Home And Garden

As more people use marble tiles in their kitchens, bathrooms and entryways, the demand for products to clean this material is growing. With proper maintenance and upkeep, it’s not difficult to clean marble tiles at all. Floors should be swept regularly with a soft broom, and they can be wiped off periodically with a damp cloth. Marble tile should be sealed and polished a few times a year. To keep marble sparkling, homeowners should be sure to keep it free from routine dust and dirt. They should sweep the floor often with a soft bristled broom or vacuum it to pick up any loose dirt. This needs to be done at least two or three times a week, if not every day. Homeowners should be aware that loose dirt can easily be ground in as people walk across the floor. If visitors have been walking around in dirt or mud, an individual might ask them to remove their shoes before walking on the marble tiles. Sand, dirt and other debris left on the bottom of the shoe is abrasive, and it will first...

There are several methods you can use to clean a slate floor, ranging from basic upkeep like dusting and warm water washing to more intensive methods like applying waterproof sealants and using commercial stone and grout cleaning products. A lot depends on where the floor is, how it was laid, and what sort of traffic it normally sees. People with slate floors in their bathrooms usually need to think about water damage more than a business with a slate lobby, for instance. In most cases, taking simple, every day steps to keep the floor in good condition is all that is required to keep things looking good through years of use, though homeowners should be wary of using regular household cleaners on their floors. As durable as it looks, slate is a porous substance that can easily be damaged by abrasive or acidic compounds. Regular Dusting One of the best ways to keep your floor clean is to dust it regularly. People don’t often think about dusting their floors in part because the dust...

Common Names: garden lily Family: Liliaceae (lily Family) Description Which came first, the gardener or the lily? Lilies have graced our gardens for as long as there have been gardens! There are some 80-90 species in the genus Lilium (Formosan lily, for example), but most of us know the hybrids best, and there are thousands of them. Lilies grow from bulbs and some spread with stolons or rhizomes as well. They have stiff, usually unbranched, stems from 2 ft (60 cm) to 10 ft (3 m) tall, usually narrow leaves all along the stems, and large showy flowers at stem tips. The flowers may be trumpet shaped, bowl shaped, bell shaped, and/or with reflexed petals. Some have flowers that nod downwards, others look to the sky. All colors can be found except blue, and many lilies have sweetly fragrant flowers. The Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society have classified the lilies into nine divisions, based on their parentage and various characteristics of the flowers an...

Common Names: Arabian jasmine Family: Oleaceae (olive Family) Description Arabian jasmine is a bushy vine or scrambling shrub with shiny dark green leaves and fragrant little white flowers. Some of the evergreen leaves are in whorls of three and others are in opposite pairs. The long, angular shoots twist and twine as they clamber and sprawl over and through any support they can find. The waxy snow white flowers are about 1 in (2.5 cm) across, borne in clusters of 3-12, and intensely fragrant. They fade to pink as they age. Arabian jasmine blooms throughout the summer - and almost continuously in warm climates. The fruits are small black berries, but are seldom formed in cultivation. By far, the most common form of Arabian jasmine in cultivation is 'Grand Duke of Tuscany' (sometimes called 'Flore Pleno'), which has double flowers that look like miniature gardenias. Expect an Arabian jasmine to grow no more than 6-10 ft (1.8-3.1 m) high and just as wide in frostfree...

Common Names: tulip Family: Liliaceae (lily Family) Description There are some 120 species of wild tulips and more than 2300 extant named varieties of garden tulips. All tulips are hardy bulbous perennial herbs with mostly basal, straplike leaves. The flowers are usually cup or bowl shaped and usually have six tepals. However, there are tulips with star shaped flowers, double flowers, and tulips with tepals that are reflexed, elongated, or fringed. Most tulips produce a single flower on a central stem, but some species bear multiple flowers. Most tulips bloom in the spring. Tulips have been developed in nearly every color except true blue. Irregular stripes, streaks or speckles in tulip blossoms are called "broken" colors and are the result of a virus infection. Tulips with broken colors are often very attractive, and were formerly very valuable, but nowadays are hard to find. By international agreement, tulips are classified into 15 divisions and tulip names are regist...