Planting Tulips: Make Sure You Have the Right Soil (wedding flowers)

October 4th, 2008 admin Posted in gardening |

By Dave Pipitone

When you are planting tulips for next spring’s tulip garden, don’t make the same mistake that I did last year. Making a mistake at planting time in the fall is costly. If you make this mistake, you may as well as buy tulips next spring instead of cutting fresh ones for your own tulip bouquet.

Are you sure that you are putting tulip bulbs in the best soil to grow? If you have doubts about growing tulips as you plan your spring garden, consider these gardening tips.

Let me explain. I love tulips, even though the flower stage is only two to three weeks long from mid-March to late May. Last fall, I planted about 60 purple tulip bulbs in my backyard. I eagerly waited for Spring to come so I could savor those beautiful flowers. The winter was long and cold with more snow falls than in previous years. So, I was ready for Spring to come. But I was surprised. Of the 60 flower bulbs I planted, only one tulip flower grew and blossomed. I couldn’t figure it out. Later in the Spring, I planted my impatiens. When I went to dig up my tulip bulbs, I discovered that they were soft and mushy - like pickled onions.

The wet soil was so saturated that the bulbs became sponges, not flowers! Then, I realized that the clay layer under the top soil caused the problem. The clay layer did not let the water drain so my tulip bulbs were sitting in an underground swimming pool!

Tulips grow best in soil that drains best. The origin of tulips is in Turkey, where the soil is very sandy and porous. When traders began to bring the bulbs to plant tulips in Holland, the sandy soil was just right and many fields became like one flower garden after another.

Before you start planning your tulip garden, make sure to dig down about two feet or more to see what the underlying soil is like. If you have a layer of clay near the surface, dig deeper and replace that clay with rich dark top soil. You can buy a 30 pound bag of dirt from a home improvement center for less than two dollars.

So when you plant tulips, check the soil. Porous dirt is good dirt dirt. And be sure that before your tulip bulbs are secure planted, you know the rest of the planting secrets for the best tulip garden design that will please you next Spring.

Dave Pipitone is hopelessly in love with tulips and nourishes them in his Hope Patch. To get your free 32 page report on how to plant a tulip garden, visit http://www.tulipreview.com

Gardening Gifts Ideas for Your Friends and Green Space Outdoor Lovers
By Kristine Dior

Someone has to have someone as a friend who is into gardening a lot. A friend who spends most of their free time adding finishing touches to their garden. Have you ever thought though that you could give that person a special gift that they would love? It may be a bit challenging to find the perfect gift, but it is always achievable to find something that they will love. So here is a little information that you might like.

There are plenty Gardening gifts Ideas you can choose from. For example waterfalls, tools, stone walkway, flowers and pots and you can even consider giving them a religious gardening gift. The person who consider their gardens spiritual places to meditate, pray, worship, or read religious texts would greatly appreciate any gardening gifts such as statuettes of the Virgin May, for instance. By the same token, little statues of Buddha are well appreciated by a buddhist. Sometimes people want crosses or other symbols to keep in their gardens.

The first idea that I recommend is a tool that would make their gardening life easier. Plenty of gardeners use up a lot of time performing tedious activities, such as planting bulbs or pruning their greenery. With simple tools such as a bulb planter, a pruner, a lawn aerator or any other useful gardening tools, your green thumbed friends can get these jobs done easier and quicker. You can get the perfect present by hearing your friends complaining about a certain job they that they do for their gardening.

To get them something to plant is my second idea. They could have something that they would love to plant in their garden and adore it. You can get them a bulb, seeds for a rare flower, plants they can add or maybe even a small tree. You would not want to get hold of something that could be easily found in your area because then it won’t be so special to them. As well as that you wouldn’t want to give them something that’s hard to handle unless they would want to handle the work or if they talk that they really wish for it. What’s more the gift would be extra special if you get it from a tropical rainforest or from overseas, basically somewhere exotic. If you’re having doubts or aren’t sure you should ask them if they like. It almost certainly that it would be less unexpected but then you’ll know if they will value it.

If the above 2 paragraphs were not helpful yet, you can work out several alternatives to the above. Or you can combine another hobby to one of the ideas I’ve just mentioned. For example if they like reading as well you can get them a gardening book or a subscription to a gardening magazine. In addition to that you can get them a painting related to gardening bumper sticks a refrigerator magnets. Just think about what would be special to them.

Kristine is the great enthusiast of Article writing and the owner of the Article Blog

For the Great Garden Ideas visit the Gardening caterogy at http://www.3dsolutions.info/Category/Gardening/71

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The Benefits of Using Artificial Plants
By Robert Melkonyan

If you own or manage any business then you may have already thought of incorporating plants into your decorating scheme. It just makes so much sense. Having some nice potted plants available for your customers or clients to enjoy lightens the mood. Also, having a nice assortment of potted plants reflects positively on you as a person. Remember that having a “green thumb” means that you are a bit of a horticulturist which is a “good thing”.

Your Office Space is Just Like a Desert to Plants

If you have already given potted plants a try in your place then you most likely got to watch them as they died a slow lingering death. Don’t blame yourself however, because air conditioning and heaters will dry the air out, also plants need good sunlight. This unfortunately means that the average office space happens to be the worst environment to keep plants in, because its just like a desert to them.

Todays Artificial Plants Look Amazingly Real

One simple solution that more decorators are using in todays commercial environments is artificial “plants”. However; you may be thinking that you have seen fake plants before and they look good from across the room but up close they look like crap. What you may not know is the artificial plants and flowers have come a long way in recent years and now there are artificial plants that look “perfectly real” even up close.

Its All About the Natural Presentation

Also, it is important to remember that “presentation” goes a long way in an artificial plant arrangements. This means that a good pot and “organic”

ground cover, such as bark or Spanish moss are so important for the “complete” natural effect. Also, artificial plants that are hung up high from the ceiling, such as ferns look fantastic and because they are out of reach, no one can ever touch them to see that they are artificial.

Blending Natural Plants With Artificial Plants

Another trick that decorators use is to augment “thick sturdy” natural plants such as thornless cactus or other plant species that thrive in arid climates with artificial plants. This particularly works great if you want to string light green flowering vines up along a wall or window. People who are seated close to the arrangement will see the the large sturdy natural plant and assume that the vines also “growing” out of the pot are real as well.

A Beautiful Permanent Solution that Looks Perfectly Real

Its important to remember that beautiful natural plants that you will find for sale at your local nursery have been raised in optimal environments.

They grew up in climate and humidity controlled greenhouses and were tended to by experts who do what they do every day of the year. So, if you think that you can bring a fresh bushy natural plant into your “arid” work environment you are sadly mistaken. This is why so many business people have said “screw it” and have found a permanent solution in artificial plants.

Robert M endorses Chris Tyrrell who writes for The Silk Forest, professional designers and installers of artificial trees for a variety of locations throughout the world. Visit the website for more details.

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