As the Garden Grows

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Happy Halloween!

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I just wanted to let you know that Breath of Life has Halloween themed photos being posted every two ours all day today.

If you love Halloween drop by and see the series of 19 photos.

Update – So? Did you go to Breath of life to see the series of 19 photos or not? Come on, don’t you have the Halloween spirit? There’s some Ghoulishly fascinating photos over there.

The shots are running through into November 1st. You can view the Halloween photos that began being posted every two hours by visiting the archive section. Please check it out and let me know what you think.






Do you need Free business cards

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I was talking about starting up a very small gardening business next spring in an earlier post. I’ve been thinking about starting a number of seedlings for some of the more specialized plants that I grow in my gardens and then selling the surplus online through mail order.

It might be a good idea to create some business cards for this venture. I remember when I had my own jewelry trade business. The first business cards I had printed up were very nice but very expensive. My company name was “Gold Cuts” and the cards had the name of my company in gold on a very light beige card paper.

I came across a site earlier today that does free business cards, and not only can you get free business cards through this online company but you can learn how to design your own cards and read articles about the make up of a good business card such as what should be on the card, should you print your own cards and so on.

If you have your own company, small business or even just a website you might want to get some free business cards made up too. I used to have some business cards for my big “reptile” website. It made it so much easier to give contact information out when I met new people that wanted to pick my brain about reptile care. I could just hand them my card and say get a coffee or two and read the whole site – then contact me if you have more questions.

What is a bulb anyway?

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Bulb, Corm, tuber, Rhizome! What does it all mean?

The term “bulb” is commonly used to refer to the thickened underground storage organ produced by some plants. However, many of what we call bulbs may be corms, tubers, tuberous roots or rhizomes.

You might think of a bulb as you would a chicken egg. The outside of a “true bulb” is a compressed stem (basal plate) bearing a growing point or flower bud and enclosed by thick, fleshy scales called bulb scales. Much like the egg’s shell protects the growing chick enclosed inside the egg.

Some true bulbs such as narcissus, amaryllis and tulip are protected from drying and mechanical injury by dry and membranous outer scales called a tunic. Other true bulbs such as lilies are called non-truncate or scaly because their outer scales are succulent and separate, giving the bulb a scaly appearance.

A corm is a solid mass of stem tissue with a basal plate on the bottom and a terminal shoot bud on top. In addition to the terminal shoot bud, axillary or lateral buds are produced at each of the nodes along the sides of the corm. In the event that the terminal bud should be injured or otherwise prevented from growing, these lateral buds are capable of producing a shoot. The solid stem structure of the corm is protected against injury and water loss by dry leaf bases that are similar to the tunic that enclose true bulbs. Gladiolus and watsonia are typical cormous plants.

Tubers such as caladium and gloriosa are thickened underground stems with many buds (eyes) present in regular order over their surfaces. Unlike true bulbs and corms which are covered with dried leaves or scales, tubers are covered with a tough skin. Tuberous roots such as dahlia and ranunculus are true roots and lack nodes and internodes. Buds are present only at the crown or stem end of the root.

Rhizomes are thickened horizontal stems growing along or below the surface of the ground. Underground rhizomes such as canna and calla produce roots on their lower surface and send shoots above ground.

The term bulb will probably always be used when referring to plants that produce underground storage organs.

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