Landscape Vision Knows.

Why you should landscape your property.
Check this info out.Researchers at Clemson University conducted a study of Home Sales and compared the results based on varying levels of Landscape quality. Not only were type, size and condition of the plantings considered but also the overall design. Landscapers were rated "poor", "good", or "excellent". Well designed landscaped homes had faster sales because of first impressions...- Research Group, Clemson University 2001Money Magazine had this to say on this matter...Landscaping as a home improvement project has a recovery value of 100-200% if it is well done and harmonizes with the nearby surrounding. This compares to a Kitchen overhead of 75-125% or a Bathroom redesign of 80-120%. - Money MagazineLandscape Vision 5.4.2 design software can help you improve the value of your property.www.landscapeyourvisions.com
Posted by landscapevision at 7:49 AM 0 comments
Labels: Improve your home's value

New Version Of Landscape Vision
New Version Of Landscape VisionHello everyone, we are proud to announce to our new version of our popular landscape design software, Landscape Version. Our new version 5.4.2 is really cool, let me tell you about it.Using a picture or you property you can place real images of Perennials, Annuals, Tress, Roses, Ground Cover, Shrubs and more. Placing them just where you want them. Move them around, resize them, read their bios. Our plant data base was voted, "Best Plant Data Base" by Top Ten Reviews two years running.The new version now let's you import any image and see it on your yard or patio. We also added outdoor living products for you see before you buy. We have Gazebos, Lawn Furniture, Bird Baths, Fountains, Grill and more. Once you see what you like we show you where to purchase it.Landscape Vision 5.4.2 let's you draw walkways and patios and even putting greens. We offer images of stone and pavers along with different mulches. You can even draw a new lawn!Our software is easy to use, we kept it simple seeing the first version was such a hit .Check it out. It's almost Spring so get going. Visit our home page now.

Gardening Jobs by the Month: January

• Use this month to check your houseplants: divide and re-pot any pot-bound plants. Prune judiciously to create a compact, attractive specimen.
• Keep holiday poinsettias in a sunny, cool location with high humidity.
• If you have succulents such as jade, hoya, and sansevieria, they may be reluctant to bloom in the house. Grow them in a small pot and hold back the water. This may persuade them to flower.
• Remove aphids from houseplants with a mixture of equal parts rubbing alcohol and water and add a drop of dishwashing detergent. Apply this to troubled plants with a soft brush.
• Open the doors and windows when temperatures permit to give your house a change of air. This will benefit you and your houseplants.
• Provide extra protection to houseplants on window sills if it is very cold. Place cardboard between the plants and the glass. Be sure the plants don't touch the windowpanes.
• Sponge off your plants or give them a good shower to remove the dust.
• Force a winter bouquet from cut branches of forsythia, pussy willow, deutzia, wisteria, lilac, apple, peach, or pear. Bruise the cut ends and set them in water. Spray the branches frequently. Keep them in a cool place until they bloom, then move to a warmer area for display.
• Check any bulbs and tubers you may have stored to determine if moisture is okay. Repack bulbs that seem too damp, discarding any moldy ones. If bulbs seem too dry, try moving them to another location.
• Start a garden record book now, allowing space to record the dates of first and last frosts, sowing seeds, planting, transplanting, time of bloom, first fruits, fertilizing, problems with pests, and other information. Over a period of years, this will be an invaluable record.
• Make a careful study this month of three important garden subjects: fertilizers, spraying, and best seed varieties.
• Check with your county extension agent to find out whether your particular area really fits into the temperature range suggested by its garden zone. Though seed companies provide information about which zones are best for growing different varieties of plants, keep in mind that considerable variation may take place within each zone.
• Plan your garden and make a diagram drawn to scale before placing your spring order.
• Remember this rule of thumb for planning perennial gardens: The width of the garden should be about twice the height of the tallest plant growing in it.
• Review your gardening chemicals and check for deteriorating containers. Consult local authorities for acceptable ways of disposing of chemicals you no longer use.
• Organize, clean, oil, and sharpen garden tools. A splash of bright paint on tool handles will make them easier to spot out in the yard.
• Examine your land in the stark winter days, looking for places where an evergreen might go nicely.
• Visit a greenhouse or nursery near you and talk with the experts about your growing problems. Ask them about shrub varieties best for your conditions.
• Remember to supply fresh water for the birds. Nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals, and juncos will enjoy any bread scraps you may have.
• Gently shake or brush off snow-weighted branches that have no support. Heavy snow cover protects evergreen foliage from windburn, but too much weight will break branches.
• Prune fruit trees now. The prunes can be gathered up into bundles to be used for kindling after they've dried.
• Neatly trim any shrubs and hedges broken by snow. Finish all pruning of trees before the sap starts.
• Examine willow and poplar trees for borers. Prune out any infested branches.
• Repair all fences, arbors, and garden furniture before the real work of spring begins. In the south, prune early-flowering shrubs when they finish blooming.
• Check roof edges for ice buildup, especially those areas you don't see on a daily basis. Remember that shingles will be brittle now, so be careful if chipping is necessary.
• Avoid walking over the same areas of your frozen lawn or you may find bald spots in the spring.
• Plant lettuce in flats this month and harvest before it's time to start some of the later seedlings. Artificial light may be required, but the air should not be too hot.
• Start some annual flowers this month. Good picks include marigolds, sweet peas, stattice, impatiens, petunias, and snapdragons.
• Choose some perennials to start now from seed. Delphinium, Shasta daisy, carnation, digitalis, and armeria are good choices.
• Start geranium, begonia, vinca, and viola seeds now for spring and summer bloom. Begonia and vinca seeds are among the hardest to germinate, so don't be discouraged if your success rate is low or irregular.

