Home And Garden

Master gardeners consider compost “black gold” for their lawns and gardens. One of the reasons is that compost is so rich in nutrients that it improves the fertility of your soil, making plants healthier. It’s a virtuous cycle for your soil. Food gets grown, consumed, and then the scraps go into your compost pile or bin. Later, the finished compost is used to nourish the soil again. So once you've finished making compost, how do you use it? There’s no need to worry, the answer is really simple. Use compost much as you would any sort of fertilizer or potting soil – it’s up to you whether you want to use compost while it’s fully decomposed, or even if there are still little bits of straw, hay, twigs and such in the mix.You can always put it through a compost sifter if you want it nice and broken up. Four of the most common uses for compost are: 1. A moisture holding mulch 2. A soil amendment.  3. A compost tea.  4. A lawn top dressing.  Mulch : If you are u...

Common Names:  screw pine Family:   Pandanaceae  (screw-pine Family) Description Screw pine is a palmlike evergreen with an upright stem (trunk) to 30 ft (9 m) or more high, and many horizontal spreading branches. At the end of each branch is a spiral rosette of long, linear leaves armed with small reddish teeth along the margins. Old leaf scars spiral around the branches and trunk, like a screw. The dark green leaves are around 6 ft (2 m) long, rather stiff, and have a waxy texture. Screw pine produces numerous aerial stilt roots that grow down to the ground and help support the branches which may spread to be wider than the tree's height. Screw pines are dioecious: The male plants produce fragrant colorful flowers in long spikes. The females produce weird looking pendulous fruits that resemble orange pineapples or oversized pine cones. Location There are more than 600 species of screw pines native to the Old World tropics in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Panda...