Multi-Fold Ladder
I’ve been meaning to get a ladder for chores around the house for the longest time. The ladder I had in mind is one of those multi-fold ladder that can be folded into different shapes for different jobs. Truth is I’ve been holding back on buying one because I was waiting for Kmart to go on sale!
Then finally my wait paid off and true enough Kmart had a sale on their ladders and I jumped to the chance. This ladder was normally retail for $139 but has been reduced to $69 so it was a good buy. I think I waited a whole year for this!
Its a simple step ladder and I particularly like this one because you can stand with both legs on either sides when you’re on top. Normal ladders only let you stand on one side so this will be safer than those ones. Plus its very light so making it easy to carry around.
Not only that this ladder can be folded into 14 positions for different jobs around the house from the simple step ladder to an overhanging ladder to a scaffold. Its incredible, I’m loving it! Every household should have one.
Published by Admin on August 14th, 2008 tagged Tools | Comment now »
Installing a door seal
I had nasty draft blowing into the garage from the door behind. Not only did it bring in cold wind in winter, it also brought in the dust in the summer. Since I’m housing some heavy machineries in the garage now I needed something to stop the draft.
And it was a simple door seal that will do the trick for me. All I needed was to seal the opening underneath and something that will cover the gap will suffice. A door seal will do just that.
I used to think all door seals are the same until I went to check them out at the hardware store..there were so many to choose from! I decided on this one which I thought would be sufficient for what I need.
I must say the instruction took me a few minutes to fully understand what I needed to do and it wasn’t a simple task like what I initially thought it’ll be. Well I’m glad I studied the instruction well before I went ahead to install it.
And the end result was quite satisfactory I might add. Now I don’t feel the draft blowing in through the gap anymore and hopefully less dust as well in summer.
Published by Admin on July 20th, 2008 tagged Installation | Comment now »
Planting bearded iris
I managed to plant out those bearded iris that arrived last Friday. I was very busy over the weekend but I managed to find some time to plant them out because it’s not a good idea to leave them in the bags they came in.
Since I only have 1 rhizome to each species of bearded iris I decided to plant them in individual pots and let them multiply themselves so hopefully I’ll have a whole bunch of them in the not too distant future. Bearded iris like well drain soil and are very hardy, they do not need much watering and when planting be sure to leave the rhizomes just exposed or else the rhizome will rot.
I’ll let you know how they turn up in summer. Fingers crossed.
Published by Admin on June 30th, 2008 tagged Propagation | Comment now »
My bearded iris have arrived!
Remember those beautiful bearded iris I ordered on the internet? Well guess what? They’ve arrived! YAY! Actually they stuffed up the delivery and sent it to my neighbor at work. Lucky they didn’t return it and finally got hold of me to go pick them up.
Here they are! There are 7 different kinds with different colors and I ordered one of each. All of them arrived along with a booklet of growing guide and another catalog from them. This is so exciting I can’t contain myself!
The rhizomes are all packed in individual bags with growing medium and labeled accordingly. I can’t wait to plant them out this weekend. I think I’ll grow them in individual pots first and let them multiply till I get heaps of them to grow in the gardens!
Published by Admin on June 27th, 2008 tagged Plants | Comment now »
Recycling potting mix
After digging up the dahlia tubers in the last post I have some used potting mixes left over. Usually I would throw them into the compost mix to be mixed up with the rest of the compost but it’s not a good idea to put too much of used potting mix in the compost.
So in cases like this I would try to recycle the potting mixes by rejuvenating the mixes with fresh rich compost, slow release fertilizer and water crystals. What I’d do is try to get rid of the roots from the previous plants by shifting the mix through a mesh before mixing in the rejuvenating ingredients.
However if you’re too lazy to do all that yourself you could get yourself a box of PotMate from Debco. It has all the ingredients needed to rejuvenate your used potting mix so mixing the recommended dose in with the mix would be easy and quick. I don’t know how good this product is because I’ve never used it before. I’d prefer to add my own ingredients!
