If you want to protect your fruit tree from pests during the summer, this is almost impossible to accomplish without the use of pesticides or chemicals. This might scare some people into thinking that the actual fruits will contain traces of the chemicals. If you do things correctly, you can get rid of all the pests and not infect the actual tree. If you’re going to be spraying chemicals, you most likely will be using either a handheld pump or a hose-end sprayer.

If you’re using the pump sprayers, you will be able to more accurately determine the mixing of the chemicals. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to spray it very far. Usually it won’t reach the tops of trees. This can be achieved with the hose end sprayers, but getting the correct mix of chemicals is quite a challenge. It all depends on your water pressure to get the correct mixture of chemicals, but water pressure is not constant. One day it might be lower, in which case your chemical content would be higher. The types of materials you buy for hose application are generally in an extremely strong form. They need to be severely diluted before they are weak enough to apply.

When you are mixing the chemicals for spraying, you need to follow the directions exactly. You are dealing with dangerous chemicals, so its best to do exactly what the professionals recommend and wear the proper protective gear. When you’re dealing with chemicals like this, you should always wear rubber gloves. Use the exact portions indicated on the label. Estimation won’t work in this case, and you could end up killing your tree or not killing any bugs. You should usually start by putting in the proper amount of pesticide, and then top it off with all the water.

Now comes the spraying. The goal is to spray the same amount over all the areas. You still don’t want to spray so much that enough builds up to drip off of the leaves. Usually you will want to get a ladder so that you can get within spraying distance of all the portions of the tree. Apply the pesticide in even, full sweeps as to hit every piece. Never go over the same part twice, because that is when you start to drip.

If you’re dealing with a large and well developed tree, you should stand on a ladder under the base of the trunk. Spray all segments from the inside towards the outside. After you are done spraying the outer canopy, you’re ready to get out from under there and work on the rest. Once you are done cleaning, be sure to fully and thoroughly clean off every bit of equipment you used, including your clothes. Don’t include the clothes you wore while spraying in the rest of your family’s laundry.

While you’re spraying for pests, the main thing to keep in mind is to avoid dripping onto the ground. When this happens, the pesticides will be absorbed by the roots of the tree and be transported to the actual fruits on the trees. As long as the pesticides stay on the outside and you wash your fruit thoroughly before you eat it, you will have nothing to worry about as far as being poisoned goes.

If we could garden without any interference from the pests which attack plants, then indeed gardening would be a simple matter. But all the time we must watch out for these little foes little in size, but tremendous in the havoc they make.

As human illness may often be prevented by healthful conditions, so pests may be kept away by strict garden cleanliness. Heaps of waste are lodging places for the breeding of insects. I do not think a compost pile will do the harm, but unkempt, uncared-for spots seem to invite trouble.

There are certain helps to keeping pests down. The constant stirring up of the soil by earthworms is an aid in keeping the soil open to air and water. Many of our common birds feed upon insects. The sparrows, robins, chickadees, meadow larks and orioles are all examples of birds who help in this way. Some insects feed on other and harmful insects. Some kinds of ladybugs do this good deed. The ichneumon-fly helps too. And toads are wonders in the number of insects they can consume at one meal. The toad deserves very kind treatment from all of us.

Each gardener should try to make her or his garden into a place attractive to birds and toads. A good birdhouse, grain sprinkled about in early spring, a water-place, are invitations for birds to stay a while in your garden. If you wish toads, fix things up for them too. During a hot summer day a toad likes to rest in the shade. By night he is ready to go forth to eat but not to kill, since toads prefer live food. How can one “fix up” for toads? Well, one thing to do is to prepare a retreat, quiet, dark and damp. A few stones of some size underneath the shade of a shrub with perhaps a carpeting of damp leaves, would appear very fine to a toad.

There are two general classes of insects known by the way they do their work. One kind gnaws at the plant really taking pieces of it into its system. This kind of insect has a mouth fitted to do this work. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are of this sort. The other kind sucks the juices from a plant. This, in some ways, is the worst sort. Plant lice belong here, as do mosquitoes, which prey on us. All the scale insects fasten themselves on plants, and suck out the life of the plants.

