Posts tagged as:

Flowers

Rocky Ravine Turned Into Thriving Cut Flower Business

March 4, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

While most of the commercial cut flower business is being put out of business due to exceedingly cheap imported Colombian cut flowers, Kendall Farms in San Diego County, California, is growing with “new, trendy and hot” Australian and South African cut flowers. The farm was started in 1987 by Dave Kendall on 50 acres of [...]

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Flower Petal Nanoridges Attract Bees

February 7, 2010 Flowers

According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tiny structures form on the surface of the plant, called nanoridges. Researchers found that the ridges are made of “cutin polyester,” a material in the waxy outer layer of plants that helps protect them from drying out.
While their exact function is still [...]

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The Death Of B.C.’s Cut-Rose Industry

February 6, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

This is the conundrum of globalization: how do roses from Ecuador and Colombia compete with locally grown roses with prices equal or lower when they have been flown thousands of miles on jets powered by expensive fuel? Steve Whysall writes in The Vancouver Sun,
Today, only three growers remain and two of them are struggling to [...]

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Sustainable Prisons Project

January 24, 2010 Farming & Agriculture

In the old print version of The Growing Edge, I published numerous articles about prisons that had greenhouses and gardens which supplied both the prison cafeteria with fresh produce but also sold some produce to restaurants and supermarkets in the local community. An equally important goal was to train the inmates with a useful job [...]

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Emotional Impact Of Flowers

January 22, 2010 Flowers

Every spring, with the emergence of fresh blooming flowers, most people get an emotional lift after a long, dreary winter of only store purchased flowers, if they have any at all.
Flowers have flourished – their beauty evolving over time – simply because we like them, says Terry McGuire, associate professor of genetics at Rutgers and [...]

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Unproductive Garden Center Customers

December 29, 2009 Farm/Garden Politics

One possible New Year’s resolution for a gardener could be: I will regularly support and actually purchase plants and garden products from a local, independent garden store instead of a big box store…
On a forum of retail garden store owners and employees, a question was put forth on how to deal with “unproductive customers” who [...]

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Organic Farm Spotlight—Boogy Creek Farm

December 27, 2009 Compost

Boogy Creek Farm is a five acre organic urban farm in Austin, Texas started in 1991 by the husband and wife farmer team of Carol Ann Sayle and Larry Butler. Earlier, Carol had a 20-year career in painting, but she enthusiastically put down the brush to take up the hoe. Her canvas is now Boogy [...]

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PlantSF Turns Pavement Into A Garden Spot

December 22, 2009 Farm/Garden Politics

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan write in SFGate.com,
If you’ve converted a piece of your San Francisco sidewalk into a garden strip lately – or admired someone’s plantings as you walked by – you can thank Jane Martin for making the process easier and cheaper. An architect and landscape designer who runs Shift Design, she’s the [...]

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San Francisco Library Plants A Children’s Garden

December 21, 2009 Flowers

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan write on SFGate.com,
As a rule, libraries don’t mix with muddy little hands. But that’s what’s happening at the San Francisco Public Library’s Mission Branch, where a Teaching Garden opened this fall. With the help of a designer and a gardening instructor, interim Children’s Room Manager Lia Hillman has turned an [...]

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For You Landscape Designers Out There—Turquoise Is 2010 Color Of The Year

December 15, 2009 Flowers

PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise is officially the color of 2010, according to Pantone. Through color word-association studies, Pantone found that to many people, turquoise represents an escape, taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting – even if it is only a fantasy. Many gardeners who are into landscape design, certainly resonate with [...]

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