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If you prefer, you can view this month's issue online where you can also subscribe if this copy has been forwarded to you by a friend.

If you are reading the text version you will need to go online to see the videos.

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In this issue:

- Letter from the Editor
- Flowers and Sheep
- 5 Rose Garden Ideas
- Daylilies
- Special Offers
- Tailpiece

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Hi

Welcome to the July issue of Garden Ramblings. In common with recent issues there are two articles by guest authors this month, both on highly practical topics.

First James Ellison dispells some common myths about roses before giving you his "5 Rose Garden Ideas".

Our second guest is Robin Monarch whose subject is "Daylilies...Beauty for a Day in Every Way".

As usual there is a Special Offers section with all the bargains that I've managed to find this month.

It's getting harder to find a video that is worth watching, but this one has some good flower shots - just ignore the sheep!

Enjoy the issue.

Hugh

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Lo mas bonito de la naturaleza con musica de Enya

5 Rose Garden Ideas
by James Ellison

If you are like me and have been scared away from growing roses because you believed they were hard to grow, it’s time to put away your incorrect conception. Roses are amazingly easy to grow and care for. They are far from being the picky, pest-infested plants that they are believed out to be.

Roses have 5 fundamental requirements:

1. They need plenty of sun. With very few exclusions, roses enjoy the sun. Select a spot for roses that has at least 6 hours of sun per day, and they will pay you back with fine-looking, flashy blooms.

2. Water is a must. Roses are thirsty plants. Prepare to give your rose garden a good everyday soaking to add-on to the rain.

3. Pests need to be controlled. Roses are inclined to draw in pestering bugs like aphids and Japanese beetles. There are all kinds of organic treatments if you are opposed to spraying with a pesticide planned for roses.

4. Roses like to eat, so feed. The results will be more, complete and more colorful flowers if you nourish your roses every month with a well balanced fertilizer.

5. Pluck your roses. For sure, roses need to be pruned and groomed. The more that can be put on table for display. The more you pluck your roses, the more you will get.

What do you think, have you got a spot in your yard that gets at least six hours of sun a day, is close enough to the garden hose that watering is easy, willing to keep the pest away and is easily accessible by paths and walkways? If so, you have a great location for a rose garden.

Several ideas for rose gardens you might consider are:

Rose Garden Fence - rambling and climbing roses are determined climbers. Try blanketing a chain link fence with a rose plant every 2 to 3 feet. Begin with bare-stemmed root stock, and coach new growth on the chain links and support frames. Inside 3 to 4 years, you will have a good wall of flowering roses.

Corner Rose Garden - Use a bare, sunny corner in your yard. It can be the perfect location for a climbing rose garden. Begin with several large boulders or rocks, plant 3 to 5 ground-cover or rambling roses.In a few years, you will find you are spending more time controlling them than trying to make them grow.

Centerpiece Rose Garden for Your Front Entrance - Plant a rose bush at the base of the driveway light, and coach a few stalks to grow up on the lamp post. Everyone will say Wow! Roses will twine up the pole, and over the top of the light and fall around the ground at its base.

Patio Rose Garden - Miniature hybrids and tea roses are extremely cheerful flourishing in terracotta pots and other containers. Use a sunny patio, try filling up a large strawberry jar with few tea rose bushes, and plant the spaces with plants like alyssum and lobelia. ======== Mixed-Up Rose Garden - Garlic and onion plants make great companion and protector plants to roses. The long, peaky leaves of onion, garlic and chive sets disguise leggy rose stalks.

Include a skirt of low-growing ground cover, and permit the roses to give shade for impatiens and shrinking violets. Garlic and onions are known for keeping away many rose pests.

Jim's articles are from extensive research on each of his topics. You can learn more of roses and organic fertilizers by visiting: Roses http://www.basic-info-4-organic-fertilizers.com/roses.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Ellison

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Daylilies...Beauty for a Day in Every Way
by Robin Monarch

Daylilies are perfect for you if are looking for a versatile flower that can be used anywhere in your sunny garden areas.

Whether you need an orange flower, or maybe a red one, or even a yellow one. And if you want petals that are double or peony-like, maybe even ruffled with wavy edges and with a different color on the edges of the flower too.

You need look no further than to that beauty for a day...the daylily. That is correct. Variety in size, color and form...the daylily has it all.

These beauties come as small as miniatures with flowers that are less than 3 inches in diameter up to an astonishing 7-1/2 inch diameter of the Orchid Corsage daylily. When it comes to height, there are the dwarf daylilies with scapes to only about 12 inches tall or if you prefer, the Autumn King will grow to well over 5 feet.

Daylilies are available in solid colors of near white to yellow, orange, red, purple, and pink. From bi-colors with petals (inner segments) and sepals (outer segments) being different colors like the Frans Hals to bi-tones with lighter sepals and darker petals and reverse bi-tones with darker sepals and lighter petals. If you would prefer, you could choose an unusual blend like the Late Adagio which intermingles two or more colors or an overlay which occurs in a flower with another color overlaying the basic color.

If you are looking for something rather unique in flower coloring, be sure to check out some of the daylilies with eyezones: Siloam Tee Tiny, Court Magician, Lavender Eyes or Two Part Harmony. Or look for some of these beauties that have a picotee edging...where the edge is a different color than the base color of the flower. A beautiful picotee example is the Ana Marie Margetts daylily.

When it comes to the actual flower forms, you can find daylilies as doubles, Siloam Olin Frazier, being peony-like or ruffled with edges that are crimped or wavy. You will also find daylilies with flowers that appear star shaped with spaces between the petal segments and spider-types like Open Hearth where petal ratios are 4:1, length-to-width. You will also be able to find those daylilies which resemble a true lily, the trumpet forms, where the petals rise upward with a gentle flare.

These versatile flowers may tend to break your heart though as, generally, the beauty of the daylily bud is in bloom for a single day before it begins to wither. All is not lost, however, as multiple buds on each daylily scape will provide plenty of beautiful blooms over several weeks during each bloom season.

Whatever color, size or form of flower you are looking for you will want to be sure to check out what that beauty for a day, the daylily, has to offer.

About the Author Robin, a gardening enthusiast, published and manages a website for people wanting to get their flower garden set up quickly 'n easily. You can see her site at http://www.Gardening-Quick-n-Easy.com

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Special Offers

Although we are in the middle of the peak selling season there are still some reductions to be found. At Gardener's Supply Company they are in the middle of their Hot Summer Sale with up to 63% off garden and landscaping supplies as well as some items for the home. Currently there is another promotion for a 15% discount on all purchases when you spend $50. This runs until the 8th August.

Nothing special at Dutch Gardens this month, but there are some Bargain Bags in the Collections section.

Nature Hills Nursery are offering Potted Nikko Blue Hydrangeas at 25% off and, if you are looking for a tree, the saving is 50% this month. Click the banner for details and look for the Clearance Items.

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Tailpiece

Greening the Desert

Please feel free to pass on this newsletter to your gardening friends. Do let me have your feedback and suggestions to: [email protected]

That's all until next month but in the meantime you can always look at my Blog Garden Supplies News