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Family Time – Spend the Day Planting a Flower Garden

July 22, 2015 By creatingyourspace

Planting a garden is a great way to spend time with family and enjoy the outdoors. Here is how to start a simple flower garden and have a fun time!

 

First, look in your back yard. Is there a patch of good soil to use? If not, do some research the night before and find ways to create a patch in your yard. This should be easy and won’t take that much time. And when you go to the nursery, make sure to get fertilizer for your soil to keep the plants growing and healthy. Next decide on a color scheme for your garden. If the flowers are color coordinated the garden will be twice as pretty. Deciding the night before provides you with a plan to help you choose the right flowers when you go shopping. A good color scheme should include around 3 colors. You should also choose flowers that look different than each other to add definition and sophistication. A garden of 3 different shades of petunias is a lot less interesting than a garden of yellow sunflowers, orange marigolds, and red roses.

 

Next, try to locate a nursery that is within walking distance of your home. This experience will be most ideal if you can include a family walk. Have the kids take a wagon to bring the flowers home in. If you do not own a wagon, most nurseries have them and you can either rent them or borrow them to take the flowers home. Otherwise just drive there and leave the windows in the car rolled down to enjoy the fresh air. While at the nursery consult with the experts as to which flowers on your list are actually best suited to your particular garden environment. Also ask about the ideal way to plant them and care for them. Take along a little notebook to take notes so you’re sure to remember all of the important facts.

 

Once you’ve brought your flowers home spend quality time with the family and plant them! In general there should be distance between each flower to make sure it has room to grow or bloom. Also remember to pay attention to whether the flower needs shade or sun. Once everything is planted, create a watering schedule to keep your plants healthy and hydrated. Last, don’t fogey to place a few chairs near the garden so you can sit outside and enjoy it.

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Filed Under: Hints & Tips Tagged With: beautiful, colors, coordinate, family, family activities, flowers, home, house, how to, outdoor activities, plant a garden

Happy Mother’s Day!

May 10, 2015 By creatingyourspace

Thank you to all mothers!  We appreciate everything you do each and every day, but we hope that today is a wonderful one!

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Filed Under: Seasonal & Holiday Tagged With: appreciate, family, flowers, grateful, mother s day, thank you, thank you mom

How To Care For a Potted Orchid Gift

March 27, 2015 By creatingyourspace

So, you’re the recipient of an exotic new gift – the orchid flower. Congrats! They’re quite special. They also appear a bit daunting if you’re not used to caring for plants. Rather than hope to get a few weeks out of it, consider these easy to follow guidelines for making it a more long term part of your life. After all, it’s so pretty!

Begin by determining if it’s potted properly for long term maintenance. It may have come in a plastic pot wherein the roots were wrapped in moss. It’s important to rearrange this at some point. In nature orchids are found growing on trees. They thus have very thirsty roots that require air flow. You can easily imagine how they’d quickly rot when wrapped too tightly in moss at the bottom of a plastic pot. However, don’t go buy a new pot just yet. If your orchid is in bloom, do not repot it. It won’t tolerate the stress and those lovely blooms will sadly fall away.

In the meantime you get to simply enjoy it so long as you take proper care of it. How, you ask? Well, for starters, resist the strong urge to fuss over it. Especially where watering is concerned. Orchids in pots don’t need much water. To water it you can briefly submerge it in water and then allow that water supply to serve it for awhile. Or, you can use the nifty ice cube trick. Place a couple of ice cubes near the outskirts of the moss or bark it’s planted in and the ice will melt over time and water the plant more seamlessly than a watering can would. With either method you’re set for awhile so leave it at that until it’s truly time to water again. You can check every five days or so. You orchid will also appreciate a wee bit of orchid fertilizer once or twice a month so don’t forget to feed it.

As far as the indoor elements are concerned be careful of extreme temperatures and drafts. The orchid is not fond of cold drifts of air or close proximity to heating vents. It turns its nose up at a chill and it loathes feeling dry. It will definitely wish to stay in your life longer if you provide humidity and warmth. Hint – its favorite room in the house is usually the bathroom! If your orchid is not in an ideally humid area, be sure to mist it with water a couple of times per week.  

Light is of course another important consideration. The orchid is rather even and steady about its light requirements. Plenty of natural light from a window is wonderful, but never ever direct sunlight. If you don’t have the luxury of the perfect place for it, you may have to move it around the house a bit in pursuit of the best light situation depending on the time of day. The way to know if you’re getting it right is by the color of the leaves. If they are dark green, you’re good. But if they’re yellowing, they’re getting too much direct light. If so you can try hanging a sheer curtain in front of a window to diffuse the intense early morning and late afternoon ligt.

If you do these things you’ll be so proud of your ability to tend to such an exotic creature that you might find yourself on the way to the store to buy another one!

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Filed Under: Hints & Tips Tagged With: care for gift, care for plants, flowers, gifts, home, how to

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