Flowers in the Garden

This summer was really terrible and all the efforts to maintain the garden more or less green were wain. My roses, my beautiful roses... all those I planted in April are dry... Thinking about it, I wanted to find some advises what to do with the plants. The collection seems interesting  enough:

If you plant flowers in a container make sure that you water them and feed them regularly, and that the pots have adequate drainage. Because there is limited soil in the pot, you need to pay more attention to the soil conditions. If the drainage is not adequate your plants will result in root rot.

Attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden. Certain plants are highly attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds due to their nectar. Hummingbirds tend to favor any flower that is shaped like a trumpet, especially if it is pink, red or purple. Examples of these are honeysuckle, fuchsia and monarda. Butterflies like flat, daisy-like flowers, such as chrysanthemums, asters and coneflowers. Choose a sunny position, as both butterflies and hummingbirds appreciate the warmth.

Divide up your perennials while they still look healthy.  It's best to divide a perennial at the end of the growing season during which it hits its peak.  As the plant starts to overgrow, the center of the plant will start to have dying stalks and weaker flowers.  Allowing perennials to grow too long may also lead to them overtaking neighboring plants.

Avoid chemicals for pest control. Chemicals are effective but can also damage your plants. You should look for natural methods instead. For instance, you can buy jars of ladybugs and release them on your plants. Ladybugs are natural predators for a variety of smaller insects that eat flowers and other plants.

If you like to plant flowers that produce a lot of fragrance, consider planting them close to your house. One reason is that you can enjoy the scent whether you are inside or outside your house. Another reason is that the heat from the walls of your house can intensify the scent from your flowers, making them more fragrant.

Start a compost bin, and enjoy nutrient-rich fertilizer that you can use for your vegetable plants, herbs, flowers and more. Food scraps and peels, coffee grounds, eggshells, newspaper, paperboard, yard waste and other organic matter are perfect additions to your compost bin. Keep a small bucket or bag in your freezer as an odor-free way to collect kitchen waste, and empty the container into the outdoor bin when it is full.

When your summer blooms have bloomed and faded away, remember to dead-head the flowers. This means pinching off the flower heads. This will encourage new flowers to bloom longer next year, and it will also strengthen the plant. Since the flower heads have seeds, you can also save the flower heads that you have pinched off for planting at another time.

Plant bulbs in your garden if you want flowers through spring and summer. Bulbs are usually very hearty and very easy to grow, and bulbs will grow year after year. Different types of bulbs bloom at different times, so if you choose appropriately, you can have blooms from early spring to late summer.

Grow from seeds. In garden centers, it is usually much cheaper to purchase a packet of seeds than to buy the equivalent number of grown plants. Remember, if you sow some seeds before the summer, you can get a garden full of bright, colorful flowers for a very cheap price.

A Little Pool For Our Ducks

This summer was dedicated to the creation of a pool for mandarina ducks we bought this spring. We have 3 ducks now: two males and one female. They are very very nice but did not want to make eggs. Who knows, why.

The problem is that the ducks need water to be happy.

As you can see, I bought them this little pool that contains about 150 l of water. And, to have a good natural environment, I ordered different special aquatic plants. Since the pool was just installed in the ducks' part of the henhouse, I thought to plant my aquatic plants in special bowls.

The bowls are on the terrace, and it was clear that there will grow mosquitos. So, I bought little fishes Gambusia which adore mosquitos to prevent malaria in the house. :-)))

The plants began to grow very well and I could transfer some of them in the pool of the ducks soon. The ducks... destroyed all the plants I put there to create a natural environment for them...

The water in the pool became rotten in a few days and we had to change it different times a week. Not so easy, I have to tell you. This situation was not good, clearly, so I had to buy a pomp with filter for very dirty pools to help us to solve the problem. It's a German pomp that does not consume too much energy but...

But the water becomes rotten at least once a week.

It's clear that the 150 l pool is not enough for 3 ducks.

Nothing to do, we had to think about a bigger pool. My husband wants to buy other 3 ducks, you know.

We began to create that new pool. Now, we act more smart. We bought a special, for pools, plastic towel and ...

...I put my aquatic plants from my nursery a week after the hole was ready...

Now, it became so:

There are many oxygenating plants but the water needs a pomp and a filter anyway. And it's impossible to have the elecricity always on... So, I had to buy a solar pomp with a fountain.

Here is the last view of the new pool...
There is a proverb in Russian: the woman had not troubles, so she bought a pig...

How do you make out with iPod, Dad?

This video is simply excellent. The daughter asks her father how makes he out with the new iPod he received for his birthday. Very good is the answer. :-))))

 

FINALLY! She Turns Home!!!!

Do you think, I took a sunstroke? You are wrong.

Yes, it's hot. It's terribly hot this year here. We do not have few days’ respite from May. Even our birds began to die because they do not have enough oxygen to breath. What can we do with it? Nothing. We suffer in the same way. But we can take a cold bath and we have a fan...

Do you ask me why we do not go to swim in the sea in this period when all the normal population of Europe make everything possible to go there? All except us that live only 12 km from that blue, shining, fresh, pampering, calm, inviting, sprinkling sea...

Well, 12 km are 12 km. And...



Ehhhhhhhh......
Yes, we live without our car...
It's impossible to live on the hills without a car. It's impossible to go down at feet with the temperatures that are higher than 40 degrees C just at 8 o'clock. I had to do it. But it's terrible.

And now, after one month of such sufferings, now,  in this moment, she is on her way home!!!!!!!
FINALLY!!!!!!!
She turns to us!!!!!!!
Our beautiful girl! Our green Civic!

Oh my God!!!! I'm happy!

Can we live in the same world with the animals?

My friend Angela lives in Sud Africa and here are the photos she send me some days ago. I think, she will not blame me for publishing of the photos.

I thought about specific conditions of every place of our planet. They write about the black bears that walk in the streets of a little town in Canada, I think. There are wolves and foxes in USA. And even other bigger animals near the national parks. There are seals and I don't know what else.

And only the old Europe remained "humans only". And if   an animal some bigger than a mouse happens in the streets, in the same moment arrive hunters to kill it. There was one bear in Italy who went in Germany. In Alps. He could not do some steps there and was killed.

I look the mountains around me. I tell the tourists about National park of Vesuvius. There is no one animal bigger than a fox here. Marten, hare, rabbit and raccoon. And I know about this last only because I've seen one of them dead on the road.

We like to see animals and speak about them, we spend who knows how much every year to go in the other  countries where the animals can still live together with humans. But we can't stand them where we live...
WHY?