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Archive for April, 2011

Grow a cutting garden and enjoy flowers indoors and out

If you feel guilty when you cut flowers in your garden, worrying that you’re destroying nature or leaving gaps in your flowerbeds, it may be time for you to plant a cutting garden, says the American Association of Nurserymen (AAN). A cutting garden is designed to provide flowers for indoor arrangements, and it will give you a new perspective on removing flowers from your garden.

Choosing the Right Flowers and Plants

As with any garden, the first step in planning your cutting garden is to select plants that grow well in your part of the country. Ask the experts at your local garden center for their suggestions, and keep in mind your soil conditions, the amount of sun or shade your garden receives and how much it rains.

Selecting a Color Scheme

After you’ve decided which plants will thrive at your site, choose a color scheme, whether bright and vivid primary colors, soft and muted pastel shades or dusty earth tones. Since the purpose of a cutting garden is to grow flowers to use indoors, think about how flowers of certain colors will look when you place them in main rooms of your house.

Finally, plant flowers and plants in such a way that no one will notice that you frequently forage for new material for your indoor bouquets. One way to achieve a continuously balanced look in your cutting garden is to group your plantings by color, so that when you clip several blue flowers one day and several yellow flowers another, the overall appearance of the garden is still one of continuity and growth.

You can also fill in around your flowers with shrubs and larger, bushy plants that can easily spare a few leaves or berries, as well as plant a mix of perennials, annuals and bulbs so your garden will bloom all year ’round.

Is living green something you have been considering? You can find people talking about the planet in newspapers, on the radio and all over the news. One of the hottest issues that you hear about everyday is alternate fuel options for cars, especially with the price of gas these days. With the amount of pollution throughout our planet, one other question is what can be done to deal with our latest pollution problem. The green living message is being disseminated so it is making many businesses to modify the way they have always done business. These businesses have had to become more aware of the effect of their business practices and the effect it has on the environment.

Now, baking soda has been an all natural product ever since it was produced, and it forever remain so. Remember that baking soda is all natural and is also cheap and can be used for many applications. While majority of people are aware that baking soda can be used for cleaning, some have realized it can further be used for brushing their teeth. Lots of people who are trying to stick to a greener way of life have started making use of baking soda for lots different things. Another great thing about this miracle product is that is really inexpensive and is a great cleaning product. Baking soda mixed with water into a paste is great for scrubbing clean tile, counters, sinks, tubs, and even garbage cans. A large number of people have come to realize that baking soda can be used to remove lime scale, instead of using harsh chemical cleaners.

Sodium bicarbonate is also a natural odor neutralizer because of the bicarbonate found sodium bicarbonate. And because baking soda is such a powerful odor remover, a lot of people use it in their cat’s litter boxes. Placing a box of baking soda in your fridge can help subdue odors from odorous foods. For those of you who want brighter and cleaner clothes, add some baking soda to the wash cycle. Baking soda will never ruin your clothes like bleach products can.

The health advantages of sodium bicarbonate have been used for numerous years, and an increasing number of people are beginning to realize the benefits. Baking soda makes an excellent toothpaste because it is a natural product. It is an effective germ killer and can also make your teeth a good deal whiter and lighter. Instead of taking drugs and other medications to address your heartburn, you can obtain just as great results by opening up a box of baking soda. People have just lately determined the how important your body’s pH level is to your overall health. The pH value of the blood must stay between 7.35 and 7.45 or the body dies. People in the medical professions are aware that sodium bicarbonate can help maintain a patient’s blood pH level to keep them alive in trauma situations.

It has also been observed that those with a lower level of pH have more chances of getting diseases. By causing your body to be more basic, you have smaller chances of getting diseases, and sodium bicarbonate can help you with that. Just add a certain amount to a cup of water a few times a day and discover how much better it is going to make you feel. An essential component of living green is to begin making use of more natural health remedies. Even if green living is not you are interested in, one thing you must think about is choosing more natural cures. On the whole, sodium bicarbonate can not just be utilized for cleaning and cooking, but it can save your life too.

Bubbles and craters in newly installed concrete floor coatings often come from gases flowing through the porous cement. These gases can be argon, methane, or whatever is under the slab. Sometimes the gases come from chemical reactions still being produced by the preparatory floor cleaning process. Often the gases derive from air being sucked into the room by the heating system or by natural airflow. We describe here a simple, effective solution for repairing these defects.

Many times just screening the floor and putting on another coat will solve the problem, but not always. That is, even after a second coat, there may be telltale signs of bubbling. Look closely at one of the bubbles, remove any skin and see if there is a small hole at the bottom of the crater. This small hole is a sign that something is blowing through the hole, causing the bubble. For a positive cure, use glazing compound to fill each hole before your next coat. While this sounds like a big job, in fact a 1200 sq. ft. floor can be filled by you and a helper in about an hour.

