Blog

Fertilising Bulbs

By ACS Distance Education on September 30, 2013 in Horticulture / Gardening | comments

When you first plant out bulbs, you should provide them with a friable, rich, organic, well drained loam; they thrive on soil which has been prepared with rotted manure or compost prior to planting. Improve your soil with compost and make sure it is well drained; bulbs will not grow well in heavy soils with low nutrients. If you have heavy soils plant them in raised beds or pots.

Swollen roots, bulbs, corms or rhizomes are actually food storage units; the plants use photosynthesis, and also nutrients available in the soil (when in leaf - but mainly after flowering is finished), to store energy for the following season’s growth and flowering. Due to this they do not need heavy feeding when first planted as they will initially utilise this stored food supply. The best time then to fertilise bulbs that become dormant is after they have flowered.  It is for this reason that you should only remove the old leaves from bulbs when they are no longer green.  If you have not removed the flowers to use in flower arrangements, it can also be beneficial to remove the spent flower heads, as this will prevent the plant from putting its energy into seed creation.
 

Annuals EBook

By ACS Distance Education on September 20, 2013 in Horticulture / Gardening | comments
Calendulas are hardy plants, normally grown as annuals, with orange or yellow daisy like flowers. Aromatic leaves. Plants around 30cm high, adapt to most soil types and grow well in most except the coldest climates.

 

Take a look at this annual flower...

By ACS Distance Education on September 17, 2013 in Horticulture / Gardening | comments


Cosmos


Family:
Asteraceae (Compositae)

Genus: Cosmos

Common Name: Purple Mexican Aster

Origin: South-western USA to tropical America and Mexico.

Appearance: White, purple, pink or seldom yellow flowers with radiate flower heads. Leaves finely dissected.

Culture: Ordinary soil. Warm position. Not frost-hardy. Water well in hot, dry weather. Deadhead regularly.

Propagation: Seed. Will often self-seed if dried heads left.

Health: Usually no problems, but occasional infestations of red spider mite or aphids.

Uses: Borders, pots, cottage gardens. Butterfly and bee attractant.

Cultivars/Species: 20+ species. Common garden Cosmos is C. bipennatus. Cultivars are many and varied. Examples are ‘Purity’, ‘Dazzler’, ‘Antiquity’, ‘Rose Picotee’, ‘Seashells’.


This is from our new ebook Growing & Knowing Annuals.
 

Ideas on Time Management

By ACS Distance Education on September 9, 2013 in Business & Education and Training | comments
Ideas on Time Management

Have an hour say at the start and the finish of the day to attend to emails. Set aside another hour or so close to this for phone calls, a time for meetings. Let others know these are set times and at these times you will attend to those matters and not any other time.

The same goes on the home or domestic scene. Have a set time you walk the dog, a set time for hobbies, a set time to help children with their homework, then around this allocate definite days and times for study and times for some decent relaxation and time off to yourself. It is surprising when you look closely how much time you can find that you can make more productive for study and you time.

As a parent you can help children set aside their own timetable similar to this and make out one for themselves that works well with their fin activities and study activities worked out for a week.

The obvious way to manage your study time is to create a schedule, ..............
 
Piciformes are a group (Order) of birds that include:  Toco Toucan, Collared Aracari, Coppersmith Barbet, Yellow-fronted Tinkerbird, Eurasian Wryneck, Greater Honeyguide, Red-headed Woodpecker, Cardinal Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Rufous-tailed Jacamar, Swallow-winged Puffbird, Lesser Goldenback 

They are commonly forest dwellers inhabiting temperate areas widely spread around the world (Woodpeckers are an exception as they do not live in Australasia, Antarctica, Greenland or Madagascar).

They all have four strong toes: 2 forward and 2 hind (exceptions include some woodpeckers which can have 3 toes instead), pointed tail feathers and lack down feathers.