To grow lantanas in the garden

Use small potted Lantana plants for your garden instead of starting from seed level. Using a garden trowel, dig holes that are 4 inches across and 6 inches deep with a minimum of 1-foot clearance between your lantanas and other plants.

Fill the bottom of the hole with a one inch thick layer of pebbles to enhance drainage and add about an inch of compost. Place your lantana plant in the prepared hole and fill with garden soil. Ensure that leaves and stems of the plant remain above soil level. To retain warmth and moisture at the deep root level, you would need to spread a 1-inch layer of mulch each month around the base of the lantanas.

To grow lantanas in hanging baskets

Use a well drained container, hanging basket or decorative flowerpot to plant lantanas. Use standard potting soil for these plants.

When to water your Lantana?

Throughout the growing season, you would need to water your lantana plants every 7 to 10 days after planting. Between watering, allow the soil to dry and add a top layer of mulch to retain moisture in the soil.

Warnings

The unripe berries of the lantana plants may be poisonous to small children and pets and you should ensure that your local Poison Control Center has an antidote for it before you plant these in your garden.

1. Allow the planting medium to dry out between watering

If you have planted your Zygopetalum Orchid on bark, you need to let it dry out one third of the way down between watering. When planted in moss, only the top of the mix needs to feel dry before you water it.

2. Keep your Zygopetalum Orchid in ample light

Zygopetalum Orchids need to avoid harsh direct sun during mid-day though they need the sunlight during late afternoon and morning. If you keep your Zygopetalum Orchid indoors, remember to keep them by a shaded South-facing window or a window in the East or West.

3. Keep it well fed

Even when you Zygopetalum Orchid is not blooming, you need to keep it well fed and watered to allow optimum root growth. Remember to fertilize with every second watering.

4. Remember repotting rules

If you have planted the Zygopetalum Orchid in bark, you would need to repot it every year. If you have planted it in long fiber sphagnum New Zealand moss, you can wait two years between repotting. Repot right after all the blossoms are spent and gone which would be around late spring.

5. Do not prune brown leaves

The older leaves on a Zygopetalum Orchid plant tend to brown around the edges. These need not be pruned away or removed though you may trim the brown bits off the leaves if you find them unappealing.

1. Shredded Bark

If you have a few trees in your yard, you can easily use its bark and shred it to create mulch for your garden. Some garden stores also provide packaged shredded bark though you need to ensure that it is 100 percent organic and environmentally friendly. Shredded bark from trees local to your region work best for the soil though cedar bark mulch is also good.

2. Shredded Leaves

If you have plants and trees in your yard, you are sure to have a lot of fallen leaves. Use this free resource as mulch by shredding them. This prevents them from matting down the soil.

3. Grass Clippings

Another great free mulch option is grass clippings. Just collect the clippings from your lawnmower and dry them out before using them as mulch or they will begin to rot with the excess moisture and start to stink.

4. Straw Clippings

If you live near a farm, you may have easy access to straw. Most garden stores have straw clipping based mulch though you need to ensure that the straw that you use is free from weeds and weed seeds as these can promote the growth of these unseemly elements in your soil.

5. Compost

Using compost as mulch is a great way to enrich your soil while keeping it insulated. You can create your own compost using organic waste from your kitchen or get it from your local municipal agencies.

1. Choose veggies that taste best when harvested early

Speed growing gives you a lot of fresh flavors earlier even though they may not return a bulk harvest. Veggies that taste best when harvested young include borage flowers, new potatoes, micro-green radishes, beets, turnips, spring peas, miniature cucumbers, zucchini and baby carrots.

2. Get plants that are ready to harvest in 100 days or less

Some plant varieties mature sooner than others which means that if you can update your recipes to include substitute veggie varieties, you can enjoy homegrown veggies with them sooner. Salad leaves are ready to use in just 21 days, lentils, mustard seeds and mung beans, when sprouted, are ready to eat in 3 days, cherry tomatoes mature in only 65 days (as opposed to 100 days taken by heirloom tomatoes), summer squashes like zucchini and crookneck mature in 55 days or less while winter squashes like butternut and acorn mature in 110 days.

3. Jumpstart your growing

A good way to get a head start on your veggie growing is to begin preparing your vegetable patch or kitchen garden early on.

