Crystal Soil as Reservoir

With the characteristic of absorbing hundreds of times its weight in water for a long time, water absorbent polymer acts as a reservoir to store and release a steady stream of water to the plants even during periods of drought. When mixed in the soil, the water absorbent polymer will soften and swell as water is added and absorbed. When the potting system dries, the crystal soil beads will release its water to the plant.

Crystal Soil Improves Soil Aeration

The expansion and retraction of the crystal soil beads during watering cycle helps soil aeration, which is important to the growth of our plants.

Crystal Soil is Non-Toxic, Eco-friendly

Water absorbent polymeris made of non-toxic material. Hence, it is safe for our plants.

Crystal Soil is Economical

In addition, these crystal soil beads are economical to use for they are reusable and usually last several seasons. In addition, water absorbent polymer will reduce our irrigation needs and frequency in as much as 50% as well as retain our applied fertilizers and nutrients for plant use.

And dozen times of sunburn, countless mosquito bites, cuts and abrasions later, I have finally learned my lesson of skin protection. Here I would like to share a few tips of skin protection when we are in the garden.

• Wearing long sleeves shirts and long pants under the hot sun may sound unbearable. But give it a try with one of those quick drying, UV protection shirt and pants, and you will love it. These UV shirts and pants are made of breathable material that is very light and easy to dry. Of course, these shirts and pants are more expensive than regular ones, but they worth the investment for these shirts and pants are not only functional, but stylish for other occasions besides gardening as well.

• I also put on a cap with extra wide brim and large removable flap that provide better coverage and protection for my face and neck. I really like this cap that I am using right now because I can fold up the brim when I find it gets on my way while performing some tasks.

• Wear garden gloves to protect our hands from the sun (we don’t want a tan line on our wrists, do we?), and more important, from the cuts and blisters that we may get when handling thorny plants. Here, you can check these posts for more about garden gloves.
  Tips of Choosing Gardening Gloves
  The Many Different Types of Garden Gloves

• Wear a SPF30 sunscreen, especially on the faces, and reapply every hour if one is sweating profusely. In addition, we should focus on the areas of our bodies that are exposed the most frequently, in particular the back of our necks.

• Try to avoid working under the sun between 11am and 3pm. This is when the sun is at its hottest.

• Take cover in shaded areas as often as possible to get out of the direct sunlight.

• Don’t forget to protect our lips.  Our lips have very delicate skin and can easily be damaged by over exposure to UV rays.

• Always try the gardening gloves on to make sure they fit well. Gardening gloves should fit comfortably or your gardening experience will be unpleasant. Tight gloves and gloves too loose that they slide around on your hands or bunch up while working are less likely to be used again. When trying on gardening gloves, try on both hands, make a fist and flex your hands repeatedly to verify the fitting of the gloves.
• When handling roses or other thorny plants, it makes more sense using a pair of gauntlets (gloves with extended cuff covering part of the forearm) than regular gardening gloves. Yes, a pair of rose gauntlet gloves is not cheap (i.e.: Foxgloves Gauntlet costs $35). But for those gardeners who often work with roses and other thorny plants, this is not a luxury but a necessity. Get yourself a pair of rose gauntlet gloves and you will thank yourself for the years to come.

Rubber Gardening Gloves

• Choose a pair with cotton linings, for this will make the inside of the gloves less sticky and more comfortable.
• Get a pair of rubberized outdoor gloves. Rubber gloves intended for household cleaning are not designed to endure the abuse they will receive in the garden, and will get punctured and torn easily.

Cotton Work Gloves

• Get those with rubber dots or pads on the fingers and/or palms. The rubber pads or dots will help us keep a good grip on the hand tools we use.
• Since cotton work gloves are generally cheap and can be easily bought at many places such as grocery stores and supermarkets, it is a good idea to keep a few pairs available at any given time.

Disposable Gloves

• Avoid latex gloves due to the increased risk for allergy.

So what is Saika Bonsai?

Saika Bonsai literally means “colorful flower bonsai” is a new bonsai style that involves not only trees, but also flower plants and grasses. Indeed, some bonsai in the Saika Bonsai style look very much like a Japanese style container garden which we may not even consider them as bonsai. With a combination of colorful plants and trees potted with free-spirited pot design, Saika Bonsai doesn’t follow the many rules of the traditional bonsai art. The priority of this new bonsai style is to keep the plants alive and have fun growing them (isn’t that what gardening is all about at the first place?).

With the cool, modern look of Saika Bonsai and less rigid rules to follow, this new bonsai style has attracted many city people in Japan nowadays, especially women and the younger generations.

Here are more about Saika Bonsai:
Happy Bonsai – Saika Bonsai – Do You Count This as Bonsai
Happy Bonsai – Kaori Yamada (山田香織) – A Key Contributor to Saika Bonsai

And here is the link to the Saika Bonsai video – Bonsai: The Universe As A Tree Lesson 1 – demonstrated by Kaori Yamada. There are 3 lessons, and this is the first and the only one with English subtitle. You can find the other two Saika Bonsai videos on the left of the page in the Bonsai session. Check this out. I think you will like it

Photo by Seikouten

Many pairs of cotton work gloves and pricks later, I decided to treat myself better and get a good pair of garden gloves. And it is only then do I realize that there are actually so many different types of gloves in the market. Breathable cotton, latex, leather, water resistant, extra long, etc… And here are the major types of gloves grouped by the main material that they are made out of.