Now can we fight these chaps? The gnawing fellows may be caught with poison sprayed upon plants, which they take into their bodies with the plant. The Bordeaux mixture which is a poison sprayed upon plants for this purpose.

In the other case the only thing is to attack the insect direct. So certain insecticides, as they are called, are sprayed on the plant to fall upon the insect. They do a deadly work of attacking, in one way or another, the body of the insect.

Sometimes we are much troubled with underground insects at work. You have seen a garden covered with ant hills. Here is a remedy, but one of which you must be careful.

This question is constantly being asked, ‘How can I tell what insect is doing the destructive work?’ Well, you can tell partly by the work done, and partly by seeing the insect itself. This latter thing is not always so easy to accomplish. I had cutworms one season and never saw one. I saw only the work done. If stalks of tender plants are cut clean off be pretty sure the cutworm is abroad. What does he look like? Well, that is a hard question because his family is a large one. Should you see sometime a grayish striped caterpillar, you may know it is a cutworm. But because of its habit of resting in the ground during the day and working by night, it is difficult to catch sight of one. The cutworm is around early in the season ready to cut the flower stalks of the hyacinths. When the peas come on a bit later, he is ready for them. A very good way to block him off is to put paper collars, or tin ones, about the plants. These collars should be about an inch away from the plant.

Of course, plant lice are more common. Those we see are often green in colour. But they may be red, yellow or brown. Lice are easy enough to find since they are always clinging to their host. As sucking insects they have to cling close to a plant for food, and one is pretty sure to find them. But the biting insects do their work, and then go hide. That makes them much more difficult to deal with.

Rose slugs do great damage to the rose bushes. They eat out the body of the leaves, so that just the veining is left. They are soft-bodied, green above and yellow below.

A beetle, the striped beetle, attacks young melons and squash leaves. It eats the leaf by riddling out holes in it. This beetle, as its name implies, is striped. The back is black with yellow stripes running lengthwise.

Then there are the slugs, which are garden pests. The slug will devour almost any garden plant, whether it be a flower or a vegetable. They lay lots of eggs in old rubbish heaps. Do you see the good of cleaning up rubbish? The slugs do more harm in the garden than almost any other single insect pest. You can discover them in the following way. There is a trick for bringing them to the surface of the ground in the day time. You see they rest during the day below ground. So just water the soil in which the slugs are supposed to be. How are you to know where they are? They are quite likely to hide near the plants they are feeding on. So water the ground with some nice clean lime water. This will disturb them, and up they’ll poke to see what the matter is.

Beside these most common of pests, pests which attack many kinds of plants, there are special pests for special plants. Discouraging, is it not? Beans have pests of their own; so have potatoes and cabbages. In fact, the vegetable garden has many inhabitants. In the flower garden lice are very bothersome, the cutworm and the slug have a good time there, too, and ants often get very numerous as the season advances. But for real discouraging insect troubles the vegetable garden takes the prize. If we were going into fruit to any extent, perhaps the vegetable garden would have to resign in favour of the fruit garden.

A common pest in the vegetable garden is the tomato worm. This is a large yellowish or greenish striped worm. Its work is to eat into the young fruit.

A great, light green caterpillar is found on celery. This caterpillar may be told by the black bands, one on each ring or segment of its body.

The squash bug may be told by its brown body, which is long and slender, and by the disagreeable odour from it when killed. The potato bug is another fellow to look out for. It is a beetle with yellow and black stripes down its crusty back. The little green cabbage worm is a perfect nuisance. It is a small caterpillar and smaller than the tomato worm. These are perhaps the most common of garden pests by name.

Flower gardening is becoming more and more popular every day. Flowers can brighten everyone’s day, they smell nice, and are a great hobby. Flower gardening is simple, inexpensive, and loads of fun. Flower gardening can be done for yard decoration, simply as a hobby, or even professionally.

