This department deals with ideas, discovered short-cuts or economical alternatives to pricey items for the plant lover. We welcome your tip or hint and if published we'll extend your membership 6 months. Hopefully everyone can find something of interest to try or improve on. Please send them to Tips &Hints, 922 Norwood Drive, NorwalkIA 50211 orMembershipDirector@hotmail.com. Pictures are always helpful to explain your tip or hint.Tip #12 Plant supports. This is a great idea borrowed from our travels in England a few years ago visiting majestic castles and inspiring gardens that proves very useful in the New World. It begins with saving the live trimmed branches from trees and shrubs that otherwise would go into the yard waste bin, compost pile or into a farm ditch. Our goal is to provide a support for the stalks or stems of the plant to be close enough to lean against when the flower heads and their branches are reaching out forsunshine, support and a chance to bloom. A person selects the small limbs that have other branches which could support annuals, Peonies or vines when inserted into the ground. A sharpened end would permit deeper insertion and a sturdier support. The goal is to not see the sticks when the annuals/Peony stalks have matured or flowered/ so upper stick pruning might be in order later. This support could be used on Dahlias or other tender bulbs as well, eliminating the plant rings one normally wrestles with.
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