The continued existence of the plant is completely reliant upon the foliage, terete leaves which have become completely rounded, thinner than a pencil, their surface reduced to the minimum to prevent overheating and dehydration. No part of the plant is soft, the roots are thin and wiry, the leaves hard, almost rough to the touch. Thus the plant is able to stand a severe climate, at the same time capable of extracting what little moisture there is available through its foliage.

They grow from a fleshy horizontal rhizome which lies on the ground. Their plants form a rosette of leaves and bloom from the centre upon maturity of the growth. The glistening beauty of the leaves can be a deep velvety green, copper or mauve, laced with gold or silver threads.

Lacking the rigidity to grow upright the plant forms a pendent green shower, ideally fitted to a cooler climate which. experiences high winds. In cultivation it is ideally suited to culture on bark.

There are a number of platyceriums available, but this is the one most likely to be encountered. All require similar conditions in which to grow, and the emphasis should he on moisture and warmth.

Fresh plants may be raised from top cuttings 6 in. in length inserted in a warm propagator at almost any time of the year other than in the depth of winter.

Platyceriums can he used in a number of ways : as conventional pot plants, attached to pieces of bark or wood or, better still, several plants can be grouped together in a hanging basket. Simple wire baskets are by far the best and should be line, with sphagnum moss (not polythene, which is often used today) before being filled with a-peaty compost. Give the compost a good watering.

There are a number of other pileas that one is likely to come across, the majority of them being reasonably easy to manage, but by far the best introduction has been P. repens, better known as P. Moon Valley, which is a really superb little plant, very easy to manage.

Landscaping for the yard surrounding your home or business isn’t an amateur undertaking, and the many uses of mulch, topsoil and gardening materials in landscaping requires some serious experience and know-how. If you are thinking about using mulch or topsoil in your landscaping projects, there are a few things you need to keep in mind to guarantee success.

You may have enough funds to hire a professional landscaper to get the job done for you, even if it is a larger yard that will need plenty of mulch and topsoil. Believe it or not, some smaller and affordable local landscaping companies can do just as good a job as larger companies.

If you live in a residential neighborhood or own your own building, then you know how common the need for landscaping is in today’s world. This means that there will always be plenty of options to choose from when it comes to buying and using topsoil, mulch and stone for your project.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with experimenting with your own landscaping project if you don’t have the money to hire a professional company to do it for you. Luckily, working with mulch and gardening doesn’t allow for many bad mistakes that can’t be easily fixable if you decide to change how things look in your yard.

During the winter months plants should be kept very much on the dry side, particularly so where the lower temperature is likely to apply. In these conditions plants will almost inevitably lose a number of leaves, but this should not cause too much concern as they quickly refurbish themselves when better spring growing conditions arrive.

So the most limiting factor in their commercial prospects is the time required to raise marketable plants. However, there is no reason why the interested greenhouse or garden-room owner with time to wait for results should not grow them with complete success in conditions that need not be too sophisticated.

Besides being excellent plants for the garden room, quite unexpected successes are frequently achieved when they are used purely for indoor decoration. Indoors it is most important that plants should have adequate light in which to grow, and that the compost must not become too wet for long periods – permanently saturated compost will result in eventual root failure which in turn will mean the loss of the plant.

The plants have oval ribbed pseudobulbs with a solitary wide, leathery leaf. They are evergreen, the occasional leaf being shed from the back of the plant every other year or so. Sympodial orchids are those which start each new growth from the base of the previous one, and so on in a theoretically unending annual cycle. They cannot die, but they can be killed! In their natural habitat orchids have been found consisting of hundreds of pseudobulbs, all on one plant many years old! One, two or more new growths can be made in one growing season.

This lip is a strange adaption; it has two ‘horns’ which present a wide opening to the pollinating insect which is guided by these extreme measures along the right path for pollinating. The lip is thick and fleshy with a shiny surface.

Some may be covered on the outside by the bracts which carry the leaves; others will be perfectly clean from bracts and are green and fresh-looking for many years; others have a protective bract which will remain green until the pseudobulb has matured, when the bract shrivels and dies.

