Is Green a Colour?

Is Green a Colour?

The answer to the question is ‘of course green is a colour.’ Green is a mixture, a hybrid in gardening terms, as it is made from yellow and blue combined in varying quantities. But the emphasis is on the ‘made from’ of this answer.  The leaves above contain a higher proportion of blue whilst those below are more yellow in content.

Green is fixed in our minds when we are taught the colours of the rainbow. Mnemonics and acronyms includeed Richard Of York Gained Battle In Vain, ROYGBIV,   Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet, Roy G. Biv,  and the song ‘Red and orange and yellow and green, blue and indigo violet too………….I can sing a rainbow’

Red is the complementary colour to green. They are opposite each other on the colour wheel.   A splash of red brings out the many contrasting green shades in this photograph.

 

 

There are many shades of green counted in the Irish  song ‘The 40 Shades of Green’. It is surprising how many of these shades use plants as a reference to the type of green colour such as; lime, pea, sage, olive, fern, juniper, shamrock, mint, moss, pine, seaweed and forest green (below with Lime) which all spring to mind.

Forgive this word play as here we have ‘Bowling Green’.

Frosted green has a blue hue as would most gardeners working in the cold.

The last Green picture is one of my favourite Hart’s Tongue Fern.

This post has been an excuse to use some of the many pictures of plant life that all rely on photosynthesis and chlorophyll to produce the greens we see.

 

Grandchildren and Gardening

Grandchildren and Gardening

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Gardeners are keen on offspring in the garden when they come from their own propagation. That may not always be the case with grandchildren except in controlled circumstance.
Grandma saw a youngster eating a slug and rather than be critical asked ‘what does that taste like?’ After a pause the kid replied ‘worms’.

Safety of Children in the Garden

  • You can be too prescriptive about musts and don’ts. Commonsense is crucial and grandparents can help teach that to the kids.
  • Garden tools can be very sharp and need to be used correctly, carefully and kept under your supervision.
  • I am prone to leaving items in the garden to trip over and rakes can jump up and hit the unsuspecting. Now grandkids are visiting I am tidying up before after and during the visits.
  • Learning by experience will cover stinging nettles, irritating sap, prickly roses and some other plants to avoid. A warning or two (hundred that is) will still fall on deaf ears – I still get stung and pricked!
  • Not everything belongs in a child’s mouth but  most plant matter will not cause too much harm. However look out for poisonous seeds, Laburnum, Monkshood and anything you grow that you know to avoid eating.
  • Water is seductive and ponds dangerous. I know you will put up protection near open water and remember water and electric tools don’t mix

Keeping Grandchildren Amused

  • If you get rostered into child minding on a regular basis it is worth setting up regular garden related tasks the kids can get involved with.
  • Get them kitted out with waterproof clothes.
  • Don’t push too hard it may put off the next generation of Throwers and Titchmarshes. We may find routine gardening fun but kids may need a bit extra and activity changes every 20 minutes or so.
  • Gardening has lessons for all of us and the kids have a lot to learn from you and your garden or open air classroom.
  • There are lots of lists of easy to grow plants from large easy to handle seeds like sunflowers, Peas and beans but they take ages (eons in kid time) to show life much less crop. The old standby mustard and cress are more reliable.
  • Plant pots, containers, baskets and boxes are all small areas where kids can have there own ‘patch’ so to speak.

 

Laid-back Lawns

Laid-back Lawns

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What Use is a Lawn

  • A patch of grass is an Englishman’s lawn just as his home is his castle.
  • A lawn can be used as a sanctuary to be cut and cossetted whilst escaping from life’s toils and troubles.
  • Aesthetically it may be the central feature of a modern garden design or a natural backdrop to a more avant garde garden
  • Lawns are for recreation including croquet,  children’s football, french cricket and golf with a plastic ball containing more holes than Hostas after a slug fest.
  • Lawns can become a valuable habitat for wildlife so go easy on the chemical treatments.
  • A place to stand admiring the rest of the garden or talking to the neighbors

Avoiding Lawn Labours

  • Not everyone wants to work of months on end to maintain a pristine lawn. It will take ages to get a billiard table lawn and then the weather will change.
  • Decide what sort of lawn and effort you are prepared to accept.
  • Lawns respond to TLC and if you can’t or don’t want to lavish your time on one then you can subcontract the work to a Green Finger expert .
  • If you pay a gardener make sure they trim the edges regularly, nothing sets off a lawn better than a short back and sides.
  • Left to grow a lawn will not become a floral meadow, more likely a weed infested jungle.
  • Greying your garden with concrete, paving or decking is a recent activity but think of all the uses you will have to forgo.
  • Ignore the roller above Grandads used one but you don’t need to risk a hernia unless you are a professional  groundsman.
  • Turf can provide an ‘instant lawn’  a bit expensive but less so than astroturf.
  • If you enjoy lawn maintenance set yourself up in business to help others!