There are some decisions that have to be made before even flower gardening can be started. You must decide if you want annuals that live for one season and must be replanted every year, or perennials that survive the winter and return again in the summer. When buying and planting, pay attention to what kind of flowers thrive in your climate as well ass the sun requirements.

When flower gardening, you must decide what type of look you want before planting. For instance, mixing different heights, colors, and varieties of flowers together in a “wild-plant style” will give your garden a meadow look and can be very charming. If short flowers are planted in the front of your garden and work up to the tallest flowers in the back you will have a “stepping stone style”.

You can order seeds for flower gardening from catalogues or buy them from a nursery. Most people will go to the nursery and buy actual flowers and then transplant them. After you have prepared your garden area and bought flowers, it is a good idea to lay the flowers out in the bed to make sure you like the arrangement and that they will be spaced properly.

One of the easiest processes in flower gardening is the planting/ if you have seeds just sprinkle them around in the flower bed. For planting transplants dig a hole just bigger than the flower, pull the container off, and set the flower in the hole right side up. Cover it with the loose soil and press down firmly, then water.

Maintaining a flower garden is even easier than planting one. Although they might make it on their own, a bag of fertilizer applied in the early spring is a good idea. Pinch back any blooms after they start to fade and keep them good and watered. To save yourself work during the next season of flower gardening, rid your garden of all debris and spread out organic nutrients like peat moss or compost. Don’t forget to turn over the soil to properly mix in the fertilizer and rake smooth when finished. If you have perennials planted be careful not to disturb their roots in this process.

Flower gardening is as easy as 1, 2, and 3: simply decide what to plant; plant it, and water, water, water! Flower gardening is undoubtedly gaining in popularity and gives anyone excellent reason to spend some outdoors and test out their green thumb.

Whatever the philosophical orientation of a person and no matter where he is coming from and sometimes whether that person realizes it or not, the world is interpreted by symbols. The word worm for example will be interpreted by an English oriented mind as not having four feet and that, which barks.

Similarly, Feng shui uses symbols albeit in a manner that is only more familiar to the oriental mind and those that practices its principles.

Again, speaking of principles, Feng shui is basically attracting nature’s positive forces so that the person is more oriented to it and uses its symbols in a way that will be most beneficial to his requirements.

The most powerful of these and most widely in use are symbols for wealth, health, and happiness and long life. Not much different from the desires of cultures with a different set of orientation except that in Feng shui these are augmented by the use of representations.

To attract money, Feng shui practitioners will hang three coins that are tied together and are attached to door handles especially the front doors. The ribbons that are sued must be red and are cut in increments of 9. The reason for the color red is that it is the color that brings about luck the most and the 9 is the highest number in the numeric sequence (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), hence ribbons are often cut in 9″, 18″ 27″ etc. In the practice of numerology, the number 9 is similarly believed as having the highest value which by the way did not originate in China but whose practices have similarities in this area.

It is not uncommon to find Fu dogs in many Chinese residences. Dogs are symbols of protection and guardians of residences. Hence Fu dogs are usually placed on the front steps of residences but if that were not practical, it could also be placed inside the front door.

In many European mansions and establishments, one can find fountains and waterfalls in the yard and sometimes inside of the house. In Feng shui, these are not only decorative but are means of improving the cashflow. The waterfall is especially beneficial if it is located in the left side corner of the backyard.

For the mind that is oriented in western thinking, avoiding clutter, mowing the lawn, cleaning up, burning dead flowers and leaves, are ways to healthful living and minimizing accidents aside from aesthetics. For Orientals, these are all of the above but are stretched further by the belief that these practices invite good qi (or chi). Qi is a life force where life or where life comes from.

A pond in the yard whenever possible or an aquarium near the entrance detracts bad luck when they are filled with 9 fishes eight of which are to be either gold or red (goldfish or carp are the more popular choices) and one is black. The belief is that the gold and reds attracts good fortune while the black one will absorb any misfortune that will be intended for the residents.