These tropical forest plants require a warm, humid atmosphere, but should not be too wet at their roots, so a well-drained compost is essential. To encourage drainage a 2-in. layer of crocks should be placed in the bottom of the pot before introducing the compost, which should he of a peaty nature.

Almost anything that will produce fruit when grown as a pot plant has a fascination for a great many gardeners and the pomegranate is no exception. But, like many other fruits grown in pots, this one is not particularly exciting, as the fruits generally remain quite small and more often than not will split their outer skins before they have ripened properly. Nevertheless, it is quite an attractive plant whose colourful orange flowers are often confused with those of the fuchsia when seen for the first time.

These tropical forest plants require a warm, humid atmosphere, but should not be too wet at their roots, so a well-drained compost is essential. To encourage drainage a 2-in. layer of crocks should be placed in the bottom of the pot before introducing the compost, which should he of a peaty nature.

The use of a curved deck railing is very important on every deck. It is an art piece used to enhance the curve appeal of your deck, in case you are planning to build a curved one. Without it, your curved deck will not be as good looking as you would want it to appear. On top of that, it won’t look complete at all. So while you are still in the planning stage of your deck, including it in the design if you want a curved deck will be best. This way, you wont have to try injecting it into the lay out and making the trouble of redesigning the entire task.

Building a curved deck railing is a bit difficult, which is why it is not recommended for DIYs. But there are real inventive and skilled people who can actually do the job. There are prefabricated curved deck railings that you can acquire for the building plans. These are perfectly crafted to match standard sizes and shapes of a curved deck so you will need no more cuttings or modifications on both your deck and your acquired prefab deck railing.

These members of the Araceae family provide us with many fine green plants with leaves of an infinite variety of shapes much sought after by those wanting plants with an architectural appearance.

All of those suitable for pot culture can be raised from cuttings taken in autumn or spring, though autumn cuttings taken after plants have flowered is advised as they get off to a much better start for the new season. Cuttings about 4 in. in length should be removed and allowed to dry for twenty four hours before they are inserted in sandy compost.

Of those offered for sale Peperomia magnoliaeJhlia is probably the best known. It has stiff leaves with cream and green variegation compactly arranged on short, stout stems. Similar in colour P. glabella variegata is of natural trailing habit, and to keep in good shape requires to be renewed regularly by propagating easily rooted cuttings a few inches in length.

Fresh plants can be started very easily from cuttings which will root at almost any time if conditions arc agreeable. White flowers are produced in summer, the pistils of which open outwards at the slightest breath of wind hence the common name.

Mauna Loa, the latter being much the scarcer of the two and having generally larger flowers and leaves than the former. Belonging to the Araccae family, they require moist, warm and shaded conditions – bright sunlight will quickly drain the rich green colouring from the leaves.

Plants can be kept from one year to the next, but it is better to start with new plants. They can he increased from cuttings taken from the old plant in March or April and rooted in warmth in a sandy compost, or from seed sown in February or early March in a temperature of 18C.

Once they have rooted well into this medium they can be transferred to a more conventional compost, but the emphasis should still be largely on a peat-based mixture. Healthy plants produce a regular succession of creamy white flowers that keep well when cut, so arc much in demand by those interested in flower arranging.

A group from which many hybrid genera have been produced is the sub-tribe Laeliniiae. This includes the natural genera of Cattleya, Laelia and Brassavola among others. All these interbreed with such ease, and so many hybrids have been raised, that there are more intergeneric than specific hybrids.

Encyclia cochleata was the first tropical orchid to flower in Great Britain. It did so in 1786 at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The plant belongs to a small select group of oncidiums, sometimes placed into a separate genus, Cyrtochilum, all of which have club- shaped sepals with a characteristic small lip. They all produce trailing flower spikes up to 12 ft (4 m) long on a mature plant. The 3 in (8 cm) flowers are born on short side branches with two to four on a branch.

When mature, the club-shaped pseudobulbs topped by two leaves can produce a flower spike which will continue to produce a succession of blooms lasting for twelve months or more. At this stage it becomes perpetually blooming.

Orchids become rare for various reasons; the overcollecting of natural colonies and destruction of the habitat are the most common reasons, to which can be added the difficulty to grow or flower in cultivation.