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Choosing Plants for a Windowless Room Plants need sunlight to photosynthesize, produce flowers and fruit and for overall health. That being said, plants are also uniquely adaptable, and many vigorous specimens are perfect windowless houseplants. Choose a tried and true indoor specimen that will green up your space, clean your air and lend an aura of nature to any sterile indoor setting. You don’t have to work in a warehouse or deep inside a skyscraper to experience low light indoor conditions....

Getting Active in Nature Keeping kids active at home shouldn’t be hard. Get creative with fun games or learning activities to promote physical movement and tie into gardening or nature. Here are some ideas for nature exercises and activities to get you started: Go on a nature walk. For this activity, you simply go for a walk around your backyard, through your neighborhood, or your garden. Talk about things that you see related to gardening or play nature “I Spy....

What is an Herb Knot Garden? Picture an English country estate with fragrant herbs planted in symmetric rows and appealing geometric angles and ribbons. The scents, color, and textures are displayed at their best advantage to make a small kitchen knot garden both useful to the cook and a beautiful display. The first step in knot garden design is planning the planting area. It is helpful to use colored sand or even spray paint to line out the areas that will be planted....

Why Choose Big Houseplants? Larger houseplants provide all the benefits of smaller plants but even more so. Being surrounded by green plants is good for your mental health and stress levels. Plants filter the air. And, growing plants successfully can be rewarding. With big plants, you only multiply these effects. If you have the space for them, larger houseplants can make it feel like you’re living in a jungle or forest....

Why Choose Grass Alternatives? Shade isn’t the only reason to choose lawn alternatives, although it’s a big one. When you try to grow grass in a shady area, you’re likely to end up with more dirt patches, moss, and weeds than grass. A shade garden just looks nicer. There are other good reasons to ditch the grass and choose a back yard or front yard shade garden: You won’t spend as much time—or any at all if you replace the grass entirely—on mowing the lawn....

Types of Blueberry Leaf Spot Blueberries with leaf spot are common at any point in the growing season. While there may be some signs of disease on flowers, stems or even fruit, the primarily affected part is the leaf. As the disease progresses, the leaves begin to die and fall off. Such defoliation reduces a plant’s ability to photosynthesize. Recognizing disease symptoms is key to designing effective blueberry leaf spot treatment and prevention of disease the next season....

Along with seeking out great gardening websites like Gardening Know How as fantastic places to gain experience with your gardening, seek out local societies or clubs as well. There are usually some local gardening clubs and more specific plant societies or clubs to seek out. If you love to grow African violets, orchids, or roses, there is a local society of folks to join up with. There is usually a local gardening club as well that takes in all sorts of gardening interests....

We’ll get you started with a few gardening tips to prevent lymphedema problems. What is Lymphedema? Gardening is a hobby that can challenge your body and your brain, depending on how you approach it. However, that doesn’t mean you have to give up your plants just because you’re at risk for lymphedema. Gardening with lymphedema is much like doing anything else with lymphedema, you simply need to modify your approach to your landscape....

Humidity in a greenhouse is important but managing it is crucial to preventing fungal and other issues. Learn how to reduce greenhouse humidity when necessary to prevent common plant problems. Greenhouse Humidity Info Is greenhouse humidity important? Well, depending on what you are growing in your greenhouse, humidity may be necessary or just a common effect. Some plants, like most tropical specimens, need humidity. Other plants, such as many succulents, will develop rots and mildews that can kill them....

What are Marionberries? Marionberry plants are crossbreeds made up of two previous hybrids — the small but delicious Chehalem and the larger heavily productive Ollalie. Development of this berry began in 1945 through the efforts of George F. Waldo of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was tested in the Willamette Valley. Subsequently released for cultivation under its name of Marionberry in 1956, it is named after Marion County in Oregon....

