A spray of pressed flowers

If you love flowers and gardens, flower pressing makes the most perfect hobby.

It’s both stimulating and therapeutic and it will give you all the scope you’ll ever need to express your creativity.

And you’ll be using the loveliest materials that nature has to offer.

Pressed flowers can easily be sourced from your own garden.

And you don’t need to plant anything special either.

Your garden will provide you with all the material you need.

You can learn how to press flowers quickly. And once you know how, there’s no end to the variety of ways in which you can use your pressed flowers.

Artistic collages of pressed flowers and greenery make the loveliest greeting cards and wedding invitations. 

Pressed flower pictures are ideal for decorating bedrooms.  You can even use them to decorate telephone directories and photo albums.

Of course, flower pressing is not only limited to flowers.  You can also use pressed leaves, grasses, tendrils and ferns.

You can even use carrot tops and tiny seeds as well as stamens and bits of bark. Fine seed heads of ordinary lawn grasses and even little patches of lichen give added interest.

And don’t spurn the different types of weeds either. You’ll be amazed to see how well some of them press.  Many of them are quite pretty so you just need a good eye and a bit of imagination.

There’s so much scope for experimenting and that’s really half the fun.

It just shows what prejudice can do to your decision-making faculties.  Because nothing could be further from the truth.

I have been growing orchids for about a year now and I can quite understand how people become obsessed with them.

With every new addition to my orchid collection, my interest in orchid growing expands. It’s a great new hobby and I’m just loving it!

I read somewhere that a good hobby is defined by its ability to provide visible results in a short amount of time.  Well, orchid growing fits the definition to perfection.  Because with very little effort, you can get stunning results quite quickly.

Long-lasting Phalaenopsis Orchids

Click for large picture

Not only are orchid flowers glamorous – and I really mean spectacularly glamorous – but the best part is that they last for so long.

I have a few phalaenopsis orchids and they have been in bloom for over three months already.

Not because I have done anything special to them.  It’s simply their nature to go on and on for months at a time.

I had imagined that orchids were rather mysterious, delicate flowers; but on the contrary – they seem to be rather tough.

Orchid leaves are leathery, and the flowers don’t require much care.  The plants only need water about once a week and yet they produce the most wonderful flowers in all the colours of the rainbow.

If you have any orchid growing tips please post them here. I’ll be very happy to share them.

I can promise you that when you pick the spinach fresh from your own garden it will taste far better than any bought spinach!

I don’t have to tell you about the many health benefits of spinach which are long reputed to be unbeatable.

Suffice it to say that spinach is packed with the best vitamins and protects us against many of the dread diseases.

All that in a bunch of spinach?

Yes! And here’s a delicious way to take advantage of those health benefits.

Creamed Spinach

2 bunches of spinach
1 garlic clove
1 small onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup milk or cream

Fry a clove of garlic in a small amount of  oil for a minute.  Remove the garlic and gently fry a chopped onion in the same oil till golden brown.

Wash the spinach leaves and remove the hard centre spine. Put the spinach in a pot without water and cook gently for 10 min. Drain the spinach and add the fried onion.

Process but be careful not to make it too fine. You want to be able to recognize it as spinach!

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in your microwave and then blend in 1 tablespoon flour.

Gradually stir in ½ cup milk or cream.  Stir till smooth.

Then add this to 2 cups of the processed spinach.

Season with salt, pepper and a few gratings of nutmeg.

You can serve it on toast or as a side vegetable with a main fish dish.

If you grow your own spinach here’s some info on how to pick spinach without spoiling the whole plant.  Interestingly, there’s a right way and a wrong way!

But this is unnecessarily expensive particularly if you would like to have a collection of amaryllis flowers in different colours. In this case, you should think about purchasing a few bulbs.

Amaryllis Bulbs

Make sure that you buy the largest bulbs as mature bulbs will give you the biggest flowers. Smaller bulbs may skip a season before they flower and disappoint you.

As soon as you have planted your amaryllis bulbs – remember not to plant them too deep – water them thoroughly and allow the soil surface to dry a bit before watering them again.

Place them in a warm spot to stimulate root growth. A sunny spot is best because the plants need strong sunlight to produce strong sturdy flowers and stems. In the picture above you  will see how well my amaryllis plants thrive in a sunny spot on the patio! The stalks are about half a meter in length and are quite sturdy.