4. Work around spring and fall frosts

Instead of waiting for spring thaw to set in before you can plants seeds in your garden, you can jumpstart your growing by planting seeds in planters in a warm room indoors. This will allow you to have slightly mature plants ready to transplant when the ground temperature is warm enough.

5. Use enclosures and cover plants

If you live in a region that experiences longer winters or have harsher climate even in spring, you can create enclosures around your kitchen garden and cover them up to conserve heat radiating out during the night.

Bloom time

Pansy Orchids usually bloom in spring from April through to June. Commercial growers do successfully get them to bloom round the year by manipulating the light available to them though amateur growers growing these at home shouldn’t try to do so unless they are fairly skilled at gardening and have excellent temperature, light and humidity control systems in place.

Light requirement

Pansy Orchids should be placed in the shade and never exposed to direct sunlight except for a few hours of mild morning sun.

Temperature

Pansy Orchids need to be kept in temperatures not exceeding 80 degree Fahrenheit and not dropping below 52 degree Fahrenheit. Ideally, the difference between day and night time temperatures should not vary more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

Humidity

The ideal humidity for Pansy Orchids is between 70 and 80 percent.

Potting essentials

Pansy Orchids thrive best in smaller pots with drainage holes. Use a moss-based mix made from tree fern fiber and New Zealand sphagnum or a bark-based mix made from perlite, charcoal and fine fir bark to pot these plants. They need to be repotted every two years.

What kind of fertilizer do they need?

Pansy Orchids should be fertilized with a general purpose soluble fertilizer every two weeks in 1 quarter to half strength.

When to water?

The soil in Pansy Orchids should never be allowed to dry out completely though it should dry a little between watering cycles. When watering, the soil should not be immersed in water but should be drenched enough.

1. Lavender

Meaning: Devotion, distrust

Blooms in: Summer

The summer blooming lavender is known for its aromatic presence and vivid colors. Popular in herb gardens as well s a shrub border, lavender makes a discreet expression of love.

2. Arbutus

Meaning: You’re the only one I love

Blooms in: Spring

Perfect for expressing your undying devotion to your beloved, the Arbutus makes a great addition to ornamental settings and its bright red fruit adds a spark to any garden.

3. Phlox

Meaning: Our souls are united

Blooms in: Mid-summer

When they are blooming, phlox flowers deliver a spectacular display of color which makes them great aromatic and accent border plants for gardens.

4. Forget-me-not

Meaning: True love

Blooms in: Early spring to first frost

A stark departure from roses, forget me nots offer a refreshing color to any home or garden and deliver a lovely fragrance that fills one’s space for a better part of the year.

5. Jasmine

Meaning: Unconditional and eternal love

Blooms in: Spring/Summer

Popular for its room-filling fragrance that displays its magic after the sunset, Jasmine makes a great ornamental plant that can be set to climb against patios and window gardens.

How to select plants

The selection and number of herb plants to have would depend on the kind of space you have, you expertise level as a gardener and the kind of time you can devote to caring for these plants. If you are a complete novice, a good idea would be to start with two pots of the herbs that need little maintenance. Once you get the hang of managing and using these herbs in your cooking, you can expand your indoor herb garden further.

Best plants

The rule of thumb when choosing which herbs to plant in your indoor kitchen garden is to pick the ones that you use most often. If you cook a lot of Mediterranean food, you should ideally have oregano, basil, rosemary, parsley and sage in your indoor herb garden. Thyme is most often used with French cooking while chives, sage and mint and even coriander can be used across global cuisines.

Caring for your herb garden

The best spot for an indoor herb garden is a window or room that gets between 6 and 9 hours of light, preferably sunlight, in a day. Keep rotating your pots to provide all the leaves with ample light. Water individual herbs according to the need of the species that you have planted and provide sufficient drainage to avoid rotting the roots. Clipping regularly keeps your herb garden in the pink of health and you should never let your herb garden bloom with flowers.

Get the biggest planter you can

To make sure your indoor papaya plant bears plentiful fruit, you will need to get the biggest planter your space can accommodate. The pot needs to have a drainage hole at the bottom as well.

