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Flowers from the florist! A gift box is always a delightful surprise and the moment of its opening is fraught with eager anticipation of colorful beauty and cool fragrance. The selected group we buy bespeaks a need fulfilled, either that of decorating for a party or simply satisfying the inner urge to enjoy flowers.

Since, on these occasions, so much pleasure lies before us, why not see to it that the loveliness which flowers add to our surroundings is made to last as long as possible? Too frequently these sometimes sturdy and often weary travelers are simply thrust into vases and never given any further attention until it is time to throw them out.

When I say travelers I mean just that. Many times I handle chrysanthemums from California, gladiolus from Florida or even lilacs from Holland. Arriving at their initial destination, the wholesaler’s, they are plunged in water and kept at a cool temperature until bought by the retailer. He in turn may have to hold them several days in his ice box before they are sold, perhaps to you. In this case, cut the stems again immediately and deep soak them in a cool place three or four hours before placing in vases. Over night is often better. This I call “life insurance.”

Too frequently the cool, crisp perfection of flowers as they come out of the florists’ ice box is lost on contact with the warm, close air of our heated homes. If the stem ends have sealed over and the flowers cannot draw up water, their heads will naturally droop.

The next time you receive gift roses, notice if the stem ends are discolored.

If so, this is a sign that re-cutting is necessary. Roses will be greatly benefited by having their bottom leaves and thorns stripped off as this will also allow greater water absorption. Should they fail to hold up their heads upon arrival, try placing them in water as hot as your hand will stand. If the roses are reasonably fresh this hot water treatment will start the plant juices moving again and through the newly cut stem ends they will start drinking once more. In several hours time they should perk up.

One point to remember is not to be fooled into thinking that packaged formulas will revive limp flowers. They are meant solely for the initial soaking period and if so used are truly beneficial in adding to the life span of roses, carnations and snapdragons.

There are many little things we can do to our florist flowers to make them last longer. Snapdragons, for instance, must always be stripped of their lower leaves. This foliage is “soft” and breaks down quickly under water so that bacterial decay sets in. The water soon becomes discolored and foul smelling. These particular flowers have a very useful tendency to bend up towards the light so that if we buy very stiff straight ones we can coax them into curves by soaking them overnight at an angle.

Methods of Handling

With lilies remember to remove the pollen. Usually the florist does this to prevent the petals from staining. Do the same with the new buds as they open at home. The two hardiest florist flowers, the chrysanthemum and gladiolus, are naturally long lasting and seldom temperamental. Simply re-cut their stems and they are ready to arrange.

Daily care and grooming will pay dividends. Keep the vases full by adding water of room temperature. If containers have wide openings or are of the low, shallow type, it will not be necessary to change the water completely and thus disarrange the grouping. Discolored foliage and withered blooms should, of course, be removed.

If you place a bouquet near a breezy window or on a table beside a hot air radiator, very rapid transpiration will take place and the flowers will never hold up as well as when kept where it is cool and free from drafts.

After tending to the life-span of the flowers, the next step is to display them to the best advantage. All flowers look best when combined with green foliage, for that is the way they grow. Unfortunately, some must be cut without their own foliage. Carnations, gerberas, sweet peas and anemones are among those which arrive in market bare stemmed. Snapdragon foliagea or dracaena fragrans massangeana is neither distinctive nor of good substance and that of chrysanthemums will turn yellow long before the flowers begin to fade.

Knowing this, florists add “greens” to the flowers, using material that is plentiful and inexpensive. Years ago, asparagus fern was commonly used for this purpose. Now it is huckleberry, laurel or lemon leaves. By paying a little more, however, you can buy more interesting and desirable foliage materials, since flower arrangers have been incessant in their demands for them.

Find out for yourself the essentials on dracaena fragrans massangeana. Visit us for lots of free information at http://www.plant-care.com/dracaena-care.html.

If your house is rather wide or your lot very narrow and there are only a few feet left between the end of the house and the property line, you will not be able to do much more planting to soften the architectural lines. However, when there is more space available on either or both sides of the house, you should extend the foundation planting in order to add “wings” of plant material to the building.

The object of a wing planting is to make the house look lower and wider and to give it the appearance of greater stability. This is the case with ranch style homes. A wing planting can be skillfully placed to act as a screen to obstruct the view of passers-by. This sort of screening is one way of effectively separating the public area from the private area.

It is advisable, whenever possible, to leave some of the house foundation exposed. It is now generally felt that the continuous foundation planting so common around modern homes is a hangover from the old days when foundations were three or more feet in height, and consequently were awkward and ugly to look at.

The usual, and correct, procedure in such cases was to screen the entire foundation with shrubs like spineless yucca plant. You should do the same if your home has an excessively high foundation as we use to see years ago in home design.

Most modern homes, however, have very low foundations and, sometimes, no visible foundation whatever. Furthermore, homes have “grown smaller” on the outside owing to the more efficient use of space on the inside, and it is therefore wise to allow some of the building between the corner and entrance plantings to show through. This creates the illusion of greater size. It is also more pleasing aesthetically in most cases to have the green lawn running right up to the home.

Join Kent Higgins at http://www.plant-care.com. The time has come to gain a clearer understanding on the topic of spineless yucca plant.

Different kinds of gardens require different kinds of garden tools. Hardware stores mostly cater for a wide range of tools, but there are shops that specialize in the more expensive kind of garden tool that shouts quality. Wherever you decide to shop, here are a few pointers to advise you.

Do you have small garden or a large one? A small garden will not require the same large equipment that would be of use in an extensive one. A ride-on mower is unnecessary if you only have a small strip of lawn. Another point to consider is who does most of the gardening? Some tools are too heavy for use by women.

