How Can Good And Beautiful Things Be Bad?

 There are so many good and beautiful things even deeds or intentions that sadly turns out bad!  One example is this beautiful bush that I was intrigued when I saw it at the edge of wooded area while walking my puppy.

At first I thought it was a type of dogwood but I was mistaken.  It is Bush Honeysuckle according to online search.  It is an invasive specie and plant experts say not to plant it in your yard.  But regardless of its negative classification I think it is pretty and makes my walk in a dreary Fall weather, when every colored leaves had turned brown, pleasant, because its leaves remain yellowish green until mid December in my area.  I also enjoyed watching the birds eat the red berries.  The last photo shows the bush with most of its yellow green leaves fallen to the ground and the berries are all gone.  To me it serves  three good qualities:  It grows easily, beautifies the woodland with its beautiful leaves, flowers and red berries; it feeds the birds.  I will watch this plant this coming Spring to enjoy its beautiful flowers.

My New Babies - 2 Bromeliads and 1 Orchid

I Need to see some flowers in winter time so I got these three plants.  I hope that I can take care of them properly to give them a long healthy life.

The plant on the left is a red Variesea Bromeliad,  the one in the center is a Phalaenopsis Orchid,  the one on the right is a yellow/orange Variesea Bromeliad.  Bromeliads and Orchids almost have the same care requirement, except perhaps on the method of watering:  The orchid, according to plant care instructions need to be watered with about 1/4 cup of warm water once a week and the Bromeliad needs tap water poured on the base (cup) of the leaves after emptying the bases of the leaves of the old water that remains on them.  They all look very healthy so hopefully I can keep them that way.

 

Deadheading

Now that it is Summer, we enjoy seeing so many different flowers blooming!  But did you know that most annuals or even perinneal need deadheading so that they will keep on blooming all summer long?  What does deadheading mean?  Deadheading is the act of removing by pinching or cutting a spent or dried out flower at its stem so that seeds do not develop.  The idea behind it is that plants bear flowers in order to produce seeds so that they can continue to live on year after year through their seeds.  Once they produce flowers and seeds are maturing, somehow the plants know this and they will stop putting out flowers because seeds had developed but if you pinched off the spent flowers, the plant knows that they need to produce flowers that will develop into seeds, so as long as you keep pinching off the flower head before the seeds mature, your repeat blooming annuals/perenials will keep on  blooming.