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Bromeliad, Vriesea and Guzmania

Bromeliad, Vriesea and Guzmania

Most Bromeliad of the thousands of species are tropical plants. In the UK they make good house plants and pot plants for a conservatory. Others plants in the same family are the  genus including  Aechmea, Neoregelia, Vriesea and Guzmania

Bromeliad Care

  • The foliage  grows in a natural rosette of sword shaped leaves.
  • A central cup of leaves catches water in the plant’s natural habitat. In the home just top up this cup with soft water once a week. Over-watered  can cause root rot.
  • Use a liquid feed once a  month but not via the cup.
  • Avoid direct sunlight but the plants need plenty of light. Semi-shade is ideal.
  • Keep the air humid by putting the pot in a saucer of gravel.
  • The brightly colored leaves are  called bracts.
  • After flowering the Bromeliad may start to produce offsets called pups.

 Water in the ‘cup’
Kew 092
Guzmania

June 17th Potatoes from a Waterbutt

June 17th Potatoes from a Waterbutt

This £1 packet of supermarket potato tubers have just been harvested to cook as new potatoes tonight. The variety was Charlotte, they were chitted in February and planted out in a frost shelter in March.

The results were better than usual in that they didn’t ‘go into the water’ when boiled. The potatoes were quite waxy, tasty and good value considering the price I paid. I used an old waterbutt rather than these special gro’bags see below. They had let me down in the past as I think they do not hold enough moisture. One advantage of both planters is that the ground stays clear and the space can now be used for other items.

I am now going to try use these planters for some late Chrysanthemums that can be kept outside in summer but brought into the greenhouse for autumn.

New Photos of Senicio or Senetti

New Photos of Senicio or Senetti

Sorry but I have been to Madeira again on holiday. The gardens, walking and vibrant colours are major attractions

With old age I am growing to like Daisy and all the related family particularly these vibrant coloured flowers from Pericallis genus.

Garden for Cut Flowers

Garden for Cut Flowers

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On the new craze of gardening for cut flowers, where America starts will we follow or is it really voice versa?

Olden Times

  • The Romans brought many plants to the UK in the first century including  various herbs and  the grape.
  • Dating from the early 15th century a book called The Feate of Gardening mentions more than 100 plants.
  • Gardens as a form of creative display properly began in the sixteenth century, often described as Tudor gardens.
  • Oh…. did Christopher Columbus stumble on the new world around then?

Flower Farms

  • Skip to the 21st century and ‘flower farms are all the rage’ as though selective cultivation is something new.
  • Stunning flower gardens of rewarding species can be grown for seasonal bloom
  • A corner of your garden or an allotment plot for sweet peas, chrysanthemums, dahlias and  cosmos can produce bunches and bunches.
  • With more space flower production for gate sales or local retail supply can supplement plant and seedling sales.
  • Do not forget to grow ‘greenery’ to sell with bunches of flowers.

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Possible Markets for Your Flowers

  • Bridal displays and bouquets for special occasions are worth a premium price.
  • Selling as a producer to a retailer means the retailers  margin and wastage needs to be accounted for in your pricing.
  • Market stall, farmers markets and local event selling is seasonal but may generate  some cash.
  • Supply agreements will commit you to regularity and consistency so have a good plan to be able to deliver.
  • Crafters, flower arranging clubs friends and neighbors are also possible targets.
Blanching & Earthing Up

Blanching & Earthing Up

Blanching & Earthing Up Gardeners

  • Blanching seeks to make pale or white by excluding light.
  • Several vegetables need blanching to be made them tender and remove the green parts that cause bitterness.
  • Celery and leeks are blanched using the process of earthing up.
  • Seakale and rhubarb is blanched by excluding light by an upturned pot usually covered in leaf litter.
  • Endives can be blanched by covering with a slate or tile to exclude light for a few days.
  • Chicory and lettuce may blanch if the leaves are tied together.
  • Exclude light from potatoes by ‘earthing up’ or drawing mounds of soil  around the haulms (stems) to prevent tubers from growing near the surface and turning green.

