The PIGG Pin

Bulbs in the fall

2011-11-03T19:06:49Z

When should you cut down the foliage of the bulbs you have planted in your flower bed? The easiest answer is…

When at least half of the foliage has turned brown.

The reason for this is when the foliage turns brown and brittle, the sap has drained from the ‘leaf’ back into the bulb. This helps give energy into the bulb for its bloom cycle next year.

Should I cover plants in the fall when it frost?

2011-10-28T13:57:39Z

This is a great question to be asking yourself. All plants that are grown in the climate zone they are adapted to do not need protecting in the fall when it frost. This of course only applies to perennials, shrubs, and trees. Trees need the frost to begin their hibernation period in the winter. If the tree is deciduous, then as the sap runs out of the tree, the leaves fall off (if it is a Maple Tree, then you can get maple syrup as the sap runs out…sorta). Shrubs also go dormant during the winter, so they enjoy the cold weather to give them a break from growing.
Perennials, depending on what they are, typically will drop all of their sap to the point that the leaves and the stems will become very brittle and just break off. This is good. These types of plants will give you new growth in the spring from the root.
Annuals, however, if they were spring flowers will kill over very quickly and have no chance of recovery. Just pull them up and throw them away.
Mums will bloom very brilliantly until they get several hard frost on them and then the blooms begin to turn brown and ultimately the whole plants turns brown. If you plant the mum, many times it will come out from the root next spring. I always recommend keeping he dead foliage attached because it gives some protection for the root during the winter. Covering the blooming mums will often protect the blooms and let them have a couple more days of brilliance.
Happy Frost

How to Straw a Yard

2011-10-10T11:31:56Z

How to make a creative Toddler Flower Bed

2011-10-10T11:29:19Z

How to Buy a Mum

2011-10-10T11:26:30Z

Mums

2011-10-04T11:07:15Z

Mums are a different breed of plant in my opinion. They start out from just a little piece of a branch from the mother plant, grow for 4 months, bloom, and then die for the winter. If you plant them, they usually return the following year and will get much larger.

Mums come in so many colors, yellow, Orange, bronze, red, purple, white, pink, and that is just the solid colors.

Mums the word

Sun or Shade

2011-04-28T14:11:39Z

It is very important to know what the needs of a plant is before you purchase it and plant it in the ground. There are typically 3 types of qualifications of those needs…Sun, Shade, or Part Shade.

Sun: is when the sun is shining on the area all day long with no hope of relief

Shade: is when the area does not get direct sunlight on it at all or maybe just a few minutes.

Part Shade: is usually when the area gets good long morning and/or early afternoon sun, but is in the shade during the heat of the day.

So, the next time you read a label on a plant, think about where the sun goes down in your yard, and you will be just fine.

Happy Sunning

Roses

2011-01-10T19:01:17Z

Have you ever wondered what is involved with growing roses? I have wondered that in the past, before and this year I have decided to tackle the chore of growing some container roses to sell to the public. We purchased about 250 floribunda, grandiflora and knockout roses bareroot.
What does bareroot mean? It means that someone else grew them from a twig to a farely decent size in very loose soil, and they dug them up, shook the dirt off and sent them to me to put in a pot. I took a picture of one of the bareroot plants for you to see what it looks like.
Instructions came with the plants and we had to soak the roots in water overnight before we could put them in a pot. We couldn’t pot them in the wind or even in the direct sun because we could not let the roots dry out.

After hours of preparation and determination, we were ready to begin the process of potting up these 250 roses.

Our new location

2011-01-08T12:54:50Z

With 2011 looking to be a great year. I and my business partner Erin Caves have recently purchased this house on 5 acres of land. It is perfect for selling mulch and putting up greenhouses to grow flowers and vegetables. I will share our adventure of the construction process as it happens.

Location…

1714 Sparta Pike
Lebanon, Tn 37090

‘Rebuild Haiti’ to help suffering survivors

2011-01-06T13:32:51Z

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –– The plight of Haitians who survived the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake is deeply moving and almost beyond comprehension, say Southern Baptist relief leaders who have been to Haiti. The vast majority of their capital, Port-au-Prince, still lies in rubble a year after the magnitude 7.0 quake killed 300,000 people and left more than 1 million homeless.