If you grow your plants in dim light conditions, the flower stalks will grow too long and spindly and your amaryllis plants will be more prone to breakage or tipping.

Amaryllis as an indoor plant

As soon as the first flowers appear you may want to take the plants indoors. Your amaryllis flowers will bloom for  much longer if they are protected from wind and weather. But wait until the first flowers have opened before you move them.

Then you can move them indoors to a spot where you have subdued light and a cool temperature. This will help you to preserve the open flowers for as long as possible.

Keep the bulbs barely moist. But when you water, be careful not to wet the portions of the bulb that stick out above the soil.

If the bulbs are large you may get two or three flowering stalks from each bulb and they will continue to bloom over a period of several weeks.

Then sit back and enjoy the show!

The large, showy flowers make a bold statement and are available in a large variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.

Amaryllis are not difficult to grow.  You can bring them into bloom every year if you treat the plants correctly.

You can keep your amaryllis indefinitely, and if you can provide the right conditions for growth and dormancy, your bulb will get larger and multiply itself over the years.

Large bulbs may produce as many as three flower stalks and some bulbs may bloom during the summer as well as during the winter, depending on the temperature and other growing conditions.

But in the main, they are very easy to grow.  And this is one of the best features of the amaryllis.

Where does the Amaryllis flower come from?

Amaryllis bulbs and flowers belong to the genus Hippeastrum which is native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas.

Some species grow in rock crevices in savannas; others grow in high plateau regions that have cool weather for most of the year.

One species from Brazil is epiphytic and grows in trees with no soil around the roots.

Many species have been hybridized to produce today’s beautiful hybrids.

Most of them like warm, humid conditions with abundant rainfall for most of the year.  They also prefer a short, cooler dry season.

How to grow Giant flowers from Giant Amaryllis bulbs

A good tip is to keep your Amaryllis bulbs in cool storage until the bulbs signal that they are ready to go.

Amaryllis bulbs usually lose all or most of their leaves during their dormancy period. However, it is not necessary for all the leaves to wither for the bulb to reach complete dormancy. It’s ok if some of the leaves stay on the bulb.

To store your amaryllis bulbs, keep them on the dry side and check them every week. After eight to ten weeks of cool storage, you should notice the tip of the new flower stalk emerging from the bulb.

If you shift the bulb to a warm spot (70-80°F) for three weeks, you will encourage leaves to emerge. At the same time the flower stalk is developing.

This is the best time to repot your bulbs in fresh soil. Be careful not to bury the bulbs too deeply. At least one third of the bulb should be visible above the soil surface.

Don’t plant the bulb in a pot that is any more than twice the diameter of the bulb.

When you repot your amaryllis bulbs, you may notice smaller side bulbs that can be broken away from the main bulb.

These can also be potted and grown on in a sunny spot on your garden patio. These smaller side bulbs will not bloom this year, but they may bloom after two or three years of growth.

Planting  by the moon means that you take into consideration the phases of the moon before you do your planting.

Gardeners who plant by the moon also tend to harvest,  cultivate or deal with pests according to the phases of the moon.

Here in the southern hemisphere, the 22nd September is Spring Equinox day when knowledgeable organic and moon gardeners arrange to do their planting.

It’s supposed to be a very favourable time for planting because moon gardeners believe that plants thrive hugely when they are planted this way.

Well, I don’t know if planting by the moon works or not but I was willing to try.  So I prepared the soil carefully with compost the week before.  All my garden beds were ready and waiting for the important day. 

On exactly the right day I bought all my plants and seeds early so that I could spend the day planting.

Then as luck would have it, as soon as I had completed all my planting, the first spring rains came and gently watered all my handiwork. What a win!

All I had to do was to rest my weary limbs and wait patiently for some noteworthy results.

But there’s one more thing – moon gardeners are also supposed to talk to their plants.  I’ll be jolly careful to do this while no-one is watching or listening.  But talk I will.  I’m even prepared to sing to them! No point in doing things half-way!

An update on  my garden – It’s interesting to compare the results on two separate beds of aubergines.  I planted them at the same time but in one bed the plants are twice as tall as those in the other bed.

I can’t quite work out why.  Maybe I haven’t been singing loud enough!

Here  is my pumpkin fritter recipe.

The fritters always turn out puffy and golden brown.