Blanching Food Treatment

  • Blanch vegetable or fruit by scalding in boiling water and finally plunge into icy or very cold water.
  • Skin and outer shells are easier to remove on tomatoes and many nuts after quick blanching.
  • Fruit and vegetables are treated  to minimize the bacterial content often as a precursor to freezing.
  • Blanching helps to retain a green color with asparagus, greens, peas and beans. Par boiling is similar to blanching but without the last step of a quick chill in cold water.
  • Blanching food is now a recognised industrial process about which several learned views have been published.

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Seed Dispersal

Seed Dispersal

How do Plants Spread their Seeds

To maintain the species plants have developed many strategies for dispersing their seed. They make flowers and fruit attractive so gardeners buy them in seed packets or propogate them to eat. More importantly they have evolved specific techniques:

Major Seed Dispersal Methods

  • Wind is an obvious method from weeds like dandelions and their seed clocks and willowherb to trees such as Sycamore with the helicopter twirly ‘double samaras’ which spin to the ground.
  • Cyclamen have an ingenious method to get the fresh seed away from the parent plant. In addition to the pod on a long twisting stem the seeds are coated in a  sticky substance that is attractive to ants. The ants then unwittingly move the seed  to the new location.
  • The gravity ‘dead drop’ of seed is fine for annuals and seeds that are happy to germinate near the old (now dead) parent.
  • Seeds that want to move a bit away from the parent such as Alliums and Aquilegia have a seed pod that progressively tightens around the maturing seed. The pod then spritzes or squeezes the seed as a cherry stone would when squashed between your finger and thumb. Pea pods pop open when ripe.
  • Bird Cherry is named for the creatures that eat the flesh and excrete the stone. There are other seeds that are spread after animals and birds have eaten the fruit but not digested the seed.
  • Animals also disperse thistles, teasels and burdocks via their fur after the seeds hooks or spines attach themselves.
  • Squirrels and some animals also bury or hide nuts and fruit and if forgotten they may germinate. Humans may throw an apple core away spreading the seed.
  • Plants growing by water such as Willow and Flag Iris can have the seed transported by the water.
  • A combination of dispersal methods may be used eg a seed blown by wind may be transported by water to somewhere else.

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No Chemical Pest Control

No Chemical Pest Control

No Chemical Pest Control

The world is made up of chemicals and they are not all bad. Where would we be without oxygen for example. However chemical control to kill ‘pests’ is often harmful to the environment and other wildlife. Many persecuted pests are not actually harmful to gardens or can be effectively controlled using other measures:-

  • Encourage natural predators of  specific pests.  Ladybirds and lacewings love to eat aphids. Frogs and hedgehogs go for slugs and if you want birds they have to eat something.
  • Biological controls introduce one killer insect to predate another; Whitefly can be targeted by a parasitic wasps.
  • Hand picking problems like the red lily beetle may be time consuming and intensive but is therapeutic for the Lily and the gardener. Removing and squashing caterpillars from brassicas is an old remedy .
  • Water spraying with  a light soap solution has been used for some time to remove aphids. Add plant oils and other organic based substances like garlic to the water for an environment friendly solution solution!
  • For my Tomatoes I companion plan French marigolds to distract predatory insects from the tomatoes.
  • Barriers from rabbit & deer fences to slug traps are chemical free. Slugs do not like copper  or the sharp edges of eggshells.
  • Think on about appropriate garden practice and methods like raised beds, crop rotation and good soil conditioning.

Leave Well Alone

  • You do not need to remove the pest completely but are aiming to protect your plants and crops from serious damage. Many creatures we think of as pests are seen by some desirable creatures as food.
  • Encouraging more diversity within the garden will prove beneficial.
  • Ants are unsettling but benign and do not do much damage to flowers and crops.If possible leave the ants to carry on.
  • Consider the whole food chain and be cautious before using any chemical. Remember the song Ilkley Moor Baht’at, after we’ve buried thee, worms will eat thee up, then ducks will eat up worms, we will eat up ducks and then we shall all have etten thee!
  • Piles of rotting wood, nettle beds and nature zones are better than obsessive cleaning up.