When drawing up contracts for office landscaping schemes of this kind the office chief should come to a clear understanding concerning plants that are likely to fail, so that they can be replaced without difficulty. No matter how wonderful the environment, maintenance and general conditions may be, it is almost inevitable that some plants will succumb.

No longer is it necessary to have a multitude of small offices segregated from one have become the fashion with filing cabinets, screens and foliage plants used to form divisions between departments, or individual areas.

The number of wicks will vary according to the size of the container – generally three or four are required for a container 2 ft. in diameter. A dipstick through the plastic supply pipe can be used to check when the water requires topping up.

The importance of landscaping office interiors with plants has gone sonic way beyond sending the junior to the nearest flower shop to purchase a rubber plant. Today there are specialists in the field who make the installation and maintenance of foliage plants in offices a full-time occupation.

General hardening of the foliage colour is also an indication that the plant requires additional fertiliser or potting on. It is, however, very unwise to pot on plants that are unhealthy and producing little or no new growth.

Leaves turning yellow and falling off are an indication, not of need for potting, but that the plant is suffering as a result of root damage. Consequently, any attempt to pot on such a plant will only further aggravate its unhealthy condition by unnecessary root disturbance.

On the other hand, with. many sick plants it will often be found that the compost is at fault and rather than pot the plant into a larger container, it is better to tease away as much of the faulty compost as possible and to repot in the same or smaller container using fresh compost.

There is at least one of these leaf-cleaning products Which is perfectly satisfactory when the temperature is reasonably high, but disastrous when the temperature drops. So it is well to be warned rather than sorry ; it is sensible to test any new product on part of the plant only, allowing ten to fourteen days to elapse before deciding that no harm has been done. It is also of special importance to leaves such as the saintpaulia and platycerium do not have their leaves cleaned by rubbing; a soft brush lightly used is the best way of removing dust.

north February

February also is the month to do some serious planning of the garden for the coming season instead of waiting until you have the seeds or plants in hand ready to be planted in spring. This is an ideal time to consider all the possibilities, color combinations, sizes and textures, space requirements and all the important details that will make a garden more than a mere collection of plants.

Garden planning should be done on paper after a list of the plants you prefer has been compiled. Quadruled paper which may be secured from office supply stores or artists supply shops is a great aid in making planning on paper easy because the lines give you an exact scale with which to work, use the eight or ten scale ruled paper.

Give an index or key number or letter for each of the plants you want to grow. Then on the basis of their size and form, color and texture of both foliage and flowers, develop a plan on the paper.

You will be amazed at how simple planning can be and how superior results are over the hit-or-miss, spur of the moment type of planning which is so commonly done a few minutes before planting.

When I was growing up, we had a metal garden gate around our house. We had it for security, not decoration. It always looked uncomfortable and foreboding. I know that it should have made me feel safer, but it didn’t. Instead, it made me feel locked in as surely as the world was locked out.

I thought that all metal fences and gates were like this ” that all they did was make the world feel divided and uncomfortable. It took me a while to realize how much of a difference design makes. A wrought iron gate has a much different feel than a simple steel one.

The first time I saw a really nice wrought iron garden gate was actually at the local cemetery. I had a friend who used to like to go down there to get away from everything, and one day he took me along with him. From outside, the wrought iron garden gates were foreboding and intimidating, but from the inside they made us feel protected and peaceful. The cemetery was a restful place, a place of perpetual peace, and the wrought iron railing that surrounded marked it as separate from the rest of the world.

Lady Chamberlain, with long, narrow, bell- shaped flowers of red shading to orange, is one of my special favourites. The stiffly erect growth, sparsely leaved with glaucous green is in contrast to the more lax habits of other members of the genus.

Deciduous azaleas are available by the hundred. Ignes Nova, carmine red blotched yellow, is good in autumn when the leaves turn purple. Unique is late flowering and rather tall with apricot blooms. Comte de Gomer is compact and dainty with pink blossoms. Hugo Hardyzer is 4 ft. high and a very impressive scarlet. R. luteum has all the qualities of a good shrub with sweetly scented magnificent autumn colour.

Mrs G. W. Leak is so utterly reliable that no frost has yet marred the array of pink flowers, each with a purple blotch at the throat. To this must be added the ability to resist the most vicious east wind. I use Pink Pearl with restraint. It is strong growing and with a rather loud rose-pink colour needs careful handling.