Article By: http://www.almanac.com

How To Get Amaryllis To ReBloom

Your amaryllis may be in glorious bloom right now but how do you get it to re-bloom after the initial one is spent? It’s easy to do if you follow these steps. After the bloom fades, cut the stem a few inches above its base. Grow the plant in a bright, warm spot for several months, fertilize every other week and continue watering. Once September comes, place the plant in a cool, dark spot, fifty five to sixty degrees, and stop fertilizing. Keep it in this position for 3 months and do not water. Then bring the plant to a warm location (seventy to seventy five degrees Fahrenheit). Once it has sprouted, place in a cooler location in filtered sunlight. Water only when needed and within the next eight weeks, your amaryllis will be ready to re-bloom.

Article By: Fran Sorin
www.fransorin.com

Fran's Favorite Seed Selections For Winter

For those of you who think that you have to wait until January 2007 to begin to peruse and select seeds from those luscious seed catalogues, you’re wrong.

Over the past couple of years, I have made it my practice in mid-fall to sit down with a cup of tea and the latest Thompson and Morgan seed catalogue and begin to leisurely peruse through it marking off the selections that interest me.

During the lull of the winter months, I love fiddling around with at least 8 or 9 different types of seeds to see how they germinate and grow during the winter months indoors. It may seem like extra work to continue to re-pot them and perhaps even bring some to bloom prior to the season, but especially if you’re a precise colorist, it’s worth it.

Here are some of my picks:

Foxglove Mountain Candy: “It is totally unique as it is the first upward facing foxglove from seed. This unusual characteristic enables you, and the bees, to peep inside the stunning rose pink blooms and view their delightful freckled throats, which appear all the way around the stems. These flower stems are so strong, sturdy and erect that in breeding trials Candy Mountain was given the nickname 'Viagra'! Ideal for planting in drifts, creating a colourful display towards the middle or back of your perennial or cottage garden borders.”

Sweet Pea ‘Fragrantissima’: “A full color spectrum formula blended to ensure an even balance of color. Specially selected for quality of blooms and intensity of fragrance. Attractive, large flowered and strong stemmed, making wonderful cut flowers for enjoying several months in the house and garden.”

Salvia lyrata ‘Purple Volcano’: “Stunning mounds of deep purple foliage from which erupt deep purple stems, bursting with delicate white flowers. Perfect for adding color contrast to borders and containers. Hardy in Zones 4-9.”

Anchusa leptophylla ‘Blue Shower’: “Attractive showers of power-blue flowers smother mounds of foliage all summer continuing into autumn, creating a long lasting border display from this outstanding perennial. Hardy in Zones 6-8.”