When you buy secateurs make sure the blade always stays sharp to avoid damaging the plant. Look for models that have blades that can be sharpened or replaced, models with tension control and with sizes that best fit your hands. Secateurs usually cost around $50 – $130.

Hedge trimmers or shears are handy – but only if you have a hedge, or plan on growing one. Some hedge trimmers have curved blades to stop branches from sliding out when cut.

Forks are used for turning and aerating compost and breaking up lumps of soil. The cheaper ones are often not strong enough for heavy soil, so go for sturdiness instead of price. Forks usually cost around $30 – $100.

A shovel has a scoop blade and is best used to move around dirt and garden soil. A spade has a flat blade great for cutting edges, digging and dividing plants. The edge of a spade should be kept sharpened for clean and efficient cutting will cause the least amount of damage to plants. These are a basic garden necessity and usually cost from $30 – $50.

A pruning saw is used for pruning trees and larger shrubs, while secateurs are for plants like roses. Pruning saws have a narrow curved blade that fits between stems or branches and easily and cuts them as you pull the saw backwards. They are approximately $27- $55.

A chipping hoe is a handy tool for getting rid of small weeds. The Dutch or push-hoe is slightly more user-friendly as the action required to use it does not jar the neck and shoulder quite so much.

A rake is also a basic requirement for the garden. The strong rake with the flat head and sharp metal prongs is used for smoothing a garden bed and getting out the last of the bumps and weeds. The plastic rake is used to gather leaves and grass clippings only.

Gardening tools don’t have to be expensive. Flea markets and garage sales can be excellent places to pick up great tool bargain.

Pamela Kazmierczak is an expert in the wedding field. She write about all wedding topics like Wedding Flowers. Are you looking for something more unique, check out Blue Wedding Flowers Today.

Where can we find new rose genes for increasing the hardiness of everblooming hybrid tea varieties? Although the hybrid teas (not to mention the floribundas and grandifloras) already contain the “blood” of at least four species, rose breeders seem to agree

Hybridizers look with envy on the hardiness and disease resistance of various species but hesitate to bring in the genes of these by intercrossing, fearing too much domination from these genes and a complete loss of the hybrid tea, Actually, a large number of species clamor for attention as potential parents for “the roses of the future.”

The difficulty with many is they are diploids, whereas the hybrid teas in general are tetraploids. That is, the number of chromosomes in many of the hardy species is 14 (twice the number in the pollen cells or egg cells) since a pollen and an egg cell unite at fertilization to produce the zygote, or new plant, whereas in hybrid teas the chromosome count is 28, or four times the haploid number 7, hence the “tetra” part of the name tetraploid.

lt is possible to cross diploids and tetraploids to produce fertile offspring. The first generation will be triploids with 21 chromosomes and their reproductive cells of chromosome numbers, between 7 and 14 are not usually fertile unless they are exactly 7s or l4s; this does occur occasionally. There is often enough fertile pollen from a triploid plant to enable the breeder to raise descendants. In fact, this is exactly how the hybrid teas originated, by crossing of teas from Asia having the diploid chromosome number with gallicas and other tetraploid species of Europe.

The first hybrids were undoubtedly triploids, but their pollen placed on flowers of tetraploids produced enough tetraploid plants to originate the new race of hybrid teas. These hyrbids exhibit exemplary resistance against pests so there was no need of spraying them with ortho rose pride. However, when Rom foeridri, in the form of Persian Yellow, was brought into the “gene pool” of hybrid teas, no such difficulty was experienced and no use of ortho rose pride, for R. foerida was already a tetraploid. When polyanthas, which are diploids, were crossed with hybrid teas to produce floribundas, the original difficulties of crossing parents of differing chromosome number were repeated.

A good many rose breeders have obtained new varieties by dusting pollen of R. spinosissima altaica (the Altai rose) on pistils of hybrid teas. In the diploid group, use could be made of R. rugosa, R. blanda and R. nizida. To use R. mgosa, not for the raising of new hybrid rugosas, but for a small infusion of hardier genes without too much change in the character of the hybrid teas, one should take a triploid rugosa variety, such as the Arnold rose and attempt to cross it back on hybrid teas. To use R. blanda or R. nizida, one might have to first produce the triploid hybrid by his own breeding. The chances are it would be well worth using in rose breeding projects, both those intended to develop hybrid teas or shrub roses.

If you’re thinking of growing your own hydroponic tomatoes then you should as they are delicious and you will make some serious money from them.

Below are some benefits of growing your own hydroponic tomatoes.

1. As you won’t be growing your hydroponic tomatoes in soil, no soil borne diseases will be passed on. You will end up with healthier tomatoes as a result. This will show!

2. For the same reason, no soil loving pests and creatures will get near your tomatoes. There will be no need to pay for expensive pesticides and so your tomatoes will be organic too!

3. Once the initial start up costs have been made, running costs will be around 20% lower when growing hydroponic tomatoes.

4. You will be able to plant more tomatoes in a smaller area! This is despite the finished product actually being larger too! This is because the roots do not grow as large hydroponically as they have access to all the nutrients they need.

5. Maintenance time is greatly reduced! You don’t need to water hydroponic tomatoes as they already have access to all the nutrients they need. Weeding doesn’t exist in hydroponic gardens in fact all you really need to do is sit back and pick the tomatoes once they are ready.

6. There is a year long yield because you have manipulated the growing conditions to be optimum all the time! As soon as it’s off season you can sell them for higher prices.

7. You can grow hydroponic tomatoes anywhere; rooftop, window ledge, living room, bedroom, garden, garage or greenhouse.

8. They will grow at least 40% larger than traditional tomatoes as you will have created their dream growing environment. They will also have access to all the nutrients they need.

9. As you won’t be watering them, there is no danger of either under or over watering. This is a big problem that many novice gardeners face.