Tag Archives: Flowering Plants


Flowers In Bloom – How Flowers Help The Environment

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If you’ve ever received flowers as a gift, you must have admired their beauty and placed them in your home where you could see them any time of day. Flowers are more than just beauty in our world, they are vital to the preservation of our ecosystems. By interacting with other living species, they help predict climate change and contribute to the necessary tasks of other living species. Find out now about five ways flowers help the environment.

Predicting climate change
Flowers frequently blossom at the start of the spring season. In Southern England, collections remain of pressed flowers that were picked as early as the mid-19th century. The exact dates they were picked were identified in accordance with blooming at the start of spring. What ecologists have noticed from the studied patterns is that earlier years of flowering were associated with warmer years. These years were identified with higher average temperatures. Based on these findings, studies continue on flowers concerning climate change because they consistently bloom according to the warm spring temperatures.

Reducing pollution
Just like all plants, flowers contribute to the recycling of carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Because we emit so much excess carbon into the air, flowers are a vital part of the ecosystem in maintaining the flow of elements for all living things. Indoor pollution has also become a big problem in some areas, and flowers are the choice plants to bring inside and clean the air. Good flowers for this purpose include mums, peace lilies, and reed palms.

Keeping away pests
Flowering plants are an important part of keeping healthy gardens and lawns. There are many insects that can do harm to other flowers and vegetable or fruit plants, but some flowers are able to repel the harmful insects with their scents. A few examples of these helpful plants are marigolds, geraniums, and lavender and are used at many of the hotels in Carmel, CA. These flowers are neither harmful to your pets or your children, so they do nothing but sustain your beautiful gardens.

Pollinating and growth
In the mutual relationships they have with other species, flowers require pollination to bloom. When birds and bees help pollinate flowers, they get food while transferring pollen among plants. As the flowers mature, they produce many seeds that birds collect for food and nectar that bees collect for making honey. Without the many flowers, animal and insect species would be without food and other necessities for shelter and healthy lives.

Sustaining the environment
Plants contribute greatly to environmental sustainability because of the diversity that they create and provide for. If flowers no longer existed, the many species that depend on them would disappear and animals higher up in the food chain would be without food. Flowers exist purely without assistance in their native environments, and therefore chemical usage is not required to maintain a beneficial flowering ecosystem.

Next time you see someone picking a flower, approach them and find out if they really know all the ways flowers help us and the environment. Share with them how flowers contribute to predicting climate change, reducing pollution, and maintaining the interactions of species in the ecosystem. Make it a personal priority to make the world more beautiful by planting flowers, and you will feel better about the complicated, yet wonderful world we live in.

Nutrient and Feeding Guidelines for Hydroponics

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Nutrients supply plants with the chemical elements they need for their vital biochemical processes. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are the top three generally listed, but there are more than a dozen others. Iron, calcium, magnesium and a host of others are used to help feed hydroponic plants, much like with a soil-based garden.

Nitrogen is used by growing leaves. But despite the fact that the air is about 79% nitrogen, plants need it in the form of a supplement. This is due to the fact that the nitrogen molecules in our air (N2) are too stable for plants to break them down. Phosphorus is essential to root growth. And lastly, potassium helps plants resist disease by stimulating enzyme formations.

The other elements perform a variety of functions. Calcium, for example, is a large component of cell walls and also helps deliver ions to various parts of the plant. Chlorine makes up chlorophyll, which plants use in photosynthesis. And Iron helps make up the hemoglobin molecule, which, like animals, helps to transport oxygen needed for cellular respiration.

If you’re just starting out, there are pre-made solutions available which contain all the essential nutrients and are very easy to work with, provided of course you are careful about dosage.   For very young plants, such as small cuttings or those that are just germinating, 1/3 teaspoon of calcium nitrate dissolved in a gallon of water is about right, for example. Flowering plants generally require a slightly higher dose.

Other factors, like temperature and water, are crucial factors when it comes to feeding. Both the solution and water should generally be kept at room temperature with most hydroponic gardens.

Nutrient feeding with dry plants should generally be avoided as nitrogen burning may occur. This usually doesn’t occur with hydroponics , but is possible with something called “aeroponics” where plants are grown in the air.

Allowing any water to stand overnight will help evaporate any excess chlorine from home water sources. Mineralized or distilled water makes things easier as it will already contain some useful elements.

You should monitor pH levels and try to keep it as neutral as possible because as plants absorb the nutrients the water will become more alkaline. This alkaline can be counteracted by adding small amounts of sulfuric acid, or in extreme cases, adding sodium hydroxide. Testing kits are available to accurately measure the pH of your hydroponic water.

Generally speaking, plants grown with hydroponics will be more sensitive with nutrient levels and are not as resilient as plants grown in soil. In a soil garden plants can absorb or shed compounds. With hydroponics, compounds are shed into the water supply, which doesn’t move them away from the plant.  The hydroponic gardener will need to exercise more care to keep plants healthy.

