Planters And Hydrogel - Fashionable Things In The World Of Flowers

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The fashion for flowers has existed, probably, in all centuries since people began to specially grow them. Preferences were given to aromas, color, shape, simplicity and elegance, sophistication of certain species and varieties.

From the history of floriculture, everyone knows stories about the incredible power of tulips that have just appeared in Holland over lovers of beauty, about their desire to possess this beauty at any cost … In the vast sea of garden flowers, there were ups and downs of dahlias, phlox, small-bulbous, ground cover species, and in the indoor floriculture - their addictions and rejection up to the attachment of the title of "bourgeois" to certain types of flowers - geraniums, ficuses, balsams, etc. And what then?

Our gardens in the sun and in our homes are still filled with all kinds of plants that we just love, cherish and receive from them support and strength to live and create.

Accessories for bouquets

It was pleasant and surprising in the eighties for the first time to see at exhibitions, in the booklets of foreign companies, especially Dutch ones, a lot of accessories accompanying flowers at all stages of their life and up to the very top - the presentation of the incredible beauty of bouquets packed in something transparent, decorated with unprecedented ribbons, curly spirals, curls tied in bows. At the same time, a special material appeared - the piaflor floral sponge, which made the impossible possible. Now anyone, an amateur and a professional, on the basis of this sponge (having saturated it with water and fixing it with plaster, electrical tape, glue, scotch tape), even on a flat plate, could create an amazing composition of the flowers of his own garden, balcony, meadow and meadow under the window.

Fortunately for professionals and amateurs, now all accessories for growing and decorating flower arrangements have become quite an affordable reality. Glass and plastic balls, rhinestones, "stones", "peas" of all kinds of texture and color are offered for decorating the bottom of transparent vessels, in which fresh flowers and decorative compositions are placed. It has become fashionable to lay the same "stones" on the surface of the earth in flower pots. In the salons, you will be offered funny figurines of animals, elves, gnomes, fairies and Thumbelina, fixed on pegs, which are stuck into an earthen ball of a flower plant, creating a little fairy tale for children and adults. Festive compositions with fresh flowers and dried natural material include beads on thin flexible twigs, rhinestones, colored sisal fiber,transparent elastic fabric - organza, ribbons made of any material, sparkling spray paints and many of the most ordinary and unusual objects that help the author express his idea of beauty and create it for the joy of loved ones or winning a florist competition.

Pottery and plastic pots of all sizes and shapes with matching pallets can be found at any flower stand. Ceramic pots for almost every taste and style of the house fascinate the eye and torment the mind - what, finally, to choose

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Pots

I would like to say about the pots separately. First of all, to remind you that a flowerpot is a special vessel, a "vase" for a potted plant, where a flower is placed even in the most unpresentable pot. But look at how the plant and the entire interior around it are transformed with the appearance of a single pots, correctly selected in shape, size, color, style and other components! There may be a single plant in a room, but in a stylish pots - and this will become the main element of the interior, its completion and a source of good mood for all the inhabitants of the house and its guests.

Fashion nowadays is quite democratic and allows you to flaunt gold and silver, applied to ordinary flower pots in the form of multi-colored acrylic paints with any ornament, solid background, stripes, flowers and leaves that repeat the pattern of plants in this vessel. And you can use glass jars as a flowerpot, filling the space between the pot and the walls with colored sand, white perlite.

It is very fashionable to put flower pots in fabric bags (with plastic ones inside, but neatly pinned to an earthen coma so as not to stain the decor) from burlap, matting, linen, and even tying them with several strips of bast, which is called raffia abroad and is found to be a very stylish accessory … An applique with a motif repeating the appearance of the main plant is glued or sewn onto the bag. There can be an infinite number of options, there would be a desire. Here is such a gift version of any potted plant in a new style can be easily made in a matter of minutes, while the immense energy of children can be unobtrusively directed into a peaceful and beautiful channel.

Pots in the "antique" style are advised to make special magazines for flower lovers out of an old clay pot and multi-colored shards of ceramic tiles with your own hands, detailing the technique of execution. Mosaic countertops (on the bed of an old Singer sewing machine, for example), made in the same technique and used for arranging flowers, tea drinking in the garden and on the balcony, are very fashionable.

On sale there is an incredible variety of different lines of pots, solved in one decor: material, its texture, color, embossed decorations, shape from low, wide and round to high pyramidal, reverse conical, cylindrical, with sculptural comic figures and ornaments. It is essential that in one line you can find all the necessary sizes for plants of different ages, sizes and external appearance. Thanks to this variety, you can decorate every room in the house, including the kitchen, in your own style and mood.

By the way, in recent years, garden designers abroad have admired and recommend using pots of all sizes and shapes made of galvanized metal, practically our garden buckets … And diplomas at the exhibition in Chelsea are awarded to skillfully created gardens, very reminiscent of our half-deserted garden plots with an abundance of wild flowers. old carts, tools and buckets - such is the modern garden fashion, which prescribes maximum closeness to nature. So the flight of imagination and the set of accessories around flowers is not limited by anything.