Those relief leaders also say, however, that despite the enormous challenge of rebuilding Haiti, the love of God compels his people to care about people in need. They are launching a cooperative joint venture called “Rebuild Haiti” to put at least 3,200 families – and perhaps as many as 6,200 — in decent housing by the end of 2013. A pilot project in Haiti already has erected 250 houses.

Right: Rebuild Haiti partners hope to construct
as many as 6,000 of these houses by 2013.

“There is no way to describe the awful conditions hundreds of thousands of Haitians are living in, said Jeff Palmer, executive director of Baptist Global Response. “The despair is so real you can almost touch it. We are calling on Southern Baptists and other people who care to help Haitians in their hour of great need and see the Kingdom of God come in Haitian lives. We want to see Haitian families get back into safe and secure homes in a way that brings them dignity and at the same time glorifies God.”

No one would argue about the enormity of the rebuilding challenge.

Even before the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake turned Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, into a pile of rubble, Haiti’s people were the poorest in the Western hemisphere. Eighty percent of the population lived under the poverty line and 54 percent lived in abject poverty, according to the World Factbook. A year after the quake, only about 2 percent of the rubble has been cleared and aid officials have told reporters clearing all the rubble would fill 1,000 trucks a day for more than 1,000 days.

The vast majority of the 1 million people left homeless by the quake still do not have adequate living conditions, according to news reports. Besides the 300,000 people killed by the quake, cholera now has killed hundreds more.

Rebuild Haiti will require unprecedented levels of commitment and cooperation between the various partners in the project – Baptist Global Response, International Mission Board, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the Florida Baptist Convention and Haitian Baptists, said Fritz Wilson, the Florida Baptist Convention’s disaster relief director.

“The goal of building 6,000 homes in three years is a God-sized task,” Wilson said. “We are approaching it much like Nehemiah did rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Each of the different partners is working on their piece of the task. It is a modern-day picture of the body of Christ working as one unit to push back the darkness.”

The Rebuild Haiti goal is to bring help, healing and hope to Haiti’s suffering people by meeting physical needs that lead to opportunities to share the good news of God’s love, Wilson added.

Rebuild Haiti plans to construct 3,200 “transitional homes,” a 12 foot-by-16 foot cement block structure with a metal roof. At a cost of about $2,500 each, the homes will be small but safe and secure from the elements, as well as easily expandable when the local family gathers enough resources to do so.

Funding for the homes will come from the primary partners and additional donations fromother groups, like the Kentucky Baptist Convention, which has earmarked $200,000 for the rebuild. Baptist Global Response has committed to building 1,200 homes.

The homes will be built primarily on sites where previous homes had been located to keep families together, Wilson said. Haitians will be hired and trained to do the construction, which, in addition to building homes, will provide jobs and skills to families. Construction materials will be purchased in the country to help the local economy, avoid construction delays and the challenge of getting donated materials into the country.

As a demonstration that God loves all people equally, homes will be built in equal numbers for Christians and non-Christians alike, said Mickey Caison, the North American Mission Board’s team leader for adult volunteer mobilization.

“I am very excited about — and appreciate — the level of cooperation and collaboration we are seeing from Southern Baptists in response to Haiti’s needs,” Caison said. “The initial disaster relief response was a demonstration of the compassion of Southern Baptists and was used of God in a mighty way. The long-term effect of Rebuild Haiti will be to demonstrate God’s love in a real and practical way that will communicate the Gospel in Haiti like never before.”

The need for prayer in the Rebuild Haiti initiative is as great as the need for donations,
Caison added.

“Southern Baptists need to pray for the Haitian churches and their leaders to continue to have strength, wisdom and discernment as they proclaim the Good News of Christ,” Caison said. “We believe God’s people will once again step up to meet the challenge of helping Haitian families start to rebuild lives left in disarray by the earthquake.”