How to Compost Hay Learning how to compost hay is a simple matter of building a square with old hay bales. Lay out a number of bales to create a square outline, then add a second layer of bales to build up the walls on the back and sides. Fill the middle of the square with all the materials to compost. The shorter front allows you to reach into the square to shovel and turn the heap weekly and the higher walls help keep in the heat to make the materials rot faster....

Houseplants for allergy relief generally have larger leaves and make an attractive statement in your home. Most take very little care, and some low allergy houseplants even remove dangerous chemicals, such as formaldehyde, from the air. Growing Houseplants for Allergy Relief Houseplants for allergy sufferers have two advantages: some of them clean the air and none of them produce excess pollen to make allergies worse. Like all plants though, these varieties have the potential for making allergies worse if they’re not cared for correctly....

About Gooseberry Pruning There are two types of gooseberries: the European gooseberry and the American gooseberry. Almost all American gooseberry plants have been crossed with European species at some point. These resulting crosses are smaller and more resistant to mildew than their European counterparts. As mentioned, gooseberries can become a tangled mess and susceptible to diseases if allowed to grow unchecked. So cutting back gooseberry bushes is a worthy practice. The goal of cutting back gooseberry bushes is to keep the center of the plant open to air and sunshine, prune out any dead or diseased branches and to shorten the growth of the plant to a manageable size and to facilitate harvest....

Reason for Wilted Leaves on Tomatoes Soil borne diseases such as Fusarium wilt, bacterial wilt and Phytophthora infect the stems or roots of the plant effectively damning up the flow of water. A common problem in tomatoes, these diseases often begin with one or two wilting branches. As the disease progresses the entire plant wilts. Interestingly, wilt in infected plants is most severe in the early stages of the disease. This leads gardeners to suspect that the plant needs more water, which then helps the disease spread....

Is Baby’s Breath Bad for Your Skin? The previous statement may be a bit dramatic, but the fact is that baby’s breath can cause skin irritation. Baby’s breath (Gypsophila elegans) contains saponins that when ingested by animals may cause minor gastrointestinal upset. In the case of humans, the sap from baby’s breath can cause contact dermatitis, so yes, baby’s breath may be irritating to the skin and result in itching and/or a rash....

How Do You Grow Brussels Sprouts? Basically, how to grow Brussels sprouts is much like how you would grow cabbage or kale. Brussels sprouts are a cole crop and like many vegetables in that group, they grow better in cool temperatures. Since Brussels sprouts take so long to mature, your best bet is to plant them in midsummer so that they reach full maturity in the cool fall months. Plan to put them in your garden about three months before the first frost for your area....

Harvesting Marjoram Herbs You can start harvesting marjoram herbs when the plant is about 4 inches (10 cm.) tall. This should be before the flowers start to form, when the leaves are at their best. Just pick the leaves as needed and use them fresh. You can brew them into tea, extract their oils for salves, or put them into your food just before you finish cooking to impart a pleasant, mild flavor....

Silybum Milk Thistle Info Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) contains silymarin, a chemical component known to improve liver health, earning the plant its status as a “liver tonic.” If you want to produce your own silymarin, milk thistle growing conditions are very forgiving. Here are some tips for planting milk thistle in gardens: You can grow milk thistle in gardens with most types of soil, even soil that is very poor. As milk thistle is often considered a weed itself, virtually no weed control is needed....

Mountain Aven Facts Mountain avens consist of low-growing, mat-forming plants with small, leathery leaves. They root at nodes along the creeping stems, which makes these little plants valuable members of the ecosystem for their ability to stabilize loose, gravelly mountain slopes. This charming little plant is distinguished by small, eight-petalled blooms with yellow centers. Mountain aven plants are not at risk, probably because they grow in punishing climates visited primarily by the most intrepid hikers and mountaineers....

Growing Mushroom Logs Indoors Most people get mushrooms from the grocery store or farmers’ market. Some knowledgeable and intrepid adventurers brave the outdoors to forage for mushrooms. Foraging presents some obvious risks if you are not trained to distinguish between edible and toxic fungi. While buying mushrooms is safe, it’s not as fun for some as finding them. What’s the obvious happy medium? Growing a mushroom log, of course. If you didn’t realize this was possible, a quick online search shows you all the options and how easy it is....