Prepare the pot

To prepare the pot for a papaya plant, you need to put an inch thick layer of gravel at the bottom before loosely packing the potting soil in till the pot is half full.

Planting the tree

If the tree you brought home from the nursery has soil tightly packed around its roots, you need to loosen it up a bit before planting. Stand the tree in the middle of the pot half full with soil and fill the rest of the pot loosely with soil.

Move the plant to a sunny spot

To thrive, a papaya tree needs ample sunlight and an air temperature of around 65F or more with reasonable humidity. Keep the tree away from radiators and air conditioning vents to avoid parching it.

How often to water and fertilize the tree?

You should only water your papaya three when the soil at the top of the pot appears to be dry to the touch. You shouldn’t begin fertilizing the soil of the tree right after the planting. Whenever you do use fertilizer, make sure that it is a water soluble one and has trace amounts of copper, zinc, manganese, iron and magnesium as well as good balance of potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen.

Get a shallow dish

You may have seen cacti sitting pretty in the ground in the wild but when you’re creating a cactus garden at home, you need to plant them in shallow dish planters only. You can choose decorations like stones and ornaments to deck it up a bit as well.

Plant these in Cacti soil only

Regular potting soil doesn’t provide enough drainage for cactus plants so you should ideally get some from the local nursery. Alternatively, you can make your own cacti soil by mixing potting soil and sand in 1:1 ratio.

Provide drainage in the dish

The dish planter that you use for planting a cactus plant should have a drainage hole at the bottom. To optimize drainage, you should layer some fine pebbles at the base of the dish and spread the cactus soil on top and fill the dish to just below the brim.

Plant the cacti carefully

Most nurseries sell cacti plants with some form of wrapping protecting people handing them from the needles on the plant. But you should still wear protective leather gloves to avoid wounds.

Find a sunny spot

Once you have planted the cacti in the soil, you need to find a sunny spot for it. Cacti thrive in the sun so you should place your dish garden outdoors or near windows that get a lot of sun.

Never overwater your cacti

Cacti need minimal moisture to thrive which means that you should water them just once a week or till the soil starts to look very dry.

1. Size matters

You should build a greenhouse that is big enough for you to maintain though you should remember that filling up a large greenhouse is easier than expanding a small one.

2. Heating options and costs

Heat is a major consideration in insulation for greenhouses. You can get heating units that run on natural gas, propane or electricity. If your area experiences storms during the colder months, you should consider putting in another heating option to prevent your plants from freezing.

3. Heat efficient siding and glazing

Greenhouses are all about regulating heat which means that your greenhouse siding needs to be heat efficient. Insulated siding is easily available in the market though you should also consider their light diffusion capabilities to prevent too much sunlight inside the greenhouse.

4. Invest in a strong frame

Your choice of frame would depend on the heaviness of the siding you want. PVC, galvanized steel and aluminum frames are sturdy and low maintenance though you can also get a wooden frame for a traditional look.

5. Flooring

You don’t really need to put in a foundation for your greenhouse though you should invest in some kind of flooring to better insulate the environment inside. Textured concrete slabs retain heat better though these need to be put in along with a drainage system. Pavers need to be set close together to avoid weeds though pea gravel is usually the best option that keeps the ground breathing, provides natural drainage and prevents your greenhouse floor from getting muddy.

6. Kits simplify the construction

A kit will ideally provide you with everything you will need to construct your greenhouse. However, you can still opt to get one custom made if material costs and quality are a major consideration for you.

7. Permits

Most municipalities have no rules against greenhouses being built in residential areas though the building codes for these vary from region to region. Even though you’re not bound by law to do so, you should also check with your next door neighbors as the pollen of tropical plants grown in greenhouses may stir up allergies for some people.

8. Shade cloths

If your greenhouse is located in a spot where it gets full sunlight, you may need to get shading cloths and tools to install and remove them as needed.

9. Misting systems

Investing in an automatic misting/watering system can help you leave your greenhouse unattended for a few days when you need to be out of town.

10. Keep the door large

You may be tempted to get a smaller door for your greenhouse to maximize the space for plants but you need to remember that after your greenhouse is fully constructed you will need to move shelving, benches, wheelbarrows and large gardening equipment inside.