Midwest Shade Plants: Choosing shade tolerant plants for Midwest regions covers a wide range of zones and growing conditions. The good news is that you can choose from a diverse variety of plants that will thrive in a Midwest shade garden. Below are a few possibilities. Toad lily (Tricyrtis hirta): Shade plants for the Midwest include this showy perennial that produces green, lance-shaped leaves and unique orchid-like blooms of pink, white, or variegated with purple spots....

The garden design should include a variety of plants for dimension and a broad palette. Included in these are native plants. For instance, Utah native plants such as Pinyon pine, Utah holly, and serviceberries. These plants are water wise, attract wildlife, and are easy to grow. Choosing native plants for specific regions is made simple by local Extension services who publish lists of plants suitable for the garden. These lists will generally give lighting, moisture, and other site selection guidelines for fool proof garden planning....

These tasks have to be done and can even be pleasurable; therefore, they’re much easier to stick to than the usual resolutions. Resolutions for the Garden Garden resolutions can be part of your New Year’s Eve pronouncements. Typical New Year’s resolutions can be tough to hold to, but garden resolutions encourage beauty, health, and even grow food. These types of goals are just a happy side effect of gardening in the New Year....

Do Ornamental Peach Trees Bear Fruit? Ornamentals, in general, are included in the landscape for their flowers or colorful foliage. Although their purpose is ornamental, many of these trees will produce fruit. Some fruit from ornamentals is edible and quite tasty; crabapples and purple-leaved plums are such examples. So, more than likely an ornamental peach tree will bear fruit but is an ornamental peach edible? Because the tree is developed for its ornamental characteristics and not the quality of its fruit, the fruit will likely be edible, in theory, meaning it won’t kill you, but inedible in practice since it probably won’t taste all that great....

What is an Ornamental Tree? Ornamental trees are grown for their aesthetic value and the sheer enjoyment of having them in the garden. They may have outstanding flowers and fragrance, an interesting shape, colorful or unusual bark, excellent fall color, or a combination of these and other features. Most gardens have room for at least one small ornamental tree, and some can accommodate two or three. They add framework and structure to the garden and provide at least a little shade....

Incompatible Garden Plants There are a few basic rules of thumb when it comes to plants to avoid near one another. First, check that your garden plants are all about the same size and have the same light requirements. Planting very tall plants like tomato next to bush beans, for example, is a very bad idea since the tomatoes will very likely shade out the beans. When planting taller and shorter plants together, make sure that the shorter plants are spaced far enough away and oriented so the sun will shine on them during the day....

Plants with a Halloween Theme Of course you’re going to see pumpkins everywhere as time ticks toward October 31st, but your selection of plants for a Halloween garden can’t stop there. The current trend of carving out jack-o’-lanterns is a relatively recent one. Before pumpkins were popular for Halloween, kids carved turnips and the large, orange roots of mangold. So, when you are choosing Halloween garden plants to include in your festivities, pick those as well....

Pomegranate History The pomegranate, an ancient fruit, is getting a bit of resurgence in popularity due to the recent discovery of its high amounts of antioxidants. The pomegranate has been widely cultivated for thousands of years in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Asia, and has been written about in the Old Testament and the Talmud of Babylonia. A symbol of fertility in ancient Egypt, the pomegranate is well suited to these arid climates, disliking humid conditions and overly cold temperatures....

Growing Red Maple Red maple trees vary in size depending on the location and the cultivar. They grow 40 to 70 feet (12-21 m.) tall with a spread of 30 to 50 feet (9-15 m.). Red maples tend to be shorter in the southernmost part of their growing range, which is USDA plant hardiness zones 3 through 9. For small urban lots, consider growing smaller cultivars, such as ‘Schlesingeri,’ which rarely exceeds 25 feet (8 m....

Building a rock garden in shade is a little more difficult, as the usual rockery plants like sunlight. However, it can be done with the right soil and selection of plants. Shade Rock Garden Tips Any rock garden usually features low growing plants that produce flowers or interesting foliage. When developing a rock garden for shade, you can’t rely on these traditional alpine plants, but there are plenty of specimens that will thrive in the shadows....