon close-up 500D lens can be fitted to a telephoto zoom lens and is like a traditional lens filter easy to carry around and gives a cheaper way to get macro shots.
7. Best Time To Take Flower Shots
On Cloudy Overcast days. When sun is very bright, flowers can appear washed out. On cloudy overcast days, flower colour can appear more vibrant.
8. The Rain Effect
After Rain. Drops of rain on flowers add an extra romance and beauty to flower photos (see Rose top). If it rarely rains – just take a portable sprayer to add your own water – no-one will know you sprayed it!
9. Use Backgrounds for constant Colour.
Daffodil
A solid background helps avoid distracting backgrounds. Black often works very well, especially for white, light coloured flowers.
10. Wind
Trying to hold stem of flower can work. If you have an SLR set a high shutter speed 1/ 125 will help capture and freeze any blowing wind.
11. Use Macro Flash
Indoor Orchid
This orchid and daffodil (black background) was taken with a macro flash
There is much more light so you can use a high f number – small aperture, big depth of field. You can get some very nice results with this. Another bonus is you don’t really need a tripod, there is so much light, you need a very fast shutter speed (1/200)
photos – Tejvan
12. Depth of Field
Don’t limit yourself to close ups of flowers. Also try take flowers, in context. For this you really need a big depth of field (high f setting). This allows less light, so you need a longer shutter speed (perhaps half a second) to compensate. Therefore, a tripod is essential. However, it enables you to capture a field of flowers and just a small number.
Related
A 100 Top Gardeners
Garden design is influenced by Location, Objectives and Resources. No two people would design the same garden for the same space nor would that garden grow and develop in the same manner.
There are so many gardens that could be designed that a top 10 list is subjective in the extreme.
Let us know what your personal favourite garden is or would be.
Also let us know what type of garden you detest. For me it is a ‘car park garden’ with all or mainly hard standing for numerous vehicles and no greenery.
If bark is removed all the way around a tree trunk the downward passage of food to the roots is stopped. Eventually the tree will die (Ok if that is what you planned).
This Girdling can happen when rabbits or deer eat the bark in winter.
Girdling can also be caused by mechanical damage like an aggresive strimmer or cultivator.
This Girdling damage can sometimes be repaired by bridge grafting.
Girdling has another meaning in USA where it also refers to the cutting of roots to prevent them from encircling the trunk and stiffling growth.
It can happen when a tree is too close to a wall or on street trees where buildings interfere.
The offending roots need to be cut and removed.
This is a method of deliberately restricting the growth and is often used to encourage a fruit tree to increase fruiting.
It is carried out by tying wire or metal around a branch or trunk and twisting it like a tourniquet.
This restricts the movement of sap and redistributes natural hormones made in various parts of the tree.
The effect is similar to ringing but less dramatic and lasts fewer seasons.
This is another method to encourage fruit tree to crop better.
It works by severing or partially severing the flow of food materials and hormones that naturally pass down the tree.
A ring of bark upto quarter of and inch wide can be stripped away in April or May.
A half ring may be safer and should be tried first.
Knife ringing is done on an individual branch. No bark is removed but a knife cuts through the bark all the way around.
The removal of a crescent of bark above a dormant bud or ‘nicking’ is often used to stimulate a fruit tree bud into growth.
A similar operation below a bud is called notching and both techniques are used to encourage the right buds to grow and the wrong or notched ones to be deprived of sap and hormones.
Explanation of Plant Food and Water Transportation
http://youtu.be/oVFRPRZDxyE