Getting ready to think of Outdoor Christmas Lighting?

Every year just a few weeks prior to Christmas a few of our friends and we ride through our subdivision and enjoy the beautiful lights of the season. By the end of the ride, everyone is in a jovial mood just observing the decorations that everyone has put up. It’s just a tradition with us. It’s a great idea to get an early start planning holiday lighting. If you look hard enough you might find some offseason sales on just what you need. With so much being said this year about energy conservation, getting an early start will help you to locate just the perfect lights for your house, and be aware of choosing energy conservative ones. One particular light this year that is extremely energy saving are the LED strings

First, decide what your theme will be this year

“Load up the car or van and see the holiday lights”

Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, a group of people get together to experience a Christmas tradition. They go out in buses or vans to take a look at how people have decorated their property this year. It’s more like an event than a tour for most people who go out. Especially the senior citizens living in retirement homes look forward to this excursion every year. It is one of their expected outings. At the beginning of the light tour season, there is a published list of homes that should be viewed on the tour that have especially gone out of their way to decorate in as tacky a way as possible. This is called the “tacky light tour”. It is one of the fun things people like to do, especially in Virginia. The “tacky light” neighborhoods deliberately set up the display every year, just as amusement for (probably themselves) those who make it a point to ride by. Everything in the yard is blinking and blowing about with figures of all types and descriptions included. Some of them with no connection to Christmas whatsoever.

Not a plant for the beginner, but a most rewarding exotic plant for the. person who can provide the correct conditions and the extra bit of care that is wanted. To mention a few of the common names will give an indication of how exotic it is: glory pea, parrot’s bill, red kowhai and lobster’s claw. Again, they are multi-purpose plants which may be planted in the border in the garden room, grown in pots, or used in hanging baskets, where they are even more impressive as one can see the exciting flowers much better than when they are in pots or against a wall.

Water sparingly in winter and more freely at other times; good drainage is important so one should ensure that water soaks through the compost quite quickly after watering. Avoid the temptation to pot on too frequently, as fully mature plants several years old need only be in 7-in. pots. And plants do look so much more elegant when growing in pots that are in proportion to their leaf development.

Climbing roses are popular both with people whose enthusiasm is for old roses and with lovers of the new. Most derive from a group of wild species called the Synstylae, which have lots of small white flowers in large clusters.

By the last quarter of the 19th century, it was dominated by French Hybrid Perpetuals and Tea roses. Then a change began to take place.

Plant hunters had for centuries introduced new plants into cultivation From other parts of the world. The expeditions and their botanical booty increased enormously towards the end of the century, and introduced a large number of new rose species from eastern Asia.

During the 19th century these sports appeared from time to time among other hybrid groups with China roses and Tea roses in their ancestry – hence climbing Bourbons and climbing Hybrid Pcrpetuals. Later came climbing Polvanthas, climbing Hybrid Teas (`Climbing Peace’), climbing Floribundas (`Climbing Iceberg’), climbing Grandifloras, and even climbing miniatures.

Any rose raised in the last 100 years that does not fit neatly into a defined category is called a shrub rose. This includes primary hybrids like (Dupontir, over-large Floribundas like ‘Fred Loads’ and most of the super-hardy Buck, Explorer, and Parkland roses.

Unlike the oldest China roses, no European rose cultivar can be traced back before about 1400. There is nothing to link the simple Gallicas and Albas that can be identified in late medieval paintings to the roses of ancient Greece, Rome, or Persia. Gallica roses may indeed have been cultivated 2,500 years ago, but we can put no names to them. They are selections and hybrids of Rosa gallica, a short suckering rose which is native to southern and central Europe from Spain to Slovakia and eastwards to Turkey. They were greatly developed by French hybridists in the early years of the 19th century, and their large, sweetly scented flowers place them among the most beautiful of all garden plants. They make medium-sized bushes – very hardy, once-flowering, and tolerant of poor soils.

The development of rose breeding started with the import into Europe of a handful of Chinese garden roses some 200 years ago. These roses were crossed with European cultivars to produce the great variety that emerged in the 19th century. The unsung heroes of rose breeding are the gardeners of ancient China who made it all possible.

Glorious in flower, on occasions regally temperamental, this richly endowed genus must surely lay strong claim to contain the most beautiful climbers ever to grace our gardens. As I stand each spring under a 30-ft. high hawthorn through which has intertwined a Clematis montana Elizabeth I would be the last to disagree. The white of the hawthorn and pink of the clematis intermingle to make the complete floral curtain.