Here are the steps for positive repair and concealment of your cratering problems. First, use a rotary scrubber and drive pad with a 60-grit screen to quickly go over the floor, shaving off any bubble tops and thereby flattening the floor. Next sweep up the screening dust. Then put on those kneepads and, using a tooth paste-style tube of glazing compound and a putty knife, start filling. After all the problem craters are filled, screen again. A good second screening can be done as soon as you are finished filling. This screening will quickly remove excess glaze and blend each hole flat. Sweep again and then coat the floor.

With this extra hour of work you can be sure that the holes are all permanently filled and with no holes remaining in the floor, there should be no new bubbles or craters. Make sure that when you mix your floor coating you dont whip air into the mixture. I use a hand paddle for about 200 strokes then let the mixture sit for 20 minutes before using it, pot life permitting. If you suspect that your roller cover is pushing air into your product use a mohair-style roller cover, and pour the product on the floor; dont dip the roller into it. Having the room temperature near 70 degrees and preventing wind and hot or cool spots is also helpful.

Durall Industrial Flooring supplies kits of materials that are customized to owner specification and delivered directly to the job site. Kits include full directions and 24/7 help lines staffed by seasoned flooring experts, so professionals and amateurs alike can successfully install a quality floor.

Web visitors can obtain free, job-specific quotes on materials or nationwide turnkey installations by completing a simple questionnaire at http://www.concrete-floor-coatings.com.

For a high-resolution photo example, visit: http://www.concrete-floor-coatings.com/photos/bubbles

For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at: harvey@concrete-floor-coatings.com

Phone: 1-800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7)

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Cloning, or taking cuttings of, your favourite plants is the very best way to perpetuate their existence. It’s also the best way to get them started for an indoor hydroponic garden. For instance, I had a very successful Rosemary plant growing on my kitchen window-sill. However, it was in dirt and I really don’t like dirt in the house. I took cuttings from it and ended up with three new healthy clones that I planted in a LECA (small, clay pellets) medium in my indoor hydroponic garden.

With an indoor hydroponic garden, you can keep it constantly fresh with new clones. You never need to be without a special herb, flower or vegetable you really like ever again. Here are a few lighting tips to get perfect clones for your indoor hydroponic garden.

Unlike when you start seedlings, clones need light from day one after rooting. It’s a good idea to start with lower and diffused light intensities from sources such as T-5 or T-8 fluorescent lighting. During the first few days, the cuttings will do best with just one or two 24 watt strips over the top of a standard 10″ x 20″ propagation tray in your indoor hydroponic garden. You can gradually increase the light intensity after a few days by lowering the light fixtures closer to the propagation dome. However, make certain the temperature doesn’t rise in your indoor hydroponic garden above 85o F/29o C inside the dome after making this adjustment.

Once the roots develop, you can switch to HID lights that provide mostly red and blue growth stimulating spectrums. Metal halide grow lights should be used for the vegetative stage of plant growth in your indoor hydroponic garden. Metal halide grow lights will produce strong light in the blue and white spectrum which effectively mimics a typical summer day. High pressure sodium grow lights will produce strong light in the red spectrum which mimics the angle of the sun during fall. When your plants are ready to start flowering you should switch from your metal halide grow lights to your high pressure sodium grow lights in your indoor hydroponic garden.

Condition your plants to this more intense light in your indoor hydroponic garden by gradually decreasing the distance between the plants and light fixtures. After a couple of weeks, your plants should be able to handle very bright levels of light which will encourage healthy, robust and fast-growing plants in your indoor hydroponic garden.

An indoor hydroponic garden will be a source of great joy and wonderment once you’ve got it started and the fastest way is with clones or cuttings. As the summer comes to an end, take cuttings from the garden and start new plants for your indoor hydroponic garden. Show the children what you’re doing and they can share in the magic of starting new plants for your indoor hydroponic garden.

Green Living. With environmental problems hitting us left and right, many people have pushed that we do this. There are many ways to achieve this. Some do organic farming, consuming organic foods, and recycling. However, one could take these things one step higher and that is by harnessing nature to power our homes instead of relying to fossil fuels. This could be easily achieved by using Tom Hayden’s “Green Living Kit”.

Click Here For Green Living Kit Instant Access Now!

This kit is a collection of guides that teaches us how to build systems that could convert nature’s power into electricity such as solar panels, wind turbines and solar water heaters to name a few. Although, these things are usually commercially available, most of them are very expensive which makes them impractical for domestic use.

This is where the Green Living Kit could help. It contains 12 DIY guides that are very easy to follow and understand. It was written in simple language that is void of technical terms that other guides usually contain. This is because Mr. Hayden wanted to reach as many people as possible who could make use of this technology which is a product of over thirty years experience in studying and building these systems.

This is also the reason why he decided to group these 12 guides together and sell it in a heavily discounted price. This single act shows the real motive in writing these ebooks. If his motive is profit, he could have easily sold each guide for but instead, he is offering all of them lower than the price of a single ebook.

The Green Living Kit is definitely the only guide that teaches us how to build systems that could provide us the electricity that we need without harming the environment. However, among all of the guides, it is the one that offers the most value for every dollar spent.

Click Here For Green Living Kit Instant Access Now!