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Emerald Green Arborvitae are easy to grow in Newtown Pa. This article will help you understand this landscape plant.

Arborvitae have masses of small fiberous roots which allows them to transplant at most times of the year. The Emerald Green has the best year round color, but is narrow in form. In real dry years this plant does not survive as well as the more open arbs such as the American, Techny, Nigra, and Elegantissma. This variety, because its foliage is more dense than other varieties, is less tolerant than more open cultivars. In an urban area with deer problems, this variety will be consumed before the next season. We have in stock and ready to pickup these arbs from seedlings (6-10″) to 6-8′ trees. Emerald Green arbs are easy to plant but afew tips will help your success. When planting, remember that the symptoms of overwatering are identical to underwatering. More trees, shrubs, and houseplants are killed from overwatering than all other problems combined. Water thoroughly upon planting then water thereafter as needed depending on soil and environmental conditions. At no time should the planting zone be kept soggy. Feel the soil with your finger to test it. It should be moist not spongy wet. The plant should be dried to the point of dampness to the touch before a complete re watering. This regime should be carried out at least through the first few months. Soil moisture should be monitored closely for the next two years with corrective action taken as needed. Fertilizer spikes should never be used. You can tell when the arbs are happy with their new location by looking at the interface of the root ball and the new location. New fiberous roots should appear within weeks of planting. You can get more information on This and other plants at the following web sites http://www.seedlingsrus.com http://www.zone5treees.com and http://www.highlandhillfarm.com

Teak has many qualities that make the indoor and outdoor furniture made out of this a coveted high value asset. They last for generations. The durable nature is due to the hard grain nature of the tree. These are a high demand items in many parts of the world. The prices are sky-rocketing and unless you get it from the source you are going to pay a huge price to add this to your Home Collection. The products made out of teak wood have a pleasant smell unlike other untreated wooden furniture. The hard nature of the wood makes it easier to work with by the craftsman creating unique patterns and designs. You could have come across the priced museum collections of old south Asian kingdom there is teak in most of them. This has the ability to create smooth patterns and complex designs because of the properties of the wood. They don’t create splinters like other wood and hence the furniture is safe. The smooth finishes created by the craftsmen can be enjoyed by many generations as it is more resistant to rot and other damages.

A quick look at the Teak industry shows that the majority of the plantations are from south Asia. Unlike the rain forests these tress are from the dry regions making it more environmentally friendly to use. The Timber industry also claims that the amount of wastage out of the teak usage is minimal in comparison to other wood. Every aspect of the teak wood right till the saw dust finds use in one way or the other. The main problem like other wooden furniture use is you have contributed to the chopping of a tree at a minimum. But this can be made right when you understand the following factors. The first is the farm raised trees are better as they were done just for this purpose. This also ensures the trees in the wild are not used and hence are less damaging to the natural habitats. There are a few folks who argue that wooden furniture should never be used. Hmmm, the simple counter argument is what else to use. The softer nature of wood is preferred against iron or other metals. And such we have to end in plastic. Plastic causes a lot more harm to the environment in the long run than the lack of a farm raised tree in the face of the earth.

There are a few manufacturers that even go on to guarantee that the trees that are farm raised are once again replanted. This makes sure the tree that was raised finds a replacement in the face of the earth. This is unlike the trees in the wild, where there is no guarantee a chopped tree will be replaced by another sapling. Some of the common furniture made out of teak is:

1. Teak Patio Sets
2. Teak dining Sets
3. Teak Benches
4. Teak Chairs
5. Teak Tables
6. Teak Loungers

The next time you buy one of these make sure you ask where the wood comes from and the re-plantation policy of the wood’s source.

You can find one wholesale company which can guarantee this at Teak Select. Make sure you replace your plastic furniture with the teak furniture, teak patio furniture and teak garden furniture.

Author is a freelancer accessible through the no fee free freelance website freelancefree.com

The modern mattress was invented gradually over time, with the need for better quality and the advance of technology. The more technological invention would propel humanity, the more sophisticated and intricate the mattress would become.

