Home and Garden Roundup for Week of 3/3/2008 - Garden Plants and Gardening Forum

lspichkin · 03-03-2008, 11:55 AM

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 focuses on lessons learned at The Northwest Garden Show.

Quote:

"Living downtown with limited space to garden doesn't necessarily mean a bleak, gritty landscape, short on plants, with only the urban skyline to stare at. It can be lush and green, extremely livable and packed with fascinating plants. Take a few lessons from the Northwest, where garden designers recently mounted elaborate displays using containers and planters to artfully landscape small urban spaces.

KEVIN P. CASEY -- Los Angeles Times

The Miami Herald Gardening Section is on the lookout for the first flower and leaf bud bursts of the season.

Quote:

Live oak (Quercus virginiana). These trees generally flower and produce leaves in late winter, early spring. More than 20 years ago, they flowered as early as the first week of February. This year, they've already developed tassels of male flower and tiny spikes of female flowers.

Miamiherald.com -- Live Oak

The Seattle Post Intelligencer NW Gardens sounds the call to volunteers to keep the Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation's research garden open.

Quote:

For many years, Puget Sound gardeners have had an excellent resource in the nonprofit Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation. Countless visitors have sampled the tasty fruit growing at the group's display garden in Mount Vernon, where heritage fruit mingles with new hybrids and experimental crosses.

The foundation's volunteers need to come up with $55,000 by March 30 to keep the community display garden program alive.

Western Washington Fruite Research Foundation logo

The Dallas Morning News Home/Gardening section encourages readers to save money when buying flowers by buying individual stems, instead of arrangements. Read on for tips on creating beautiful flower arrangements yourself.

Quote:

"Use containers from around the house: an old coffee pot, a crystal bowl, a pitcher, a jam jar, even a high-top sneaker. If it can hold water it can hold flowers. If it can't hold water, line it with a plastic trash bag trimmed to fit."

When mixing flowers, consider color combinations the pros use. Combine flowers in varying shades of one color (hot pink gerbera and light pink roses). Pair any one color with white (white stock with yellow daisies). Or accent a color in a multicolor flower (blue irises with yellow stripes plus yellow roses).

dallasnews.com -- Flower Promotion Organization

The New York Times Home & Garden section displays a stunning slideshow of orchids grown by "Orchid King" Robert Fuchs.

Quote:

Mr. Fuchs, whose father and grandfather grew orchids in the farmlands near Homestead, was a junior high school art teacher in 1984 when he burst on the international orchid scene at the 11th World Orchid Conference in Miami. After his juicy red hybrid vanda won the grand champion title at that event, widely considered the orchid Olympics, he quit his day job.

Today, he is orchid royalty, perhaps the king of the orchids, as Susan Orlean suggested in her 1998 book, “The Orchid Thief.” His Homestead nursery has annual revenues of $1.5 million, and has won more than 800 awards — a record — from the American Orchid Society.

Michiko Kurisu for The New York Times -- Vanda Tang See Hang Kristina

lulugardens · 03-04-2008, 09:39 AM

wow - beautiful orchids! I always pass by the guy who sells orchids at my local farmer's market, but maybe next week and I should pay a little more attention.

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03-04-2008, 09:39 AM	#2
lulugardens Green Thumb Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 31 Blog Entries: 5 Images: 1	wow - beautiful orchids! I always pass by the guy who sells orchids at my local farmer's market, but maybe next week and I should pay a little more attention.