Solar Rainbow Maker

This year for Valentine’s Day my son wanted to get mommy something that would “make her happy every day”.  He didn’t recognize the sarcasm of me saying “she already has Papa”.  We found the perfect gift.  A Solar Rainbow Maker.  Its a simple solar panel connected to a motor that has a set of gears that turn one or two Swarovski crystals that take the source of the power- the sunlight- and breaks it into its comprising colors.  The room that its placed in comes alive with dancing rainbow bits that truly does make mommy happy every day.

Ours is set in our kitchen window and throws bits of moving colored light throughout our kitchen and eating area.

Get Your Own Solar Rainbow Maker Now

EasyBloom Update

I’m still playing with my EasyBloom monitor.  I’ve all but given up on “suggest” mode at this point.  Although I have a thriving collection of African violets, sinularia, begonias, orchids (4 different species ranging from common to rare and difficult) and a few carnivorous plants the EasyBloom suggests I limit myself to ZZ plants, ivy and ferns.

Despite the twitchy suggest mode I love the EasyBloom!  I’m mapping all of my areas and moving outside with the device in the next few weeks.  More information to come and I continue to play.

Read more on the EasyBloom

Pond Project Day 1

As with any project I take on, day 1 is really just day 1 of work with many many days of thought and planning proceeding.  I’ve been wanting to deconstruct the rose garden in my yard, dig out the shallow, round pool in its center and put in a real pond for quite some time.  Also like many of my garden projects I’ve had a plan in my head with out everything quite worked out so I could be flexible and not drive myself crazy on the details.

For a few weeks my son and I have been scouring the garden centers looking at the different molded pond forms.  I decided a while ago to not use a flexible liner.  I have built a sizable pond for my parents using a molded form and was happy with the results.  I wanted a 60-100 gallon form with a few shelf areas for marginal, potted plants but was not set on a shape.  The little gardener and I were settled on the 70 gallon butterfly shaped pond form Lowes stocks this year.  Like most plans we have it was open to change- we made one last stop before heading to Lowes.  As we cruised the isles of Home Depot my little helper screamed “daddy what about that one?” while pointing to a huge white box on an upper shelf.  The box he had spied contained a 60 gallon pond “kit” with a pre-formed liner and a tiny pump with 2 nozzles.

The box was huge and had 2 years of dust and crud on it but the most interesting part of the box was the newly placed clearance tag offering the “kit” for $50.  SOLD!  We wrangled the box onto our cart, paid for it and squeezed it into our car.  We had to rip it out of that crusty box to fit in into our vehicle and son gardener was hugging it like a new puppy most of the way home.

To help understand the scale of the area pictured- the pool in the center surrounded by the monkey grass is 4 foot across.

I knew the most painful part of the project would be moving the 20+ mature rose plants to a new, suitable location.  Early spring was ticking away and the roses were starting to sprout early leaf buds so it was now or never.  I had already decided the roses were destine for the south-east side of the house that gets great sun- previous years tomatoes have excelled on the same track of garden.  Moving rose plants is not easy if done right.  I used a long, narrow full-size spade I inherited from my dad to dig around each rose base a full 1 1/2′ to 2′ around each plant.  I dug slightly larger holes in the rose’s new locations.  After replacing the soil around the roses I broke out the hose for soak time.  Its been my experience that this is the most important step in successful rose transplants.  I’ll be soaking then daily for the next week to make sure the roots are well packed in their new home.

One last step needed to be done before I ended for the day.  With my spade I carefully eased the blade between the existing pool and the dense monkey grass and pryde back to lift the pond from the ground.  It had been set there at least 3 years ago (probably many more) and fought to stay but broke loose.  I dragged it out of the garden as a symbolic gesture to indicate day 1 of the new pond project was over.  All of the roses have new homes and the site where the new water garden will be is getting closer to being workable.

Next- digging the hole for the new pond form and removing that hideous brick border.

EasyBloom Computerized Plant Conditions Monitor Hands-On

I’ve written a review of sorts of my favorite garden toy of 2009.  Its probably too early in 2009 to declare a favorite but you have to see what this baby can do!  The EasyBloom looks like a tacky plastic flower but its inside what counts.  The EasyBloom has a light, humidity and temperature sensor in its head.  It records these critical gardening parameters on its internal memory.  The lower part of the EasyBloom has a USB conncetion to connect to your computer.  There is a second segment of the EasyBloom that connects to the USB port and has a soil analizer that reads your soil using two prongs.  I could go on and on but I already did- see the hands-on write-up for all of the details.