The word mat-tress in English is used in writing as far back as the year 1290 AD.

Invention of the modern mattress as known today, began somewhere around the end of the Renaissance, in the 1700’s, with the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Competition between scientists seems to have peeked with the onset of the NASA space program, which saw the invention of memory foam, so important, that mattress design and production have now become more competitively innovating than ever before.

In Old French “materas”, from Italian “materasso”, from Modern Latin “materacium”, the word was borrowed in Sicily from the Arabic word al-matrah “the cushion” could have carried the sense of “the thing thrown down”, from taraha “he threw down”. The mattress was so important to people, that one culture borrowed words and ideas from another. In the constant struggle to better the quality of life, through invention, humanity has progressed. Progress in mattress design and quality was only crawling when the word mattress was invented. By the 18th century, civilization was ready for the first innovative thoughts in mattress design.

Mattresses in the modern era can be said to have been a revolutionary invention, due to the use of cotton and wool, in place of substances such as horse hair, straw, pea shucks, and other organic materials that had certain sanitation issues to be dealt with. The modern mattress can be said to have actually been invented, when sanitation in mattresses became an issue. By the mid 1800’s, springs were invented, and innovation took to the rise of mixing technology and quality of life in such a way that it wasn’t until the 20th century, with the cold war propelling competition, that mattresses saw once again a revolution as strong as the inventions from early industrial entrepreneurs.

Escaping gravity was an issue with NASA scientists that had to be addressed. America wanted to be top-dog in the Aerospace industry, by being number one with invention. To rule the roost meant having to develop products never before actually touched by human hands, but seen theoretically in the human mind. Memory foam was invented to help cushion the seats in space-shuttles, while escaping G forces. Together with the invention of vinyl, the modern mattress finally reached its place in evolution.

Today, innovation, good practical sense and modern science all go into keeping in touch with the original human need for a proper nights rest.

Regardless of how sophisticated and technologically advanced mattresses have become today, the slow advance of innovative and inventive designs have finally resulted in the modern mattresses we currently use.

Invention of the modern mattress began in the middle ages, and swelled patiently through the Renaissance. In the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the first hygienic mattresses appeared, and with the race to the stars in the 20th century, modern technology fueled the world for innovative designs that have become a science in their own right … a science that progresses constantly in the direction of an ever expanding better night’s sleep.

About the Author: Thomas Jay Wacker is the General Manager and V.P. of http://www.simplepedic.com. Wacker has over 20 years experience in the home furnishing industry and leads the Wacker Management Team in Denver Colorado.

Source: www.isnare.com

This column is about TANSTAAFL, which is a term from a book by
Robert A. Heinlein (one of the best Science Fiction authors that
ever lived) called “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”. The term
means “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”. This concept
is the basis of the plot of the book, which is about a Lunar
penal colony and it’s attempt to free itself from Earth
domination.

Hotmail

Recently Microsoft instituted a new policy regarding their
Hotmail service which annoyed a large number of customers. Like
most free email services, Hotmail has been struggling with the
recent failure of the advertising model. (Advertisers pay for
services to show ads to people, who get the services for no
cost). This failure means fewer advertisers are willing to pay,
and those that do pay demand lower costs and higher returns.

Hotmail has taken the same tack as many other previously free
services - they are attempting to remain free, but reduce the
benefits of the free accounts in order to entice people to spend
money for paid accounts.

Their new policy was simple and seemed straightforward to them.
They simply decided to delete all emails in the SENT items
folder that were older than thirty days. This seemed like a
perfectly valid decision to them, so reasonable that they only
sent one notice to their users.

Well, it was not reasonable at all.

I’ve run into similar boneheaded thinking before, of course. I
manage the production computer department of a multi-billion
dollar company. Our job is to ensure that all of the user
workstations and the applications servers are up, running and
doing useful things 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

One day one of my people (who should have known better) decided
he needed to work on the workstation of the CFO (Chief Financial
Officer). Disk space was low, so he emptied the trash can. Seems
perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?

