Landscaping and gardening are rewarding leisure activities, get expert tips and advice on plants, yards, and gardening in this free video. Expert: Carolyn Holt Bio: Carolyn Holt owns her own landscaping business, Carolyn’s Gardens, and has been a professional landscaper for over 30 years. She also has a degree in horticulture.
Maintaining a garden in an ocean front location is not all blooming hibiscus and scented plumeria. Extreme conditions such as high winds and drought can play havoc on the sturdiest landscape. When plotting your ocean front garden, you need to do you homework. Here are some flowers that like to bloom in the toughest of environments.
Rugosa Rose: This Siberian native knows all about tough climates. the Rosa rugosa endures extreme temperature shifts, drought, wind and salt spray. Expect scented blooms from string to fall accompanied by colorful rose hips that will attract the birds.
Lavender: A hearty plant in most climates, and tolerates sandy soil well. Position the plant in front of your roses for a fragrant walkway. The bushy shrub also hides the bare rose stems.
South American Verbena: This is a nice complement to your lavender with its showy lavender/purple blooms on stems that can extend up to 6 feet tall. Butterflies like this plant.
Daylily: These do well in most climates and have a variety of colors and patterns to choose from. When not in bloom, their grassy foliage makes a nice border.
Hydrangeas: This delicate looking plant is really a pretty tough cookie and doesn’t mind wind and salt. It’s wise to plant it in a partially shaded area where it will get the morning sun and afternoon shade. Set up an irrigation drip for this one, hydrangeas don’t tolerate drought very well. To keep it blooming, trim off the ancient flowers as soon as they start to fade.
Ever wonder why some hydrangeas have bright blue blooms and others are pink? It all has to do with the amount of acidity in the soil – the more acid, the bluer the flower, the less acid, or more alkaline, and the pinker the bloom. Use aluminum sulfate to increase acidity and dolomitic lime to decrease it.
Juniper: This is a hearty evergreen that adds color and texture to your garden year round. Choose from blue, green or gold foliage, and tall or creeping styles of plant. The low growing selections work well in sandy rock gardens or for erosion control on hilly areas.
Wintercreeper: This is a hearty groundcover that still looks fantastic in the winter with its variegated leaf.
Portulaca: This is a well loved plant commonly found along walkways at the beach. You can forget to water it, expose it to wind and sea spray and it will respond with colorful blooms. Its trailing flowers make a nice accent in an ocean facing window box. Although it is an annual, it will generally self seed.
Yarrow: Also considered a herb for its medicinal qualities, yarrow will endure, sun, rain, cold, drought and wind. It comes in a variety of colors such as yellow, orange, pink and white. Plant it in a spot where you can keep an eye on it, yarrow likes to spread its roots and wander.
Gaillardia: This colorful flower blooms from summer to early winter, resists drought and doesn’t balk at sandy soil. It’s brightly colored blooms attract butterflies and make perfect cut flowers.
Cuphea: This is the new kid on the block and what an fascinating plant it is. It has bright red crinkly petals with purple middles that bloom non-stop in the hottest, dryest, salt and wind blown conditions. Keep it moist and fertilized, and you will be assured of constant color all season.
Growing your own herbs is easy once you know how, and can add colour and scent to your garden or windowsill all year round. Ceri Thomas, editor of Which? Gardening gives advice on stockists and suppliers, and all you need to grow three of the most well loved herbs basil, coriander and rosemary.
Supermarket herbs
Many common kitchen herbs are now available from supermarkets as potted plants, but they can be tough to keep going. But, the majority of these, such as basil, coriander and parsley, are really a collection of seedlings crammed into the pot rather than a single established plant. You can use this to your advantage and it can be an easy, convenient way to get a lot of herb plants. Just separate the individual seedlings, and re-pot separately.
Growing from seed is the cheapest method for annual herbs. Cut parsley, coriander and chives to within 5cm of the base before re-potting, and separate the individual plantlets and re-pot each one in its own container. Take care when dividing coriander, parsley and basil, as they all resent having their roots disturbed. If basil has become leggy, you can re-plant it more deeply to encourage stronger growth.
How to grow basil
You can start sowing basil towards the end of March in a greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill. It’s very sensitive to cold and will blacken at the slightest hint of frost, so make sure your early sowings are protected. Once the young plants reach about 15cm tall, remove the shoot tip to encourage more leafy growth and a bushier plant. When the warmth of June arrives, you can sow another batch outside and go any indoor plants outside to the patio. Make a final sowing in August to give you fresh basil into autumn.
Alternatively, you can buy basil in posts from the supermarket or garden centre. Look for bushy plants with lots of side-shoots and no sign of flowering. You can then make more plants by taking cuttings.
Keep your basil in the sunniest spot that you can find – preferably a south-facing windowsill or patio, once there’s no risk of frost. Water sparingly and remove flower spikes – if these are allowed to mature, your plants will stop growing new leaves.
Pick individual leaves from the top of the plant and feed with a liquid fertiliser afterwards. Then leave it to grow again. If you find that you have a bumper crop at the end of summer, pick the lot and make it into pesto. It freezes really well if you leave out the parmesan, which can be added before use.
Recommended varieties of basil
Sweet basil, often sold as ‘Sweet Genovese’ has the classic basil taste. Greek basil is compact and bushy with tiny leaves, so there’s no need to chop them before cooking. ‘Green Ruffles’ has the classic basil flavour with a crinkly leaf texture, while ‘Thai basil’ is spicy and hot.
‘Cinnamon basil’ has a flavour rather like aniseed sweets, or for a fresh lemony tang try ‘Mrs Burns’ Lemon’. For ornamental use in window boxes or edging beds, try ‘Purple Ruffles’ for its crinkly purple leaves.
