As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Links
  • About
  • Join GTS Meme
  • Guest Blogger
  • Contact

You are here: Home / Archives for home

Sorry – no Green Thumb Today

by Tricia

I’ll bet that all my Green Thumb Sunday members have been wondering why there was no GTS post last week or so far today? Well, I’ve had a bad week or rather both my husband and I had a bad week.

Chris ended up being admitted to the hospital last Friday because he had chest pains while at work (in same hospital he was admitted to – how convenient!).

If you read the post I linked to on my other blog you can learn more about his heart trouble. Basically they think he might have a rare heart arrhythmia that can cause sudden death, but haven’t been able to prove it just yet. We’ve been living with this since 2004. The doctor that admitted him to the hospital last Friday also noticed that on previous trips to the ER and or admissions his Cholesterol had always been quite high – both the good and bad cholesterol as well as having very low triglycerides, so he thought that it might be good to do an angiogram on Chris to take a look at his heart and make sure that he didn’t have any blocked coronary arteries.

As it turned out, we had to wait until Monday for the angiogram and the test was clear. His heart looks good from the inside. So he was discharged Monday evening with a prescription for Cholesterol lowering meds (Crestor) and instructed to set up some out-patient tests like a 48 hour Holter monitor and a stress test.

He’s been home all week recovering from the angiogram, but he’s feeling fine. He’s going to go back to work on Tuesday. He really only felt bad on Friday afternoon – so he wasn’t the best patient in the Acute coronary ward at the hospital because they had to keep telling him to stop wandering around the hospital. LOL he just didn’t want to be there since he felt ok.

Luckily the hospital is only a few blocks from home – a 10 to 15 minute walk. So I was able to just walk back and forth to visit. However, since I’m not all that healthy myself (Crohns, vitamin d deficiency and bad back pain over the last year) it took a toll on me and I’ve kind of been recovering over the last few days too. Believe me, it sucks to be sick, especially when your spouse ends up also being sick and admitted to the hospital!

As I said in my last GTS post my Amaryllis was in bloom so I took a whole series of pictures from buds to full bloom. I just haven’t had a chance to prepare the pics. They are still on the camera and I’m sure they need some cropping … so that will be next weeks Green Thumb Sunday post – hopefully!






Filed Under: Family, Green Thumb Sunday, Health, Health and Fitness, Home and Lifestyle Tagged With: admitted, arrhythmia, cholesterol, Chris, discharged, Green_Thumb_Sunday, GTS, heart, home, hospital, husband, post, pressure, recovering, sick, symptoms

Did you know the Sago Palm is toxic to pets?

by Tricia

676138.jpg I just received a new edition of my ASPCA newsletter and one article in particular caught my eye. It was about the increased incidence of pets being poisoned by the Sago Palm. This plant can also be quite toxic to young children.

The Sago Palm is common in warm climates, but it’s become more popular in Northern homes as a houseplant. The plant is native to Southern Japan. It’s an attractive plant with dark green leaves and a hairy trunk.

Since 2003, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center has seen an increase in cases of Sago palm and Cycad poisonings by more than 200 percent. APCC data also reveals that 50 percent to 75 percent of those cases resulted in fatalities.

sago-palm.jpg A chemical in the plant called cycasin is toxic and often causes permanent liver damage as well as neurological damage if enough of the poison is absorbed by the body. The seeds are the most poisonous part of the plant, although all parts of this plant are toxic, and the effects on humans are seizures, coma and death. Of course the seeds are an attractive reddish color so children and possible curious pets might be drawn to the plant.

Clinical signs of toxic poisoning are vomiting, melena (blood in stool), Jaundice, increased thirst, hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, bruising and later liver damage, liver failure and death.

If you have young children or pets in your home and you’d like to check to see if your house or garden plants are toxic you can take a look at this list of Toxic Plants. There’s also a list of non-toxic plants that you might also want to look at if you are planning on adding more plants to your collection.