Hydrogel

One of the pleasant and useful new products is the hydrogel, which appeared on the market several years ago, but has not yet entered the everyday life of gardeners.

There are different brands of it: hydrogel for growing seedlings, hydrogel - eco-soil, soil substitute in various modifications and, surprisingly and beautifully, of various colors.

The hydrogel for growing seedlings and adult plants is an environmentally friendly and safe material for humans and plants (it has the necessary sanitary and epidemiological conclusion), but it should be stored out of the reach of children in a closed container, it should not get into the body and mucous membranes.

In fact, a hydrogel is a powder that swells well in water and retains this water in itself, and gradually gives it to plant roots. There are many ways to use it.

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Using a hydrogel

Preparing the soil for sowing, picking or planting plants

A package of hydrogel weighing 8 g is poured into 1.5 l of water and stirred. After 30 minutes you get a "jelly", like wallpaper glue. This amount of gel is enough for 2-4 liters of soil, with which you need to mix it, and then fill the container with this substrate, where the plants will be sown or planted. The meaning of the innovation is that the watering frequency is reduced by 2-4 times. The creators of this product claim that 1 g of hydrogel binds up to 300 g of water. Each swollen lump of hydrogel becomes a microreservoir of water, which slowly releases moisture to the plant roots. Tests have shown that even in extreme heat, one watering per week is sufficient. A one-time application of the hydrogel to the soil in a garden bed, in a greenhouse or a greenhouse, in a pot or box, ensures its work to regulate humidity for up to 6 years. Very important,that the hydrogel improves the quality of all types of soils and substrates: heavy clay and loamy soils become looser, and light sandy and sandy loamy ones become more structural due to the formation of strong lumps.

Protecting the roots of seedlings from drying out

In 10 liters of water, 50-100 g of hydrogel powder is stirred (a smaller amount - in soft water), after 30 minutes a gel solution is obtained. The roots of tree seedlings, shrubs, seedlings without a lump are dipped in the resulting solution, while the gel envelops the roots and provides them with water for several days before planting. It is only necessary to cover, as usual, the roots with burlap from the direct rays of the sun and wind and spray them with water.

Sowing small seeds

When sowing small seeds, you do not need to prepare the mixture in advance, diluting the hydrogel in water. The developers propose to mix dry seeds and hydrogel powder in a 2: 1 ratio, sow in bowls, as is usually done, sprinkle with a layer of earth of the required thickness and water abundantly. Further care will consist in timely loosening of the soil and occasional watering.

Improving the water regime in existing plantings in the garden

To reduce irrigation work in areas with plants that have a superficial root system (strawberries, currants, sea buckthorn, flower perennials, etc.), dry hydrogel is scattered over the soil surface and mixed with it to a depth of about 10 cm, then watered abundantly with water. Consumption rate depends on the type of soil: on clay soil from 25 g per m², on sandy - up to 100 g per m².

Protection of soil from drying out in near-trunk circles of trees and shrubs

For adult plants, another option is proposed for using a hydrogel to reduce labor costs and create an optimal water and air regime for plants. 30 g of hydrogel are diluted in 10 liters of water, stirred and allowed to swell (40-45 minutes). During this time, they carefully remove a thin layer of soil under a tree or shrub, a large flower perennial, and set it aside. Now spread the swollen gel in a thin layer on the prepared area, sprinkle it with earth or any vegetable mulch from direct sunlight. In this case, mineral dressing is carried out in a weak concentration of the solution.

The most exotic novelty is hydrogel-eco-soil, that is, a soil substitute or an important additive to it. You can see plants planted in vessels with multi-colored granular or homogeneous gel at floristic exhibitions or in fashion salons. These can be cut plants in a bright frame of colored gel or flowers planted for a long time.

The decorative qualities of the hydrogel are undeniable: transparency, bright colors that often turn into one another, play of light and shadow, an unforgettable holiday presented by a master florist. Special brands of hydrogel are saturated with nutrients that are gradually released and supplied to plants, which allows you not to add additional nutrition and water for 2-3 months. Firm "Lakes" has developed more than 100 color shades of indelible color of the gel, which allows you to create durable multicolor compositions with living plants and all kinds of natural materials.

A solid gel is obtained by mixing a granular gel with a liquid gel binder, resulting in a product with greater clarity. This makes it possible to use vases up to 40 cm in diameter for compositions, where the entire volume is perceived. In a continuous gel, plant roots do not rot due to lack of water, and blue-green algae do not develop, which worsen the decorative properties of the granular gel. There are gels already colored with permanent dyes, as well as colorless and colored binding gels.

The most durable is a non-aqueous gel. It retains its decorative qualities for a long time and does not require any maintenance. Manufacturers of the new material consider the possibilities of hydrogel in ornamental gardening to be unlimited.