What is Orange Bramble Rust? Orange rust is a disease that can infect blackberries, black and purple raspberries, and dewberries. Red raspberries are immune. The disease is caused by two different species of fungus. One, Arthuriomyces peckianus, is more common in the northeastern U.S. and affects all the types of brambles listed above. The other, Gymnoconia nitens, is more common in the southern U.S. and mostly affects blackberries. Orange rust infection relies on very wet, relatively cool conditions....

Banana Plants in Winter Temperatures below freezing will kill a banana’s leaves, and just a few degrees lower will kill the plant down to the ground. If your winters never get below the high 20s Fahrenheit (-6 to -1 C.), your tree’s roots may be able to survive outside to grow a new trunk in the spring. Any colder, though, and you’ll need to move it inside. The absolute easiest way to deal with banana plants in winter is simply to treat them as annuals....

Phytophthora Symptoms on Pepper Plants Pepper plant blight manifests in many different ways, depending on what part of the plant is infected and at what stage of growth the infection set in. Many times, seedlings infected with phytophthora die shortly after emergence, but older plants usually continue to grow, developing a dark brown lesion near the soil line. As the lesion spreads, the stem is slowly girdled, causing sudden, unexplained wilting and the eventual death of the plant – root symptoms are similar but lack the visible lesions....

What is Popcorn Cassia? Native to central and eastern Africa, the plant is a perennial at least in zones 10 and 11 (some sources list it as hardy down to zone 9 or even 8), where it can grow up to 25 feet (7.5 m.) tall. It often tops out at 10 feet (30 m.), however, and stays even smaller in cooler climates. Even though it’s extremely frost tender, it grows so quickly that it can be treated as an annual in colder zones, where it will grow to only a few feet (91 cm....

Prune Dwarf Virus Info Prune dwarf virus is a systemic viral infection. It is most prevalent in cherries, plums, and other stone fruits. Also known as sour cherry yellows, prune dwarf virus is spread by pruning with infected tools, budding, and grafting. Infected trees can also produce infected seed. Prune dwarf virus symptoms initially start with a yellow mottling of the leaves. After this, the leaves will suddenly drop. New leaves may regrow, but they soon become mottled and drop as well....

Care of Rhododendrons in Winter Caring for your rhododendrons through the cold season is easier if you understand how these plants are damaged to begin with. Cold injury in rhododendron is caused by too much water evaporating from the leaves at once, without anything to replace it. When cold, dry winds blow across leaf surfaces, they tend to take a lot of extra fluid with them. Unfortunately, in the winter, it’s not uncommon for this to happen when the ground is frozen solid, limiting how much water can be brought back into the plant....

Ruffled Fan Palm Care Growing ruffled fan tree is pretty easy if you follow the basic care advice below: The ruffled fan palm houseplant prefers partial to complete shade. It can tolerate more sun when it is more established, but prefers shadier conditions. Too much direct sunlight will turn their leaves brown. This is a fantastic palm to grow in cooler climates since they can tolerate a minimum temperature of about 32 degrees F....

When to Repot a Sago Palm How do you know when to repot a sago palm? Often, the plant itself will tell you. Sago palms’ roots are surprisingly large for the size of their foliage. Even if your palm looks modest above ground, you may notice roots escaping through drainage holes, water taking a long time to drain, or even the sides of your container bulging out. This means it’s time to repot!...

What is a Starfish Sansevieria? Starfish Sansevieria ‘Boncel’ plants are rare but worth searching for. They are a more compact hybrid of Sansevieria cylindrica, or snake plant, a more common succulent. The plant has fan-shaped, light green foliage with dark green concentric circles from the top to the bottom of the leaf. Young “pups” spring from the base of the plant and can be easily transplanted to propagate new plants....

About Mandrake Roots and Rhizomes Mandrake, Mandragora officinarum, is most famous for its root. The large, thick taproot splits characteristically into a shape that resembles the human form. This gave rise to many of the legends associated with the plant. Mandrake plants propagate naturally through rhizomes. These fleshy, underground growths are actually specially adapted stems. They grow under the soil and send out new shoots and roots. These develop out of the rhizome’s nodes....