My Easy Pumpkin Fritters

2 cups mashed pumpkin (500gm)
½ cup flour (125gm)
2 level teaspoons baking powder,
Pinch of salt
1 beaten egg
A little milk if the consistency is too tight.

Mix well and drop with a tablespoon into hot oil. Lightly brown both sides.
Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot with cinnamon and sugar.

Tip: I don’t like to deep fry or use too much oil so about 1cm of light sunflower oil covering the bottom of the pan is quite enough.   I also don’t use olive oil as the flavour is too distinctive.

Pumpkin fritters do depend on a good pumpkin to start with.  And as pumpkins don’t always have the same consistency you may have to adjust your ingredients.

Try not to use a pumpkin that is too young as it tends to be rather watery.  If you do find that the pumpkin is a bit watery, add a little more flour.  The consistency should be firm but not sloppy.

Let me know how your pumpkin fritters turn out!

I kept a few pumpkin seeds from a really good pumpkin we had bought at the supermarket.  I knew that pumpkin vines needed a lot of space. So I planted just 6 seeds at the bottom of my garden.

Our garden slopes towards the bottom boundary so they were well out of sight and I forgot about them until a few weeks later when I saw some big healthy pumpkin leaves.

It didn’t take long before yellow pumpkin flowers started to develop and soon one plant in particular began to trail down the slope bearing lots of little white pumpkins.

A few good rains and some overhead watering and the pumpkins really started to take on a life of their own.  It wasn’t too long before I began to invite visitors to see our giant pumpkin plant with its huge white pumpkins.

They grew and grew till I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t even know when to start picking them.

Eventually it seemed that they couldn’t grow any more.  And I was right. I needed a wheelbarrow to transport them one at a time up the slope. They were huge.

I had a lot of happy friends and family who each received a prize pumpkin. I also had enough pumpkins to last us through the winter.

The joys of organic gardening!  I hadn’t used any fertilizers beyond a little compost and certainly no toxic sprays or poisons. But I must be honest.  I didn’t really need them – the pumpkins  grew so easily!

Next time I’ll share my special pumpkin fritter recipe. The fritters are puffy and delicious.

The answer is quite simple. The best time to pick roses is when the roses are at their best.

The worst time to pick roses

Roses, like people go through periods of relaxation and times of stress.

Their worst stress is when the sun is beating down on them and they are thirsting for water.

And because they are feeling stressed and miserable they may even be drooping their heads. This is to avoid the direct rays of the sun.

This is clearly not the best time to pick your roses.  If you do, they will simply  collapse on you and fade away very quickly in your vase.

The best time to pick roses

The best time to pick roses is when they are feeling fresh and happy.

• This will be early in the morning with the dew still on their faces.  They will be standing tall and erect and this is undoubtedly the best time to pick them.

• Another good time to pick your roses is towards evening after they have had a good drink of water and feel refreshed.  They will then have recovered from the heat of the day and will have regained their loveliness.

• Remember to take a bucket of cold water with you when picking and submerge the roses almost up to their necks in water.  After that you will be able to arrange the roses in vases without having to worry about any drooping heads.

If you follow these few simple guidelines your roses will last much longer in the vase.

Secrets of Roses

As the weather becomes hotter, deadheading seems to be forgotten.  This is a pity because there are several reasons why we should deadhead our roses regularly.

What is deadheading?

Deadheading is what it’s name implies.  It simply means removing the dead rose head from the bush. Some people just pull the spent rose off the bush but this isn’t the best way as it leaves a naked stalk on the plant which tends to die back.

An easy way to deadhead roses

I have found an easy and effective way to deadhead my roses. But I only do this when the roses have been newly watered and the sap has risen well up into the stems.

To deadhead I hold the base of the stalk between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and then with a quick one-two back and forth movement with my right hand I snap off the rose head neatly together with the short stalk that holds it up. In this way all the leaves are preserved and the rose will soon flower again.

Why should we deadhead roses?

• Firstly, the rose bushes look much neater when we remove the spent roses from the bush. A rose bush looks tatty when there are fading roses among the buds and full blown flowers.

• Secondly the rose needs every bit of energy, food and water for its growth and future flowering ability.  A great deal of energy goes into the making of rose hips.  If you allow the spent heads to remain on the bush all the energy is diverted from the growth of your rose bush towards the development of seeds.

• If you remove spent roses from the bush, the rose is encouraged to flower more frequently by replacing the flowers that you have removed.

How to Plant and Care for your Rose Garden