Filed Under: Family, Garden Tips, Health and Fitness, Home and Lifestyle, House Plants, Pets and Wildlife, Trees and Shrubs Tagged With: animal, ASPCA, attractive seeds, bruising, cats, chemical, children, Cycad, cycasin, dangerous, dark green leaves, death, dogs, garden plants, gastroenteritis, hairy trunk, home, House, houseplant, incidence, jaundice, list of toxic plants, lists, liver damage, liver failure, melena, non toxic plants, pets, plants, Poison, poison control center, poisoning, poisonous, Sago, Sago Palm, signs of toxicity, Southern Japan, thirst, toxic plant, vomiting

For a weed rose Dr. Huey sure is pretty

by Tricia

IMG_4012

Dr. Huey is a rose that is commonly used as a root graft on Hybrid Tea Roses to make them stronger and possibly hardier.

If you grow roses, particularly ones that have grafted roots, you probably know that sometimes the root graft can grow it’s own shoots creating an odd looking rose bush with different colored flowers or that sometimes the graft root ends up taking over.

In my case the former owners of our home dug up their single Hybrid tea rose when they moved and I guess they left some of the graft root behind. Much to my surprise the following spring I noticed rose branches coming up out of the ground and realized that it must have been from their old rose. Of course it took me another year to realize that it was the graft root Dr. Huey.

I decided to keep the rose. After all, by accident, it was the first rose in my garden!

Dr. Huey seems to only bloom here once a year and it blooms on old wood so whether it blooms at all depend upon how harsh the last winter was. As a result my Dr. Huey weed rose only seems to bloom about every second year, but when it blooms it’s spectacular.

I don’t mind it’s red blooms one bit.

My Dr. Huey seems to bloom in late June. It’s blooms are long gone now, but not the memory of them.

Filed Under: Garden Buzz, rose, Toronto Tagged With: accident, bloom, blooms, blooms on old wood, dr huey, first rose, flower, flowers, garden, graft, graft shoots, graft take over, grafted root, grafted rose, grow, hardier, harsh winters, home, hybrid tea, Hybrid tea rose, June, left over roots, old wood, red flower, red rose, rose, rose bush, roses, spring, surprise, weed, weed rose, winter

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 23
  • Next Page »

Subscribe


Never miss a post
Subscribe to our RSS feed!
It's FREE! rss feed

Free Newsletter

As the Garden Grows
by Email - FREE!



Follow me on Twitter!

Suggested Sites

Eavestrough Cleaning Toronto

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Top Three Tips For Choosing The Right Patio Furniture For Your Home
  • The 4 Things To Know About Perennial Garden Design
  • Painful Plants: Five Houseplants That Can Cause Injury
  • An Outbreak Shouldn’t Mean A Break Out: 3 Insect Repellants Gentle Enough For Your Skin
  • 5 Ideas To Make Your Garden POP
  • 6 Simple Ways To Make Your Home Eco-Friendly
  • How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children
  • Starting A Career As A Professional Gardener
  • 6 Time Saving Tips For Gardening
  • Top Tips On Redesigning Your Garden For The Summer

What they’re Saying

  • Rodhe Stevens on Landscaping Tips On A Limited Budget
  • Edmund Wells on Benefits of using mulch on the garden
  • Surjith on An Outbreak Shouldn’t Mean A Break Out: 3 Insect Repellants Gentle Enough For Your Skin
  • Pamela on The 4 Things To Know About Perennial Garden Design
  • dog on The quality of your pet food is important

Pages

  • About
  • Archives
  • Become a Guest Blogger For As the Garden Grows
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Contact
  • Disclosure
  • Do Follow Bloggers Blogroll
  • Green Thumb Sunday
  • I am Canadian Blogroll
  • Join GTS Meme
  • Links
  • Privacy Policy
  • Q & A
  • Toronto Bloggers Blogroll
  • What’s Growing

Search

My Garden

Member of
Garden Voices

Tags

backyard Beautiful bloom blooming blooms Bulbs cold Entertainment and Rec flower flowers garden garden bed garden beds gardener gardening green Green Thumb Green Thumb Sunday grow growing GTS home Home and Lifestyle House In The Garden leaves my garden photo photos plant plants purchase rain rose roses Shopping snow spring summer Toronto water weather winter Wordless Wednesday WW

Site Ratings


Visitors since 2006


Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Connect with me

  • Facebook
  • Google Plus
  • Pintrest
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Copyright © 2026 · News Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in