11-11-2007, 07:22 AM
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Grounds Keeper
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 131
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Home and Garden Roundup for Week of 11/11/07
A weekly roundup of the top stories from the Home & Garden sections of leading newspapers around the country.
The Los Angeles Times Home and Garden section is running a piece called " Did succulents save her home?" about how the succulents planted around a Rancho Santa Fe woman's home may have saved her home in the fire:
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"Succulents saved our home!" Suzy and Rob Schaefer wrote in a jubilant e-mail to friends and family after they returned to their fire-ravaged neighborhood in Rancho Santa Fe. The tabloidian statement is out of character for the low-key couple -- he's retired and she's an artist -- but it seems justified.
Their garden of aloes, agaves, euphorbias and more -- created by Suzy with the help of San Diego landscape architect Robert Dean -- encircles the Southwest-style home, which is adjacent to a palm- and eucalyptus-filled canyon. The garden is intact, but many of the canyon's trees are blackened skeletons.
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In the New York Times Home & Garden Garden Q&A, Leslie Land answers questions about ideal climate for Agapanthus:
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Q. Several years ago, I planted three agapanthus in a large pot. They summer outside and winter in a studio with south windows and skylights. Alas, they no longer bloom. What’s wrong?
A. Unless you like wearing a coat while working, the studio is probably too warm.
Although they are called Lilies of the Nile, agapanthuses are from Southern Africa. They bloom best after a cool rest period (40 to 55 degrees) in soil that is watered only enough to keep them from dying of thirst.
Most large, showy agapanthuses are evergreens that need lots of sun all year. Deciduous varieties can sleep in the dark. If your plants are hybrids that do not seem to fit either category, give them light.
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The Miami Herald Home and Design has an article on What palms don't get lethal yellowing:
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The plant disease called lethal yellowing has never been reported in Florida on palms native to Florida, Cuba, Jamaica and Hispaniola.
Florida native palms frequently planted as ornamentals include cabbage palmetto, royal palm, Florida thatch palm (Thrinax radiata), and Key thatch palm (T. morrisii).
Lethal yellowing has not been reported in exotic species such as the pygmy date palm, foxtail palm, queen palm and a few others.
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The San Francisco Chronicle Home & Garden is running a story on landscaper The Positive Side of Clay Soil:
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Like most inhabitants of the East Bay flatlands, we sit on montmorillonite clay, a legacy of ancient volcanoes in the nearby hills. The stuff is far from rare; in this country alone, it shows up all over the Great Plains and parts of Texas, Alabama and the Southwest. You find it where the soil is dark rather than red or gray, and, of course, dark soil is generally good, as it promises some good plant nutrients.
That's our clay soil's chief virtue: It holds on to water and to mineral nutrients.
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The Seattle Post Intelligencer NW Gardens has a story on keeping your bulbs in the ground:
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We know that foliage must remain for a while to provide the bulb with nutrients for the following year's show. However, thoughtful selection and positioning of perennials and shrubs can help disguise the least attractive part of spring bulbs.
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The Dallas Morning News Home/Gardening has an article on planting euphorbias:
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Until this century, euphorbias had no place in ordinary gardens. We grew crown of thorns (Euphorbia milli), a prickly houseplant from Madagascar, as a containerized novelty. We bought poinsettias (E. pulcherrima) for Christmas decoration and noted fields of snow-on-the-mountain (E. marginata), its gray-green leaves edged in crisp white, along our highways in late summer and autumn.
Recently, however, euphorbias and their odd flowers have become darlings of celebrity florists and landscape designers, and new hybrids developed for gardens are readily offered.
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