Pages

Monday, July 25, 2011

Organic Pest Remedy

                          Home made scale solution
I bought this gorgeous Verigated Shell Ginger plant couple of weeks back.  

But sadly I noticed its leaves were shriveling and new shoots were not opening.
 It worsened and the leaves started getting brown and looked burnt on the sides.

I could notice little brown round shells on the leaves especially near leaf nods.Couple of minutes of googling and the culprit was caught...
Soft brown scale...sap sucking insect





















(Image and some details from here)

Some more googling and got the organic and cheap solution from this great website (see the link for many more homemade pest remedies).
Following is the recipe:
Ingredients: vegetable oil and dishwashing liquid
Preparation: Mix four tablespoons of dish-washing liquid to one cup of vegetable oil. Dilute this mixture by adding one part of this mixture to twenty parts water. Fill in a spray bottle (I always reuse empty bathroom cleaner spray bottles) and spray on the scale. This mixture suffocates the scale. I repeated the spray after 5-6 days and cleaned the leaves with a damp cloth in between to remove scale. Make sure you wear gloves to clean.
I'm happy to see the results after couple of weeks of spray. I'll post the new photos in few days.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Painted coffee and milo containers

As discussed in my previous post I keep empty coffee and milo containers. I find them really useful for my container garden. Just bit of wash and paint and they are ready to add color to my world. I try to use them for plants that live in shade or part shade because metal heats up the roots during summer and can be bad for plants.




Backyard Reno

Last year the house that was available for renting was in shambles especially the backyard. Since I had limited time and options so moved in reluctantly. But my cleaniness freak soul and creative spirit wasn't content till I gave it my touch. Backyard is what I needed the most during long summer evenings and being in love with gardening (being a tenant I had to be content with container gardening) had to do something there. Here are some of the before and after photos.
              
                                          Before






So, some cleaning, weeding and few splashes of paint (obviously with landlord's permission) and my summer verandah was ready. 
                                          After 



A strong believer in recycling I painted empty coffee and Milo containers for planting. I'll post the photos in my next post of my painted, upcycled containers.


                                     Broken cups for planting succulents




 Found this little cart in the street and painted it yellow to add color to my container garden.