Working with Worm Castings

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Worm compost is the perfect fertilizer if your wish is to have a bountiful and lush flower garden. The worm castings (worm poop) that the earthworms produce is very rich in nutrients and is perfect for all lawns and gardens and the plants love them. The worms, specifically red worms. This is how it works,red wigglers are given organic matter which may be fruit and vegetable waste, manure and other organic material such as dead plant matter around your home. After the worms eat it, their natural body processes poop the waste called earthworm castings. These castings can be used as nutrient rich compost in the garden and in fact with any of your plants. Worm castings do not smell bad at all, the truth is they smell like freshly tilled garden soil.

Vermicomposting (Earthworm composting) is known to be the way of nature recycling its decayed organic matter. The worm turn compost not only fertilizes the potting soil, but also enables it to retain moisture and in the end all your flowering plants will be stronger and better able to resist disease. earthworm castings also assists in repelling pests too so it actually serves multiple purposes.

This is how the red worms help is by assisting with the breaking down of organic matter such as vegetable scrap, banana peels, coffee grounds and even crushed eggshells and turning it into valuable earthworm castings that you will mix in with your soil. Some gardeners even use grass clippings, leaves and manure in the earthworm composting process that also help in improving the texture of your potting soil. After your garden as grown, or even plants in pots, the minerals and nutritional value of the soil is used up, and it needs to be inriched again or the location ceases to be beneficial for growing anything. The only thing that should not be used in the worm composting process is meat, dairy products,cooking oil,acid foods such as orange peels.

When using earthworm castings it should prevent you from having to purchase fertilizer at the store, ultimately saving you money, but it doesn’t stop there. It is also a natural insect repellent which will eliminate your need of buying any chemicals to put on the plants. It is already known that the pesticides in use today are actually harmful to people, and all chances that we have of eliminating their use should be taken. Would you use any chemicals and pesticides on your lawn were your kids play?

As we work toward becoming a “green” world, earthworm composting is a great idea. It’s a great way to help in keeping so much garbage from making it into the landfills and those involved will actually be learning more about our environment. The use of earthworm castings goes back hundreds of years maybe even thousands. Fishermen love worm composting as well because it grows some nice size fishing worms.  

Jack Pollard is a worm farmer enthusiast, and enjoys helping others get started in this amazing hobby. You can learn more about vermicomposting and using worm castings at his website Pollardworms.com

  

Easy Organic Gardening

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People at times compare the idea of organic gardening with heirloom gardening, but the ideas are not quite the same, though they do overlap to a large extent. “Heirloom” essentially refers to original types of plants, many of which aren’t commercially produced on a large scale but which are survive becaise of those who hand down the seeds, generation after generation. Many heirloom fruits, vegetables, and flowering plants are virtually the same as they existed hundreds of years ago.

Most currently cultivated, commercially grown fruits and veggies are hybrids, basically, plants that have had their genetics altered by cross-breeding or just plain genetic adjustment. They have been bred to be cultives in l vast quantities and to be disease- or drought-resistant, and plus to last a long time when they are transported over vast distances. Therefore, flavor itself has oftentimes been sacrificed to accomodate mass production, long life, and to increase the monetary bottom line. And oftentimes these genetic modifications mean that there might only be a very few different varietyes of specific fruits or vegetables grocery store , replacing the multitude of varieties of the same plant that was previously grown.

Most folks don’t realize that this situation, this “monoculture” as it’s referred to, can put those few varieties in true danger. One monolithic variety could be susceptible to a specific deadly virus, and that whole kind of food could truly become extinct if the disease strikes. On the other hand, having lots of different kinds increases the chance of the survival of the fruit or vegetable, as one breed might fall to a virus which others resist.

For these reasons and lots of others, groups and individuals have arisen that seek to save and increase the food and other plant types that have fallen out of commercial favor. The seeds they save from the growing of these older varieties proceed as organic by definition, because they have not been altered by non-natural means, nor have they been chemically treatedtreated with chemicals. Yet their planting, fertilization, and harvesting could still end up not falling into the “organic” category if pesticides or herbicides are used, or if non-organic techniques are used in the horticulature.

It’s obvious that while heirloom gardening has many of the same goals as organic gardening, they aren’t always one and the same.

The true organic hobby gardener who wishes to grow heirloom varieties will use these preserved seeds, and and will absolutely employ the methods associated with organic gardening on top of that. He or she will avoid the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, will use natural methods of dealings with insects and other pests, and will always use natural composts and fertilizing techniques to keep the soil healthy and full of nutrients. Even the pollination of the blossoms that produce the fruits or vegetables will be accomplished by “open pollination,” that is, via bees, insects, or the wind. This will result in vigorous seeds that breed true in the succeeding(a) generation, unlike lots of of the hybrids that don’t always produce the same results in the second or third generations.

An organic gardener may plant hybrid varieties, yet use organic methods in the actual gardening. And conversely, an heirloom gardener could begin with organic heirloom seeds, but use non-organic techniques. It’s only when the two are conjunctive that a person is a true organic heirloom gardener.