When I was born I was an ugly duckling, my mother wished for me to grow up and become a beautiful swan and therefore gave me a name called Yanhua. I have both Chinese and Korean connections and in both languages this name means beautiful flower. When I first came to Ireland and the UK, lots of people were curious to know the meaning of my name. This name is difficult to pronounce and remember for most westerners, so they call me by my English name - Shannon.
I may have grown up to be a beautiful swan (Sorry, for not being modest!) compared to an ugly duck, however, maybe because of my name, Yanhua, I have fallen in love with flowers and I feel that I have a special connection with flowers. Whether they are indoor plants in my house or in the front and back gardens, they tend to do very well. Of course the main reason is that I pay special attention and care to them and I feel they can feel it too. As a reward, my flowers tend to blossom longer, are bigger with more flowers and are healthier; all of that provides me with a beautiful garden and green living space.
Flowers and plants are just like any relationships in your life; if you pay special attention, care and put efforts to them they will reward you handsomely, but if you ignore them they tend to die or do poorly. The following tips are from many years of my own experience that worked well in my gardening:
* Roses: I have 22 different types of roses in my garden, they are absolutely beautiful and it's one of my favourites. They flower many times from May to late autumn and I love its variety, fragrances and different styles. I have Silver Jubilee, Paul's Scarlet, the climbing rose, Special Anniversary, Twist, Arthur Bell, Remember Me, Jackie Carter, David Austin and many more...
1. You can prune your roses in late autumn after flowering is over, but I have found March to be the best month for pruning roses. Make sure you cut the rose bush down to 6- 8 inches from the rose union. If the bush is too tall, the nutrition tends not to go up high and therefore the plant will produce less flowers. It also looks ugly as a tall bush with just a few flowers on top of it. Make sure that you cut off branches from the inner side of the bush, so air can circulate. Also cut off any suckers that do not produce any buds.
2. Feed plant food regularly (follow the instructions on the fertiliser container) to keep up nutrition from spring to late summer. This helps your roses flower bigger, longer and produce more buds.
3. Rose Clear: Roses attract lots of greenfly and the leaves can get spots and fungus. Rose Clear (an insecticide and fungicide) is an excellent solution to all of these problems and it works really well.
4. After the flower's are finished, make sure you cut them off regularly, known as dead-heading, this will help new buds coming up and the nutrition won't be wasted on producing seeds. This is very important to keep a long lasting rose garden.
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