How to grow coriander
Coriander doesn’t like being went, so it’s best sown where you want it to grow, either in the ground or in large pots. Sow in late spring or early summer, and in August sow some more in pots on the windowsill for a supply during autumn and winter. Well-drained soil in a sunny spot is essential for growing coriander, and if you’re growing it indoors on a windowsill, give it plenty of light and don’t over water.
Coriander is annoyingly quick to flower and set seed before it has produced much leaf, so it’s best to sow small and often. Watch out for fine, feathery leaves – a sure sign the plants are about to flower.
Keep picking mature leaves as and when you need them. Regular cropping should delay flowering, but once the plants do flower, allow them to set seed. The seed is ripe when it stops smelling unpleasant. Collect it and use in cooking, keeping some to sow for another crop.
Recommended varieties of coriander
If you want the leaves choose ‘Cilantro’ and ‘Leisure’, which are slow to form seeds. If it’s seed you’re after, go for Moroccan coriander.
How to grow rosemary
Rosemary is widely available as established plants in garden centres for planting in spring. For more plants, take cuttings from young shoots in spring or summer. Rosemary is slightly tender and needs a sunny, sheltered position in well-drained soil; it does well in chalky soils. If you are growing it in a container, add some grit to the compost to aid drainage and don’t over water. After flowering in March, trim into shape and feed.
You can pick leaves from this evergreen all year round. It’s a excellent thought to dry some leaves at the end of summer if you want to use lots of rosemary over the winter, or add a sprig to olive oil for salad dressings.
Recommended varieties of rosemary
The Common rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is the hardiest form and most used in cooking. ‘Miss Jessopp’s Upright’ is a more vigorous and upright variety and makes a excellent focal point in a herb bed. The Prostratus Group are low-growing forms ideal for the top of a wall or rock garden. Corsican rosemary has a more pungent scent.
The use of organic plant nutrients instead of the man-made chemicals in the hydroponic garden eases the work of a gardener. The matter is that the absence of synthetic chemicals eliminates the problem of ppm amount and pH balance of the water. If there is no need to calibrate nutrients, to check pH level of the water, and calculate fertilizer’s amount, a beginner of the hydroponic gardening will certainly make no mistakes, which means many problems may never occur.
A dual root growing system is made by special composition of the medium in the container: the upper part of the medium is soil or soil substitute, and organic nutrients can be supplied directly to this upper part; the lower half of the medium is some porous material, which retains water, but to which no nutrients are supplied.
Making an organic hydroponics system, a gardener may use a standard hydroponic grow container, though a coir fiber container will suit too. The preferred material to place at the bottom of the box is lava rock, which perfectly keeps water. Lava rock is then covered with a thin layer of loose rockwool or coir fiber to divide both medium layers and prevent them from mixing together. The upper half of the container should be filled with a mixture of 1/3 potting soil, 1/3 coarse grade horticulture perlite, and 1/3 large-sized horticulture vermiculite. Such arrangement ensures the upper capillary action of water and protects the bottom of the grow bed from the occasional mixing with any organic particles.
Using a standard plastic hydroponic grow container one should place a plastic screen lining inside the grow bed, fitting it well at the bottom and on the walls of the container up to their top, also with the aim to protect the water from the small particles in the medium mixture. It is also possible to use a hydroponic container with tiny holes.
One more excellent choice for the use of organic gardening methods in hydroponics system is coir fiber containers. The filling is the same as described above with the thin layer of loose or strand coir fiber between the two types of medium.
Such box is then set in the grow bed. Note that the level of the pumped water should be a bit lower than the soil mixture. The secondary root system will be submerged into the water along with lava rock and promote the capillary water flow up into the soil. The lower half of the medium may be watered on a regular hydroponic basis, while the upper one can be moistened just once a day.
This system allows a gardener to supply nutrients right to the upper part of the medium, where they are vitally vital. At the same time, the whole medium structure will be perfectly moistened by the pumped water and the plants will also have constant supply of oxygen and CO2, drawn into their root systems. Finally, proper amount of CO2 will improve the absorption of nutrients by the upper parts of the roots.
Grow Light Reflectors
Often neglected as to their importance, grow light reflectors play a major role in a excellent indoor hydroponic garden system. Light plays a fantastic role or the most vital role in photosynthesis. The use of grow light reflectors in your garden enhances light distribution and ensures uniform distribution. Discounts on quality grow light reflectors are easily available and a super cost effective way of improving your personal garden productivity and efficiency. With effective plotting, the use of the right lighting system together with grow light reflectors greatly expands your garden area.
Size and shape are vital factors when considering the right grow light reflector. Grow lights and their configuration and personal preference for the amount of light needed to grow your plants are taken into consideration. Horizontal placement of the lights and reflectors are effective ways of mounting this system. Garden size also determines what shape and size of grow light reflector to be used. Smaller grow light reflectors produce higher intensity light beams because of their shorter travel distance.
Air-Cooled Reflectors
For additional ventilation and heat control, air-cooled reflectors are used. Indispensable for those gardens cramped in small spaces because of the amount of heat generated by grow lights. It maybe hard or close to impossible to maintain proper ventilation in such enclosed garden by the use of external fans. Usual setup for indoor hydroponic gardens includes grow lights with air-cooled reflective hoods covered by glass heat shields. This allows the light source to be placed closer to the plant canopy ensuring better light penetration. Gardens with no special cooling requirements also gains to benefit from its installation. This is the ideal setup of an indoor hydroponic garden system; investing a small more provides maximum garden performance and enjoyment for gardeners and hobbyists.
