Kathy Zengolewicz

In the kitchen: A Boston fern placed in a wooden basket looks great on top of your refrigerator. You can start a small herb garden on your window sill above your sink.

In the bath: Place an African violet on the tank top of your commode. Hang a spider plant from a corner or in a window.

In the bedroom: placing a fragrant plant like an azalea or a rose plant on your night table will also give you pleasant dreams.

In the living room: Place an English ivy plant in a brass container and place it on the mantle or a curio cabinet. Placing plants on end or coffee tables in unusual containers such as baskets or an old Victorian shoe makes the room interesting and entertaining.

In the dining room: Shop around at some flea markets or garage sales for an old bird cage. Placing a trailing ivy plant in the cage looks beautiful.

Indoor plants need lots of TLC, so make sure to create a routine of watering and weeding dead leaves from the plant to keep it healthy. Feed your plants a multi-purpose plant food like Miracle-Gro every two weeks and watch them flourish and grow.

When you decorate your home with live plants the benefits can be plentiful.

Take care. I’ll talk to you soon!

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Kathy Zengolewicz

Indoor gardens can be made to exude beauty in a room.  They are the perfect solution for apartment dwellers who don’t have room for an outdoor garden. Believe it or not, indoor plants actually filter the air in your home. They do require some maintenance, but if you choose the right plants the maintenance time will be drastically reduced.  Let’s take a look at a couple of different ideas for an indoor garden.

These plants need a minimum of care and are inexpensive to buy.

A pothos plant, or devil’s ivy as it is sometimes called, is the most common indoor house plant. It has even survived bachelor pads, now what does that tell you? It can survive and flourish with changing  levels of light, temperature, humidity and watering. It is one of a few species that can survive without any natural light source.

A spider plant. Everyone knows how easy it is to care for a spider plant. Why not start your plant from a small cutting/clipping and see how big it grows in a few months time.

A bromeliad is another excellent indoor plant. The have colorful foliage and they adapt nicely to growing conditions that exist in most houses.

Another good idea is to create an herb garden to sit on your kitchen counter or window sill. Make sure  to grow only the herbs that you will use in your cooking.

This should be enough information to get you started on your indoor garden.

Indoor plants, however, do need consistency with watering and feeding. I will blog about watering, feeding and decorating with indoor plants at a later time, so stay tuned!

Take care. I’ll talk to you soon!

Post from: Keeping the Castle

After some research, I found some fall blooming flowers that will help to keep your yard looking great.  I didn’t have to look far for help.  Better Homes & Gardens always has great tips for your home.  It’s interesting that many of these flowers are not the traditional fall colors. 

You might want to try these fall blooming flowers:

• aster
• sweet autumn clematis – a beautiful, fast-growing, aggressive vine
• toad lily
• goldenrod
• russian sage
• perennial sunflower
• colchicum
• helenium
• sedum
• red spider lil
• japanese anemone
• turtlehead
• fall crocus
• monkshood
• leadplant
• mexican sage
• anise hyssop
• witch hazel

The Aster, Clematis, and Russian Sage are some of my favorites.  It was hard to pick because most of them are very beautiful.  Which of these fall blooming flowers do you like best?

For more information, as well as pictures of each plant, visit Better Homes & Gardens.  Image from BGH.

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Now that’s it’s the end of summer, stores are drastically marking down their patio furniture.  Most stores have marked their inventory down 75% percent!  I found chairs, tables, and benches, but unfortunately I could not find a matching set of anything.  Perhaps you will have better luck than I did.  I’m still hoping for an unexpected bargain somewhere.

Another low cost item to buy right now is plants.  You can find plants, trees, and shrubs at slashed prices.  Monday I purchased two blueberry bushes for less than $11 each.  I’m hoping for some yummy blueberries next summer.  It’s also a great time to plant perennials and trees.  The cooler weather doesn’t dry out plants the way that summer does and it allows plants to expand their roots.

What purchases have you considered during this fall season?

image sxc.hu

Post from: Keeping the Castle

Several years ago, my parents gave me some volunteer bushes they had growing in their yard.  I planted the small bushes in my yard and within a year or so, the bushes were tall and well developed.  The bushes didn’t cost me any money.

Volunteer plants are a great inexpensive way to help landscape your yard.  You can check with friends, neighbors, and family to see if they have any volunteer plants in their yard that you might like.  You can return the favor and by offering your extra plants to them.  Also, to help save money you can save the plastic pots from store bought plants.  Transplant the shrubs, bushes, and other plants into the pots to help save on your gardening supplies.

Have you ever used volunteer plants? 

image (c) Karen Weideman

Post from: Keeping the Castle