I always use a soft string which will not chafe even the most tender bark and, which is perhaps more important, it will rot after a year or two. When indestructible material is used I grow careless about the annual inspection to ensure the stem is not being constricted by the tie. All wall plants must be looked over at least twice a year to make certain the stems are not being chafed or strangled by the supporting media.

I grow C. alpina through and amongst deciduous rhododendrons. It comes so readily from seed that -some x)f my experimental plantings border on the reckless. Nothing, however, matches a plant I saw in the wild growing through Rhododendron ferrugineum. The blue flowers with a, central boss of white stamens overlaid the brick-red blooms of the rhododendron like a SpaniSh mantilla.

For much of the year it is quietly lovely, especially in spring time. There are five dwarf rhododendrons which grow only 12 to 18 in. high – Rhododendron sargentianum with yellow flowers, R. pemakoense, lilac pink, R. keleticum, purple-crimson, and two blue- flowered R. fastigiatum which have in addition grey leaves.

As a contrast I included a Berberis gracilis nana which for two years sat like a vegetable owl, but now has taken a fresh interest producing each April a most creditable crop of yellow flowers. Another berberis, verruculosa, is 30 in. high, a dome of hard green leaves which are silvered beneath.

Conifers make all the difference to a winter escape. There are varieties of all sizes from use suitable for growing in a window-box to the largest suitable for property many acres in tent. Remember, however, that it is easy to err plant and render the landscape formless. All mention only two groupings as examples of hat for me are meant by garden silhouettes. The groupings like so many other garden features are with one shrub, a specimen of Chamaecyris pisifera plumosa, conical in outline and with very green foliage.

It can be generally assumed that any plant with large leaves can be grown into mature specimens if time and conditions are available.

But if a plant collection is to be kept, it should be looked after and removed when, as so often happens, the plants have died and the collection becomes little more than one of flower pots with dry, baked compost and no plants in sight.

Philodendron bipinnatifidum are a dark, glossy green in colour. Excellent plants fir situations by a large pool, particularly if it is possible to allow the aerial roots into the water.

When selecting plants for offices it is particularly important to ensure that they will at least be reasonably suitable for the conditions that prevail. Although light is important, exposure to full sunlight on the south side of the building would quickly prove fatal to the majority of indoor plants.

But if a plant collection is to he kept, it should be looked after and removed when, as so often happens, the plants have died and the collection becomes little more than one of flower pots with dry, baked compost and no plants in sight.

The mood of despondency in the house plant grower must by now be almost complete at the prospect of having so many wee heasties crawling about the house. Let me again assert that it would be most unusual and something of a disaster for all these to be present, and the chances are that one is likely to come across nothing more than the occasional attack of greenfly. The foregoing information on pests is intended to make their detection easier and the ensuing advice, it is hoped, will help to keep them under control.

Greenfly are comparatively easy to eradicate, there being many brands of insecticide on the market that will quickly eliminate them. Larger plants can only be treated by thoroughly spraying the entire plant and repeating the process as necessary. Smaller plants, on the other hand, can be dealt with equally effectively by plunging the plant in a bucketful of prepared insecticide.

Do this by wrapping a piece of polythene around the pot so that the soil cannot spill out, then dip the plant in the insecticide and swish it around to ensure that all leaves and stems have been well saturated, not forgetting first to don rubber gloves. Keep the plant out of the sun and allow the foliage to dry naturally before replacing in position.

A number of indoor plants may be propagated by this method, and it is also an excellent way of reducing the height of rubber plants which are getting out of hand. Plants are air-layered simply by removing a section of the outer bark and wrapping a handful of wet sphagnum moss around the exposed area, or by making an upward cut through the main stem and wrapping wet sphagnum moss round the incision.

First remove a leaf at about the height you wish the new plant to be; the section of stem above this point should have at least three or four mature leaves. Make a cut halfway through the main stein about 1 in. below the joint of the leaf you have removed, bringing the cut up vertically through the actual node.

Fortunately, the majority of really poisonous insecticides are not available to the general public, but even those that are considered safe should be handled carefully. Certainly, when handling insecticides rubber gloves should be worn as general practice, and any plants that need treatment, particularly with a liquid solution that is sprayed on, should be treated out of doors.