Published by Admin on June 17th, 2008 tagged Soil & Planting Medium | Comment now »
Digging up dahlia tubers
Its officially winter and the weather’s gone really cold. Most of my flowering perennials have gone into hibernation including the dahlias. They stop growing, their flower buds shrink and dry off, the leaves start to yellow and mildew has started to grow on them.
Here’s my potted dahlias, yes I know they’re supposed to be grown in the grown but with limited space in my backyard I’d resorted to growing them in pots and they do okay considering. Plus its easier to maintain them like staking and tying up the floppy branches.
So this is what needs to be done to dahlias during winter; cut down the whole plants to the ground. Throw the cuttings into the compost bin, remove the stakes and get rid of all the ties that were used to tie them together.
Dig up the whole root ball, get rid of as much dirt as you can. Unless you want to propagate more plants next year you can keep the whole root ball intact. Store the whole thing upside down in a cool dry place. Reason for storing them upside down is because if you store them upright water that’s still remain in the stems can flow back into the root tubers and rot can occur which was what happened last year.
Published by Admin on June 16th, 2008 tagged Maintenance | 1 Comment »
Ordering Bearded Irises
I’ve finally found a place that sells all the different bearded irises I wanted to get and it’s an online store based in the Dandenongs. At first I thought of visiting them to get my bearded irises but they’re only open half a day on Saturday and closed on Sunday. There’s no way I can go during the week. Besides its quite far away and with rising petrol prices it’s not very tempting.
So I opted to order them online and here’s what I ordered; 7 different species all in rhizomes each costing about $7-$8 plus postage. I do think it’s a little expensive but never mind…
This one is called Sound of Gold.
Star Status
Arpage
Breakers
Pass the wine
Silkirim
Burgundy Bubbles.
I should be getting them all sometimes early next week. All these bearded irises should be easy to grow so I’ll be growing them in pots and hopefully in about a year’s time they’d have multiplied 10 forth!
Published by Admin on June 15th, 2008 tagged Plants | Comment now »
Growing waratahs
I used to think that Australian native plants are boring and not worth growing in my backyard. That was years ago but now I’m starting to like them more and more each day, especially the waratahs and proteas. Not only are these plants more suited to the Australian conditions they are also unique usually found only in Australia or maybe South Africa and South America when all these 3 continents were parts of a super continent called the Gondwanaland.
I’ve been trying to grow some waratahs down my back fence where the soil is very poor. I read somewhere before that they like poor soil and don’t need much water and able to survive hot Australian summer. They lied coz all my waratahs died in the first summer I planted them! Despite what they say these plants still need moisture like all plants except they need good drainage so they don’t have wet root system that would kill them just as fast.
Determined not to fail again I planted more waratahs in their places and this time I also install watering hoses next to them so they can be watered more efficiently. I will also remember to keep the surrounding soil moist but not wet and give them some shelter in the heat of summer.
Published by Admin on June 9th, 2008 tagged Plants | Comment now »
How deep to plant your bulbs?
I used to worry about how deep I should be planting my bulbs into the ground. Planting too shallow the plant may fall over and planting too deep the plant may not grow? Nowadays I don’t care how deep to plant them anymore.
The truth is you shouldn’t worry about how deep these bulbs should be planted because even if they are not planted deep enough, the root system of the bulbs will grow and shrink to enable the bulbs to be pulled down deeper into the ground if need be. That’s what the latest scientific discovery found and I read about it somewhere. They even have a name for this kind of root system but I can’t remember. If you know what I’m talking about please enlighten me.
Published by Admin on June 8th, 2008 tagged Propagation | 1 Comment »
Looking for Chrysanthemum
One of my favourite flowers is the Chrysanthemum but sadly they are not one of the most popular flowers in Australia. The only time you can see them being sold is around Mother’s Day in May and the rest of the year? Nothing!
Chrysanthemum flowers are more popular among the Asian countries where there are also many different varieties being cultivated. Even on Mother’s Day here in Australia the Chrysanthemum sold are not really very nice. I’ve seen more unusual types with big colourful blooms but only in Asia.
So yes I am looking for some rare Chrysanthemum to grow, I don’t want to grow the usual types they sell during Mother’s Day. Those are too common and boring, I want the rare and unusual varieties in big, beautiful blooms! Where can I get them?