As warm weather approaches many homeowners want a beautiful looking, lush and green, healthy lawn that all the neighbors would love to have. In addition any flower, bushes, and shrub beds need to have that neat appearance.One of the hardest job throughout the season is how to kill and control the weeds.

When choosing a weed killer there are general questions you have to answer so that you implement the best weed control plan for your situation.

There are a few different types of weed killers that you should be familiar with. They are;

When choosing a weed killer there are general questions you have to answer so that you implement the best weed control plan for your situation.

Total vegetation Ground Sterilizer – These will kill all vegetation sprayed on and becomes active in the soil to stop re-growth for multiple seasons. Common active ingredients include bromacil and prometon.

Selective Weed Killer- Most commonly called a broadleaf weed killer that will kill all broadleaf weeds such as dandelions, chick weeds and poison ivy, but not grass, flowers, or ornamental shrubs and bushes. Other weed killers kill Grassy Weeds (non-leaf) and not the grass. Active ingredients include 24D and mcpp

In any neighbourhood there are countless greenhouses and garden rooms choc-a-bloc with plants of every description; many of them overgrown, pest ridden and past their best. You can rest assured that once the various house plant owners get to know of your new acquisition they will not be slow to offer the odd gift to set up your collection of plants. This may appear very matey and friendly, but it does have its drawbacks.

You invariably feel indebted to the donor and, worse still, once you have accepted the bug-ridden chlorophytum, or whatever, you are obliged to keep it for fear of causing offence when the previous owner pays you a visit and finds his ‘gift’ missing from the collection.

Attractive, unfussy plant containers can make all the difference to the elegant appearance of the room. It is preferable to have a few expensive containers filled with well-chosen plants rather than a motley collection of cheaper plant’ containers of all shapes and sizes.

Let there be no mistake, the garden room will be filled to capacity in a remarkably short space of time. It won’t take many weeks before you will be standing with a pot of plants in each hand wondering where in the world you are going to put them.

Old houseplants is where our green-fingered friends seem to come into their own others can grow bigger and more beautiful plants, and get their African violets to flower regularly each year, but the friend who produces new plants from bits and pieces of cuttings does seem to have that extra bit of magic at his fingertips.

The regular fine spray ensures that neither cuttings nor propagating bed is allowed to dry out, which would in most instances result in failure.

Once the seedlings are established in small pots it is a good time for indulging in a bit of barter with any acquaintance who may have a collection of.plants. Whether you are able to arrange an exchange or not it will be advisable to dispose of the majority of young plants if the germination has been satisfactory, as it will he impossible to grow them all on to maturity in a limited space. Only the best seedlings should be saved for your own use.

We were invited to plant the central section of the conservatory with indoor plants; the temperature to be maintained at a constant minimum in the region of (66T.). The floor was completely flagged over with natural paying stone and there was ample head room for any plants from the nursery that we cared to bring along.

It is pointless to have adequate heating for 364 days of the year if on the 365th it should prove to he insufficient – one really cold night can put paid to an entire collection of plants. Advice on fitting out the interior can only he general as everyone’s taste will differ and arranging plants and interior decor is very much a personal matter. Whether plants are made permanent features by planting them in beds of compost on the floor, or portable by growing them in pots on raised staging, are also matters for individual taste.

Beds were filled with sphagnum peat to just below the height of the surrounding wall. Into these beds a wide selection of plants were plunged as deeply as the peat would allow some of the larger pots were only half buried.

Another pest that ruins the appearance of affected plants. Easy to detect but very difficult to kill off completely once they have made a home in the tangled branches of such climbing plants as stephanotis and hoya. One is often invited to visit the greenhouse of an enthusiastic amateur and see the wonderful range of plants being cultivated under one roof.

Many of these plant collections are managed extremely well but often enough an incredible infestation of mealy bug will be shrugged off with the comment, ‘Of course, there is a bit of bug about.’ The sad part of it all is that a thorough drenching spray regularly repeated would lead to considerable improvement.

Mealy bug is another pest that may be encountered. Not very particular about which part of the plant he inhabits, he does have a penchant for finding his way between twisting stems and overlapping leaves where he can he particularly inaccessible to any pest control that may be used. One consolation is that mealy bugs are not difficult to see, as they wrap their young in a cotton wool-like substance. Adult bugs are very similar to small wood lice and powdery white in colour.