Well, as it turned out, the CFO was using the trash can to store
documents. She never emptied it, and thought it was just another
folder. So she stored hundreds of sub-folders and thousands of
vital company documents there. She thought of it as a place to
put documents that she no longer needed.

Now, just about any other user would have been told that this
was not proper and that would have been the end of it. However,
this was the CFO, a vice president in a multi-billion dollar
company. We had to scramble to recover the documents, and only
managed because I had made a backup of her system, including the
recycle bin.

The Hotmail action was discussed on several forums recently.
Below are some of the conclusions and my answers. You may find
this interesting.

Why would Microsoft do such a terrible thing? - The point is
Microsoft (and Yahoo and others as well) are trying to give an
incentive for people to pay for their service. Thus, slowly
removing features from the free service is the chosen way to do
that.

Microsoft is evil! No other companies are doing this - Virtually
all of the “free” email providers, web hosting companies and
others are doing much the same thing. Most are far more brutal
than Microsoft was in this case. Many free hosts simply deleted
tens of thousands of web sites with very little notice …

You cannot hang it on Microsoft. They sent an email and those
who did not read it or ignored it deserve what they got - I can
hang it on Microsoft. One email is not enough. The post office
is required to go through agonizing public hearings to make
changes, why shouldn’t email providers be required to do the
same (regardless of their one-sided terms of service agreements
that very people people would understand even if they took the
time to read them).

Microsoft should not have done this. After all, MSN is
subsidized by Windows XP, which costs an incredible amount of
money - Windows XP and MSN are two separate divisions in
Microsoft and have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Windows XP sales in no way go towards supporting MSN or vice
versa.

Why would you trust a free service with your vital email? It’s
free, so you get what you pay for - We trust 3rd parties all of
the time. We trust the post office to deliver our mail, the
water company to give us water, and MacDonald’s to not poison us
with their food. Why shouldn’t we trust our email provider? If
we find we cannot, it’s time to find another one.

It’s free! You should not expect anything from a free service -
There is, however, a certain expectation that goes along with
providing the free service. MSN is trying to build a name and
they are touting themselves as safe, easy, comfortable. These
actions don’t help that perception at all.

And people are paying - the service is not by any means free,
any more than network television is free. Users have to view
advertisements in both email and on the web site, and those ads
are paid for.

The charges are simply indirect.

This just proves you cannot trust Microsoft - it’s not just
Microsoft. Other large companies (Yahoo comes to mind right
away) institute changes with little or no notice and no feelings
for their users at all.

I find it interesting that companies can make changes like this
at will - imagine if the post office decided to burn all of the
mail that sat in PO boxes for more than a month?

It’s up to us as consumers to leave services that act like this,
and to make the reasons why we leave known. It is not acceptable
for companies to treat their users, who depend upon their
services (regardless of the price), as commodities. Users and
customers are people who deserve respect.

Individuals who leave cannot make an impact, so why bother - It
does not matter what the impact is upon the company or
corporation you are leaving. If the company does not provide
decent service, free or not, and treats you (the customer) as a
commodity instead of as a human being, then you should leave and
find a company that is better suited. This is the way to change
a corporation.

People should not use free services. Paid services would never
do this to their customers - Unfortunately, pay email services
make the same kind of decisions (or simply fold upon occasion).
My experience is you just have be prepared.

Companies such as Hotmail clearly state this kind of thing in
their terms and conditions - The problem is that it has because
normal and accepted for companies to be able to have a line in
their terms and conditions stating “we can change these terms at
any time without notice”. Imagine if that clause was in your
home mortgage or car loan or whatever! The mortgage company
could change the terms of the loan without notice, or could
decide it wanted a parking lot on your property and you wouldn’t
know until the bulldozers showed up!

That’s the thing that needs to be changed. Terms and conditions
should not be modifiable from the second they are agreed to
without permission (not notice, permission).