Centaurea moschata ‘Dairy Maid’: “Attractive, large yellow flowers. Recommended for its cutting and border qualities and delicious chocolate fragrance, that earned it the appropriate name of ‘Sweet Sultan’.

Sunflower ‘Earth Walker’: “A diverse mixture of attractive browns and terracottas, with an occasional deeper chocolate shade. Tall, multi-headed stems flower over a long period, so ideal used in borders or for cutting.”

**All descriptions of specimens have been taken directly from The Thompson and Morgan catalogue and on line site. For more information on these seeds, click on: http://www.thompsonandmorgan.com/

Articles By Fran Sorin
www.fransorin.com

Bringing Plants In Over The Winter

It’s that time of year where gardeners, especially in the colder climates, need to begin to bring tropical and non-hardy plant material indoors for the winter. Plants should be brought indoors before nighttime temperatures dip below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. A lot of tropical plants will suffer damage once the temperature goes below 40 degrees; some below 50F. Here is how to proceed quickly and efficiently.

First, walk around your garden and note what plant material you plan on bringing indoors. Only select plant material that looks healthy. If a plant has yellow, chewed up leaves or is looking limp, forget about it. Plants have a difficult enough time making the transition for outdoors to indoors, that it is best to only bring in healthy looking specimens. If there are certain plants that you wish to take cuttings from such as coleus, salvias, lantanas, geraniums and begonias, now is the time to do it.

Making new plants from cuttings is easy. First, you cut a three to four inch long piece off of the original plant. Remove all of the bottom leaves and place the end of the cutting in a mix of peat and perlite in any small container with drainage. Dipping the tip of the cutting in rooting hormone powder (which can be bought at any garden center) encourages greater success with rooting. The rooting medium should be kept moist. Once the cuttings have rooted, they can be transplanted into small two or four inch containers with good drainage. Coleus and certain salvias can be water rooted; an old fashioned way of making new plants that so many of us were taught to do by our mothers or grandmothers.
 
If the plant is in the ground, dig it up carefully so that you get as much of the root mass as possible. If the roots of the plant are scraggly and overgrown, feel free to trim them a bit. Select containers that are large enough so that the root system of the plant can lay comfortably. Containers should also have holes for drainage. Center plant in the pot and add store bought potting mix in with the plant. Water and set aside in a cool, shady spot outside.

If the plant material you are planning to bring indoors is already in containers, set the containers aside in a cool, shady spot outdoors. If the plant spent the summer outside in a pot, lift the plant out of the pot to make sure that slugs or slug eggs are not nestled in the bottom of the pot. Often this is how slugs enter a pot and then young slugs will feed on the roots of the plant. It is easy enough to pick off the slugs if you find them inside the pot before putting the plant back in the container.

Now is also a good time to repot plants if needed. First, take the plant out of the pot to see if it is root bound. Feel free to trim some of the roots if they are wrapped around or scraggly. Usually going up one container size in plenty; for example, if your plant was in an 8 inch pot, re-pot in a 10 inch pot. Add good quality potting mix; making sure that the plant is snuggly positioned in the center of the pot. And finally, prune plant in the shape that you want it; this will make it look bushier and will actually help maintain its vigor over the coming months.

Once plants are potted up and trimmed and placed in a shady location outside, inspect all plant material for any insects or disease. If you notice any type of fungus, immediately spray with an organic fungicide on both the upper and lower leaves and separate infected plant from other plants. Regardless of whether or not the plants are showing any signs of insects, I automatically spray every plant with Neem oil, an organic insecticide, on both the top and bottom of the leaves. Continue to check plant material over the next three to four days. If any signs of insects persist, spray again and wait a few more days before bringing indoors.

When bringing plants indoors, place them near a bright window; unless they are strictly shade loving plants such as ferns or begonias. Don’t be surprised initially if the plant drops some leaves and yellows a bit. It is adjusting to its new environs.

Plants indoors usually do not need to be watered as frequently. Only water when plants are dry. Also cut back on fertilizer. I try to mist my plants as often as possible; especially when I turn on the heat in my home.

Check your plant material every few days for insects. If you notice any insects at all, place plant under a stream of cold water to get rid of them and become vigilant about misting your plants and keeping your thermometer near 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Article By Fran Sorin
www.fransoring.com