Leather Gloves

Leather gloves can be quite bulky, but they can be a wise choice for heavy duty jobs that are more likely to injure or blister our hands (i.e.: cutting and stacking firewood, pruning trees or rose bushes). Leather gloves are strong and provide good protection from sharp edges and pokey objects, such as wire fencing and nails.

There are different varieties of leather gloves as well as different style. For example, there are leather gloves that extend up to the forearms. These leather gloves are useful to protect our arms when we are pruning rose bushes, as well as other thorny plants.

Rubber Gloves

Personally, I don’t like to use rubber gloves, for they get hot and sticky, especially in the summer time. However, I would suggest all gardeners to keep a pair of rubber gloves handy for they are very useful for protecting our hands when we are working in cold and wet environment (such as ponds), or in damp soil.

While rubber gloves that are intended for household cleaning are cheaper, I would not suggest that but the rubberized outdoor gloves. Those rubber gloves for household cleaning are not made to endure the abuse they will receive in the garden. And once the rubber gloves are punctured or torn, they will leak and lose its waterproof function.

Cotton Gloves

Cotton gloves are cheap. They are lightweight and breathable. Some of them have rubberized dots or pads on the fingers and/or palms. Cotton gloves are the general purpose garden gloves. They are handy for keeping our hands clean while doing dirty work that does not require heavy protection, such as digging small holes, planting seeds, and weeding. Cotton gloves are best for working in cool, dry soil when no chemical is involved. Also, these gloves are neither cut resistant nor water proof.

Polymer Disposable Gloves

Disposable gloves are cheap and lightweight. They are waterproof, and their primarily used to keep our hands clean while we briefly attend to a light yet dirty job. I have found it perfect for making my tabletop container gardens, and I provide my students disposable gloves in my Playful Tree workshops (workshops that show how to make tabletop container gardens) as well.

When we are handling pesticides, manure, and any other things that we would not want to touch with our bare hands, it is best to handle these jobs in a disposable manner with a box of disposable gloves. And for this reason, I would suggest using disposable gloves instead of regular rubber gloves.

Disposable gloves are available in medical supply stores as well as many grocery stores.

Spandex (or Lycra) Gloves

Spandex (or Lycra) is a synthetic fabric that is very elastic. It can be expand up to 600% and spring back without losing its integrity. And nowadays, many companies use spandex to make garden gloves that fit very well on our hands. These garden gloves are absolutely waterproofed and have no absorption at all. And with the hard wearing nylon on palms and fingertips, these spandex garden gloves are here to stay with hard use for a longer period of time.

These spandex garden gloves are always very stylish, with different colors and sizes for buyers to choose from. And some of these gloves even have 50+ UPF rating for maximum sun protection.

And after sharing what I know about Cattleya orchids, let me share what I know about Dendrobium orchids here.

Light

Compare with many other orchid species, Dendrobium orchids slightly requires more light than others. While the Dendrobium orchids in the bonsai workshop is covered with 30% shade cloth, Teacher Wong told me that Dendrobium orchids grow well even without shade cloth. In fact, the Dendrobium orchid will grow stronger and healthier if it grows without covered by any shade cloth since spring time when the plant is still a seedling.

Water

During the growing season, Dendrobium orchid like high humidity and lots of water. For abundant, beautiful blossoms in the next spring, we should water and fertilize the orchids less when autumn comes, and allow the Dendrobium orchid to dry out thoroughly during dormancy. The combination of longer, cooler nights, less water and no fertilizer creates the dormancy which can ultimately induce flowering. And once the flower buds mature in spring, normal watering and fertilizing routines can be gradually resume.

Temperature

The temperature requirement for Dendrobium orchid is similar to Cattleya orchid. During its growing season, Dendrobium orchid grows well in the range of 18-30 degrees Celsius (65-85 degrees Fahrenheit). And we should stop watering when the temperature drops lower than 15 degrees Celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit).

Fertilizer

Fertilize our Dendrobium orchid every 10-14 days with a balanced water-soluble like 20-20-20 in only half the strength as instructed in the fertilizer instructions.

Mounting Dendrobium Orchid

We can mount our Dendrobium orchids instead of potting them. What we use to mount our orchids depends on the species we are growing. For example, we can use a piece of wood or bark. In addition, we also need plastic coated wire and sphagnum moss when we mount our Dendrobium orchids.

1. Study Frame – Check the frame at the seat or the kneeling board to make sure the garden kneeler is sturdy enough.
2. Ease of Transport and Storage - A good garden kneeler should be easy to be moved and stored. Hence, the garden kneeler should allow for folding when it’s not in use.
3. Adjustable Height – Many garden kneeler seats are adjustable, so that the gardener can place the bench at the perfect height. The gardener may kneel on the padded seat, use the sides of the kneeler for support, or sit in the seat and bend over. If the garden kneeler is not height adjustable, we should make sure that the garden kneeler is at a comfortable height since the reason we use a garden kneeler is to reduce strain on our body. A garden kneeler of the wrong height can contort us into an awkward position.
4. Weight Limitation – How much weight can the garden kneeler be able to handle? I would say a good garden kneeler should be rated to handle at least 220 pounds.

While this type of modern garden kneeler is well designed and multi-functional, we may also consider getting a basic garden kneeling pad as well.  Many gardeners find that getting a basic garden kneeling pad and a modern garden kneeler gives them the kind of functionality that is required when they are maintaining their beautiful gardens.

Here are a few more posts about garden kneeler and kneeling pad.
The Importance of a Garden Kneeler
A Garden Kneeling Pad, a Modern Garden Kneeler, or Garden Knee Pads?

And here is a post introducing the basic garden tools for starting a garden.