Easter Lilies, and the Number One Gardening Question Right Now Written by Doug Green
Everybody asks about Easter lilies! Can they go outside; can I plant them in my garden? And to this I reply, "Why not?" Like other bulbs,there are two options if you plant your leftover Easter lily bulbs - either they will live and flower for many years (it is perfectly hardy into zone 4) or they will immediately die. If you don't plant bulb, it will definitely die. So you have nothing to lose by planting. Once Easter lily bloom has faded in house, cut stem back as far as you can. Grow plant in a sunny windowsill, keeping it moist (not sopping) and feed weekly with houseplant food. After all danger of frost has passed wherever you live, you can plant it outdoors. Planting outdoors is as easy as digging a hole and planting so that top of bulb will be three inches below surface. Add a shovel of compost and a shovel of peat moss to planting hole and ensure soil is well loosened. Remember it is necessary to dig a large enough hole to spread lily roots out and to ensure it is at least eighteen inches from another plant. Place bulb in bottom of planting hole and backfill soil up to neck of bulb – do not cover green leaves. Covering green leaves at this time could rot them. Wait until leaves have turned yellow and faded before totally filling in hole. After you've planted bulb, water it thoroughly. Carefully water and turn area into a mudhole so no air spaces are left around bulb.
| | How to Use Color in Your Perennial GardenWritten by Jeff Pozniak
Just like most things in life, beauty is in eye of beholder. If purple blooms put a smile on your face, then you should most definitely use plants with purple blooms. The same is true for any color you find pleasing. There are different disciplines to pull from when trying to decide on color choices, but those disciplines speak in generalities; your own personal experiences mold your tastes into something unique, something your own, something a text or curriculum can’t possibly pinpoint. That being said, one of disciplines I like to pull from often, especially when it comes to color choices, is Feng Shui. While I’m not part of Feng Shui orthodoxy, design and layout lessons I’ve taken from Feng Shui are fundamentally grounded in sound design. They can be used inside and outside home, no matter if you have each and every room aligned to maximize it’s chi (energy), or you just want to make a garden space more appealing. For example, a ‘room’ (defined by either an indoor or outdoor space) with metal energy tends to be very clean and structured. Some colors that are considered to have metal energy are white, silver and gold. And in my opinion, some lighter blues, when considering plant blooms, could be grouped with those colors as well. Metal energy tends to allow for clear and concise thinking and carrying out and completion of tasks. On a much smaller scale, when I finish a landscape design and want to begin next design, I need some of cleansing effects of metal energy. I remove every template, pencil, eraser bag and architect's scale from my drafting table and I wipe down table. I’m left with a stark white table, and with that I am able to lay down a new piece of vellum and wash previous design from my mind and begin to get involved with next space I’ll design. I find that structure and absence of color leaves my imagination open to consider new design possibilities.
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