Summer Lawn Care TipsWritten by Josh Gray
Summer is just around corner, and your lawn could probably use a little maintenance before summer season of backyard BBQs and swimming in pool. So what are you doing now to get your lawn ready? Lawn care is often feared as a difficult and time intensive process, but with a few guidelines and tips, you can easily have a healthy green lawn in time for first backyard party of season. First of all, if you can spare a minute of your time, don’t hire a lawn care “specialist” or professional landscaper. Buying your own lawn care products is cheap and easy, with hundreds of vendors offering products online and in Do-It-Yourself stores. A wide variety of products such as weed controllers to fertilizers can be found online, and usually can be found at reasonable prices, especially when you do a little online coupon searching. Starting off on right foot is important to reviving your lawn after winter. Fertilizer is key to ensuring strong healthy growth of grass in your yard. Fertilizing grass does more than just make it green. Of course it will make it grow too, but lot's of things happen when you fertilize. Fertilizer makes seed germinate faster, and get started out of ground. After grass has a good start fertilizer will make grass get thicker and send off beneficial chemicals like Rhizomes, Stolons, and Tillers all making grass thicker and healthier. What most people want to know about fertilizing is - how much and when? Typically, you want to fertilize 4 times each season, spread 60 days apart. Start in early spring approximately 30 days before growing season begins in your area, continuing through growing season until fall. Spring fertilizing gets grass off to a fast start giving you that rich green color everyone wants. A word of warning though, don't use too much fertilizer, follow listed guidelines on bag.
| | Violet PotsWritten by Linda Paquette
Pot size is important for your African violets because they grow best when their roots fill pot! Although pot-bound means disaster to many plants, to African violet it’s synonymous with comfort! A three-inch pot is ample room for small African violets. A good rule of thumb for repotting is to change pots when plant overflows its pots or, in other words, when foliage rosette spills over edges.Although African violets are easy-growing plants and apt to “bloom where they are planted”, special violet pots come in a wide variety of styles, shapes, colors and sizes for violet growing enthusiast. The most important point to consider when choosing new pots for your African violets is drainage. The African violet is a plant that needs plenty of good circulation. Like many plants, it “breaths” through its roots. While violet grows best in a moist potting mixture, roots that stand in water will drown. Pots with good drainage help you ensure that your violet gets a satisfactory mix of both air and moisture.
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