eMail coming in with hedge questions would amaze you with the volume

The main questions are about ficus hedges and "WHAT NOW COACH" pleadings as the ficus hedge gets out of control, or loses leaves down low or starts breaking up walkways and driveways

Folks who have not yet planted ficus are interested in alternative plants

What everyone seems to neglect is maintenance.  No matter what hedge plant you select, you must prune for shape and prune for height.  This pruning will never stop, especially in warmer zone 9 and zone 10 climates where hedges start looking unkempt after just 6 weeks or so (after the last pruning)

Most folks in Florida hire hedge cutters (usually their lawn maintenance crew) to handle the pruning

Here's the point >>> it would not be unusual for a homeowner to spend $1,000, $2,000, even $3,500 a year to prune that hedge (and feed it, and water it)

10 years = $10,000 or $20,000 or $35,000

With those kinds of maintenance dollar numbers on the table, a fence makes more and more sense

A "best of both worlds" idea would be a sturdy and tall chain link fence where you plant vines to grow on the fence

The advantages are many…

1.  No pruning or just once-a-year pruning (saves a bundle of cash)

2.  You select a vine whose blooms you enjoy so you get color

3.  You can have low plants at the bottom of your fence and have the vines covering the rest so you get excellent privacy, foliage and color

4.  You could have more than one kind of vine, so if you have a long fence, you could have sections of different colors

5.  You are a good neighbor (whereas hedges encroach on your neighbors' property)

6.  When you sell your home, buyers like fences

7.  Hedges keep getting wider and wider over time.  This way, you have a thin line and no branches crowding you out of walking beside your home or by your pool

8.  If you change your mind with a hedge, it's expensive and semi-destructive to remove

9.  Hedges really don't produce blooms/flowers/color because with every pruning you are cutting off branch tips from which flowers would form, hence, plants like hibiscus sound great (for flowers) but in practice, you get almost no flowering

10.  Fences are real barriers, e.g. kids, dogs, iguanas are kept where you want them to be

11.  Vines are planted typically at 6-10 foot intervals so you pay way less for plant material and vines grow WAY WAY faster than hedge plants so you get privacy coverage the first year

12.  Replacing the vines is cheap too if you decide to redecorate outdoors

Cya

TIVO is very popular …a must have service for many, but for me, it makes me crazy …truthfully, I hate it

Why?

Let me do my TOP 2,000 REASONS TO NOT HAVE TIVO

1.  TIVO can suddenly turn the screen black,  Usually, I still have audio but changing the channel using the TV remote will not work

2.  Sometimes, TIVO changes the channel to whatever.  If you don't scramble quickly to the TIVO remote to click for "Watch Live TV" it may take a while to get back to where you were

3.  We've had it where TIVO selects a channel and does not allow any change with either the TIVO or TV remote control.  We have to unplug TIVO to re-start watching TV

4.  You're watching live TV and TIVO changes the channel.  You click for "Watch Live TV" mode, but TV again changes the channel.  This can continue for hours

5.  TIVO vastly slows down channel changing in "Watch Live TV" mode.  I click or input a channel number, and it's slow

6.  My wife sets TIVO to record a certain show and TIVO selects a different channel we don't even get to record (black screen is recorded)

7.  You enter a time and channel to record and TIVO will not accept your commands.  It changes the time or the channel to whatever

8.  TIVO will not record any channel you are not already watching…that's stupid

9.  You are watching live TV and TIVO changes the channel.  You click to say "No" but the channel changes anyway…to another live TV channel (not the one you were watching)

10.  You click the button to turn on the TV and it will not turn on.  You have to first use the TIVO remote then try again

OK, OK, so it's not 2,000 reasons, but it's still a nightmare.  Even my wife who uses TIVO (I have never once recorded anything) admits it's "difficult"

NO !!!  TIVO IS A NIGHTMARE !!!

A lot of email comes in from folks who want to know what TO DO to their plants



....because their plant is dropping leaves, the plant is limping, plant leaves are turning yellow or turning brown, tree is not fruiting, shrub is not flowering and many others

DOING things to plants is a wrong notion

In the wild, who DOES anything to the plants?

Nature handles 100% of the care, automatically / NATURALLY is the word (as in the word NATURE)

In other words, plants CARE FOR themselves (via Nature's plan)

Plants don't need people to thrive / survive

All plants want is one main thing >>> proper conditions ....warmth, rain, nurtients in the soil

You provide the right conditions, Nature handles growing your plant to be happy, lovely and fruitful

More on this subject @ the main website ...click this page

The questions are coming in about wintering plants indoors

The shocking questions are the ones that ask about using the basement as a place to keep tropical plants over winter

Apparently, a lot folks think of plants as potatoes

A dark cold place (basement) somehow is logical ...NOT

Just think about it;  tropical plants have no "winter basement" ...imagine being in Brazil or Madagascar or even in Florida ...plants stay outdoors all year around, in the sun, in the warmth

True, a few lose their leaves in winter or most of their leaves and look kinda dead or sleeping, but the vast majority just slow down or some stop growing ...they don't "eat" much. if any, (fertilizer) in colder months either

For success, some pre-winter planning is the first step

Your main solution should be potted plants that are brought in to limp throught your cold months ...then again given their freedom outdoors come springtime

What do you need indoors?

1.  warmth

It's funny when folks write in and say something like "my plant room never gets to freezing" or "we keep the room over 50 degrees" etc

NEWS FLASH:  Temperatures below 65 are COLD temps

2.  sun/light/hours

Think about the number of hours of light in any window in your home versus outdoors in full sun ....there's a bunch of hours of difference, right?

light for 4 hours a day is going to be stressful on most every plant ...maybe you need lights, like commercial gro lights ...the differenece is the light spectrums which gro lights have ...they put out the kind of light waves that sun light does (compared to ordinary household light bulks)

the bad boys who grow marijuana indoors know all about gro lights

3.  water

The #1 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

The #2 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

The #3 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

especially in winter when plants are resting/semi-sleeping

read about watering here  http://mgonline.com/watering.html

4.  food

Do you eat in your sleep?

No you don't, and plants don't consume (much) food/fertilizer in cold months so skip feeding during all your cooler and cold months ...feeding is during all your warm and hot months (only)

have you read our houseplants articles series?

please read here for many more indoor plant care lessons

http://mgonline.com/articles.html

e.g.  #1  #2  #4  #6  #7  #9  #13

C Ya

I've written a new article about how to attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden.

It has dozens of photos of the plants you should select to create your own butterfly garden.

The pictures alone are worth the trip. Click here to see.