Bananas are one of those fruits that should never go to waste if they are past their prime. You can always throw them in your compost bin, but staghorn ferns love them and so do your roses. It’s the potassium in bananas that is the big appeal (no pun intended! 
). The peels are over 40% potash/potassium so it is definitely a boost. A basic rule of thumb is to one banana and peel chopped up per rose plant, either planted around the crown or drip line. You can also make a “tonic” by finely chopping up a banana and adding it to a gallon of water. One gallon per plant. We’re going into September which will be the last month you will apply any fertilizer to your roses until the new year. I would go easy on Nitrogen because you don’t want to promote a lot of growth as we go into the end of the year. Because the banana mixture is natural, it won’t have the harshness that other fertilizers might have, especially during these hot couple of months. Since potassium aids in the overall vigor of plants, cell activity, and resistance to disease, it’s all good! So, to sum it up: bananas + roses = happy!
Tagged as:
fertilizer,
roses
Elements & Principals of Design have been part of our class discussion through all our courses of Flower Show Judge school. I’m not a floral design-oriented person so although it is making a lot of sense now, it was a bit overwhelming at first. Some people used acronyms they made up to help keep things straight, but it wasn’t sinking in for me until the third session when our instructor, Julia Clevett, compared Elements to the ingredients of a recipe and Principals to the recipe. Poof, now I get it!!! Elements are the tangibles and Principles are how you use those tangibles. Thank you Julia!
Elements of Design
Color – The characteristic of light by which the individual perceives objects or light sources; how the eye sees and interpret wavelengths of light
Form – A three dimensional object
Light – Illumination necessary for vision
Line – One-dimension visual path through design
Pattern – design formed by solids and spaces between them
Size – the perceived or visual dimensions of components rather than actual dimensions
Space – the open area in and around a design
There are 3 kinds of space – total space, space within plant material, space established in design
Texture – Surface quality of a material
The only way I can remember the Elements is to put them in alphabetical order.
Principals of Design
Balance - visual balance or stability
Dominance – the greater impact of one element over the others
Contrast - use of opposite characteristics to emphasize differences
Rhythm - created by a dominant visual path of lines, forms, and/or colors in a design
Proportion – comparative relationship of areas and amounts
Scale - the size relationship of one object in a design compared to another
Some people use BADCROPS as an acronym to remember Principles. Drop the vowels and you have your PRINCIPLES.
As we have progressed through the courses, I am finding I use the E’s & P’s quite a bit in my thought process with my creative projects so that is kind of cool to see the application in everyday life.
Tagged as:
Coronado Flower Show,
Floral Design
Sunset Magazine’s web site is a great resource for me. This page, ‘How to grow your own vegetables,’ just popped up in front of me and I thought it was worth sharing. Lots of links that include seed sowing, soil prep, composting, transplanting seeds, tomatoes, raised beds and growing veggies in pots. Sunset’s website is [...]
Tagged as:
sunset magazine,
veggies
I mentioned Flower Show Judge School in a post the other day, and I’ll share bits and pieces of what I’m learning with you over time. Having chaired the Coronado Flower Show this year and last, I learned a lot about the process of running a flower show. Thankfully I had a nice group of [...]
Tagged as:
Coronado Flower Show,
flower show school
Guest tomato pickers stop by occasionally, which I love. The only rule is that you have to add the number of tomatoes you’ve picked to the board. These visitors have stopped by before. Thanks for coming!
Tagged as:
Gardening,
tomatoes
I haven’t posted for a few days because I’ve been entrenched in Flower Show Judge school this week. (Yes, there really is such a thing. Stop snickering – this is serious business!) The process starts with 4 courses six months apart for two years, then a big test, writing a flower show schedule, entering and [...]
Tagged as:
flower show school,
Pearl Fryar,
Quail Gardens,
topiaries
I went to the SD Zoo this week and finally saw the new Elephant Encounter. Nicely done, and fun to see the upper mesa become a great destination. We (the family) had a great lunch up there, too. If you haven’t gone to see it yet, go check it out. They did a nice job [...]
Tagged as:
quote,
Trees
All hail the mighty potato! I had my first crop of potatoes (July 17 post) and it’s time to plant more so why not on National Potato Day. What is National Potato Day, you ask? I went to Google to see what I could find but didn’t find an answer to that question. What I [...]
Tagged as:
potatoes,
vegetables
I had some beautiful poppies last year so I saved some of the seed pods to reclaim seeds to plant this fall. I let them dry out thoroughly in the garden before I picked them, then I split the pods and poured the seeds into a little cup for storage. The collection in the picture [...]
Tagged as:
poppy seeds,
propagating