These are only some of the most popular and common practices. To list them all here will already be far beyond the scope of this article as Feng shui practically covers all aspects of human living and interaction. However, suffice it to say that even when sometimes, Feng shui is shunned by those who are not oriented to it as mere superstition and mambo jumbo, the practice and application of Feng shui, has similarities and counterparts that is practiced by other cultures world wide.

The difference lies in the scope, dedication, depth and understanding that its practitioners poured into it.

The way people treat their environment and living spaces speaks very loudly on the attitudes and temperament of the people that are occupying it.

For this, there are two very obvious and distinct line of thought whether it is in the treatment of the space or just about anything else, the European design and the oriental way.

In designing gardens and the general landscape western thought will be inclined on a more utilitarian path. Lands has to be used, reshaped, maximized and in many cases result to artificiality. Hence, European designs will tend to control their environment by dominating it, conquering it; sanitizing it and making improvements on it that are more or less unnatural. Aesthetics is the main theme.

When it comes to gardens, the main practice would be to culture it and create displays of artificial beauty.

For the Orientals, often the opposite is done. What the oriental strives for is a more natural setting where intimacy and tranquil experience is paramount and restraint, not flamboyance is observed.

This attitude in the treatment of their surroundings extends also to the manner by which the east and the west conduct interrelationships. While the European way would prefer definitive answers like a yes or no or a black and white, Orientals would try to seek compromises.

Because of this, European gardens would tend to be a statement of achievement in all its manipulated grandeur while a Chinese garden would be more spiritual and more in the flow of the landscape, not seeking primarily to improve it as to breath the natural experiences from it.

This is why a European garden will have geometrical lines, straight lines and sharp angles cut into it while an oriental garden will have none of it. This is also why European designs changes from era to era according to vogue that is the trend of the present. Orientals on the other hand are content with designs that while they are sometimes enhanced, has also endured and as unchanging and as eternal according to what nature and spirituality intends it to be.

There is a basic reason for this.

The oriental gardens and by extension (and as adopted) the Feng shui gardens, take into consideration, a basic respect to experiences and humility towards the natural.

Neither too ideal nor too religious as to place these precepts above the now and the real life, as they know it, they have better ability to conform more naturally to their environment. While the west builds high walls around them and calls these as living spaces, the Orientals never feared the allure of the wild.

Instead of modifying the environment, the Orientals adopt their landscape elements in their Feng shui gardens such as the water, the plant, the structure and the slopes or mountains.

Feng shui gardens adopts the subtlety and contrasts of the yin and the yang to their gardens like variety and unity, scenery according to their subjective reactions, stillness and movement and generality and locality.

It doesn’t matter then whether one lives in an apartment or a condo unit or whether the garden has ample spaces to it. Applying the rules and principles of Feng shui will mean putting plants where they are most natural and will always result to a more natural feel by simulating a natural environment where there is healing and harmony.

Even for the mind that is trained in western thought, the environment is one of the key factors that greatly affects the development of the individual, and everything could be explained. This is also very true with Feng shui although it goes a step more than just what is outright tangible and explainable.

Buying a house by any language is one among the major decisions that one has to do. Not only will it influence the future of those who will reside in it, it could also well be one of the most expensive. Mistakes then have to be minimized if not eliminated. Buying a Feng shui house employs practices that do just that and the tag will not always be the prime consideration. Take for example the following guidelines:

One of the best considerations in buying a Feng shui house (which Feng shui experts always have an eye on) will be a house that has a frontage with a bright hall effect. The bright hall effect means that the house has a wide and open area fronting it or a frontage where there is a space of land before the house. A house that has this feature in its property is considered a very auspicious Feng shui house. Sometimes, this feature alone could already bring the luck that the occupants will want to enjoy.

