In a previous post I discussed wrapping a tree to keep it warm. I looked at the physics and concluded that wrapping a tree, or any other plant, does not keep it warm. I had never seen any data to support this position, but it certainly follows basic laws of physics. I decided that this winter I would measure the temperature under a wrapped evergreen.
GardenMyths.com was contacted by Formostco Inc to trial one of their new plants, Liriope ‘Super Blue’. They wanted to know if the plant was hardy in our area (Zone 5b). This blog entry will be used to track out experience with the plants.
Baptisia australis (false indigo) is known to be difficult to grow from seedlings. Several sources report that plants die during the transplanting and subsequent maturation process. Today’s post reports on my success rate for maturing these seedlings.
In a previous post I reported on a research project to determine the best way to germinate Baptisia australis seeds.
About 7 years ago I started developing various water features, both garden ponds and water falls. As part of my research I found consistent comments like the following: you can’t make a natural pond using a pond liner without pumps and filters. The use of the word ‘natural’ here refers to the pond filtration system, not the esthetic look of the pond. I’ll deal with esthetics in a future post on how to build ponds.
In a natural pond the water, soil, plants, and animals all live in harmony. No one comes along to clean the pond or to aerate it. There is no big man-made filtration system that keeps the water clean. The common advice is that a pond liner is artificial and a pond built with it will never reach a natural state where the water, plants, and animals live in harmony the way they do in a natural pond. If you don’t filter such an unnatural pond it will become full of algae and the water will be dirty and smelly. The only way to have a pond with a liner is to add aeration and filtration.
Is this really true? Do you need pumps and filters to provide artificial pond filtration?