This Feng shui house is better improved when its back faces a mountain or a rising slope, or a tall building. Open spaces behind the house do not really contribute that much. What is to be avoided though is a house where its back elevation is lower than the house itself unless something is done about it to correct the downslide. Another very useful guide is to buy a house that is on the same level as the road. A house that is higher than the road will even be better. Avoid those that are below the road level.

Speaking of road positions, never choose a house that is on a T-junction where the direction where the T crosses is directly in front of your house. Have nothing to do with it even when it is sold at a bargain.

Other things that should be considered when you want a Feng shui house is to watch out for what it termed as poison arrows and water flow and its direction.

One example of a poison arrow is to observe your neighbors’ roofline. If the slope of the roof is directed towards you, have this corrected by a pakua symbol. The principle is that there should be no sharp edges and protrusions that should be directed towards a Feng shui house. There should also be no trees and other obstructions blocking the front of your house, including tall buildings. This will prevent the natural flow of chi and will exert pressure on those who live in it.

Observe the flow of the water in front of your house. A Feng shui house will be more auspicious if the water in front flows from left to right when the house faces a primary path and the opposite when the house faces a secondary path. This should include the flow in the drainage and the flow in the house storm drains. If this is not observed properly, the residents will find difficulties in their careers as they are against the flow.

Remember that Feng shui is a mainly about wind and water. Every consideration must be taken so that the Feng shui house harmonizes with it.

One of the most frustrating things that can possibly happen to someone who has slaved for hours and hours in growing a fruit tree is the unexplainable barrenness that can sometimes occur when there should be a plethora of fresh fruit. I know this from experience. My neighbors all consider me the gardening guru because of my extensive knowledge. But this is only because gardening has been my passion for years and years, and like a sponge I have accumulated so much information in my mind. My learning has also come from past experiences with failure. For about 5 years after I started planting fruit trees, I did not see a single fruit for all my labor. I was nearly ready to give up, until I met who I think is truly the guru of gardening.

I was in the gardening store, looking for some sort of new fertilizer to put my hope in for my quest to obtain fruit. I don’t know if there was a look of desperation in my eyes, but a kindly old man came up and started speaking with me. He introduced himself as Ralph, and for some reason I opened up to him and told him about all of my difficulties. I’ve never been the type to spill all my problems on anyone who asks, but Ralph seemed like such a nice fellow that I just couldn’t help it. And I’m glad I did, because what he taught me truly helped me to get my fruit trees in gear and start producing.

I learned that generally, the inability to produce can be caused by a number of factors. Sometimes the tree is simply too young; If your tree is less than four years old, you shouldn’t exactly expect it to be producing yet. If it has reached 4 years and you still have seen no sign of fruit, then you should start to consider other factors that might be causing the barrenness.

If the tree is undergoing any type of water stress (this can be poor drainage, too much water, or too little water), then it will have trouble growing. If you suspect this is the case, you should evaluate your own watering techniques and compare them with the needs of the tree to see if you are causing water stress. Also always be on the lookout for any diseases or pest damages. If your tree is constantly being molested by all kinds of little creatures, then you can’t expect it to be lively enough to produce fruit.

If your tree blooms but still doesn’t produce any fruit, this could be because of cold temperatures during the bloom. The coldness damaged the flower bud or damaged the baby fruit. Aesthetically the tree may look fine, but the inside could be damaged beyond any hope of ever seeing fruit. Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do in this case except for wait until next year and hope that it doesn’t happen again.

If the tree’s pollination process has not been fully completed, it could have troubles growing fruit. If you planted different varieties, you may find that the requirements are different than you had originally thought and they were incompatible. In this case you need to replant the correct combinations.

Once I evaluated the conditions of my tree and everything that has occurred in its life, I realized that not only had I cross pollinated slightly incorrectly, but I was also giving my tree too much water. After I fixed these problems, I had learned my lesson and I have not had any trouble bearing fruit since then.

So if you are struggling with a plant that is not being cooperative, you should consult an expert gardener. If you can find a gardening mentor like mine that is willing to teach you everything they know, then you should be able to get your garden on the right track with no problems.