People should back up their email so it is not a disaster when
this kind of thing happens - One of the real issues here is
hotmail and msn are touting themselves are easy, comfortable,
something even a child or a completely computer illiterate can
use. Thus, the concept from MSN’s advertising and promotional
materials is you don’t need to back up, you don’t need to worry,
and so on. Now, people “in the know” or who have experience know
better. But I cannot blame someone for trusting … shame on the
corporation for uncaringly breaking that trust and treating the
individuals as commodities, no more valuable than any other raw
material.

What can we do? We are helpless to large corporations - Has
anyone heard the words “class action lawsuit”?

On what grounds? - It’s time to get corporate America’s
attention. Doesn’t matter what the grounds are … just the mere
fact that a lawsuit has been filed by enough people can send
shivers down the spines of any executive and force change. And
I’m sure that any lawyer worth his 50% commission can think of
any number of laws that may have been violated.

The point is we (individuals) need to tell corporations that we
will not be treated as commodities. There are many ways to do
this, and lawsuits are just one of them.

To see a list of article available for reprint, you can send an
email to:
mailto:article-list@internet-tips.net?subject=send_article_list
or visit http://internet-tips.net/requestarticles.htm

When lighting your garden, less is definitely more. Flood lighting is fine for a traffic intersection, but at home it is energy inefficient, expensive and creates light pollution. You and your garden deserve better.

Outdoor lighting is most effective when used sparingly and in specific spots. Your garden is the transition space between the outside world and your own home. The right lighting can make your garden into another room of your house as well as providing an attractive outlook from inside. And your garden can look surprisingly different at night-time. Just a few lights in appropriate places will create interesting pools of light and shadow. Directional lighting will highlight features that may go unnoticed during the day, like the bark of a silver birch or a eucalypt, or a tinkling fountain. Even sheets of falling rain and swirling shrouds of mist can become dramatic features of your landscape with the right lighting.

Do check that your directional lighting shines onto the feature you intend it to and not into your neighbour’s bedroom window. And consider that a tree you want to highlight may be home to birds and other wild-life. You can minimize disruption to their habitat by using an automatic time-clock on your lighting.

For driveways, paths and steps, use lights that are directed to your feet to create pools of light to guide you. A light that is too high will shine into your face and leave the path and steps in shadow. A lamp next to your front door may look attractive, but a pool of light directed onto the door knocker, the keyhole and the step will provide a safer and warmer welcome for you and your visitors.

Choose colour temperatures to suit what you are trying to light and the mood you are trying to create. The colour temperature of a light is measured in Kelvins (K). The higher the colour temperature, the cooler the light will look. For example, metal halide lamps have a high, cool colour temperature that makes the greens and blues of the foliage in your garden look fresh and bright. Lamps with low, warm colour temperatures bring out the warmth of reds and oranges, like candlelight. An example of cool and warm colour temperature lighting complementing each other in your garden design would be to create a cool, fresh garden with warm pools of light around the paved areas where people gather and sit or linger over a candle-lit dinner.

The Colour Rendering Index(CRI) indicates how a light reacts under different parts of the colour spectrum. This applies particularly to metal halide and fluorescent lights, affecting the appearance of flowers and shrubs and also skin tones. And low-pressure sodium lights give out a huge amount of light but suppress both greens and reds, so that everything looks yellow and grey. Which brings us back to that traffic intersection.

A catalog will give you the specifications and features of the lighting you are considering, but if you are still in the dark, your lighting showroom will have a consultant who can shed some light on the subject for you.

The author has created beautiful gardens in England and New Zealand. She lives in Australia, where her garden is interesting all year round, despite the watering restrictions. Read more about outdoor lighting for your garden.

African Violets are one of the most commonly kept indoor plants today. They are very beautiful and are not that difficult to keep. However, they do have a few care requirements that must be adhered to for them to survive.

When you are choosing your plant, make sure it looks healthy. The leaves are a good indication of whether or not it is healthy. Also, try to get one that already has some flower buds on it. African Violets can be found at nurseries as well as supermarkets. Nurseries will be more expensive than supermarkets, but they will also have more choices.

Next you will need to choose what type of pot you will keep it in. You can get a plastic pot, an unglazed clay pot, or a glazed ceramic pot. A plant in a plastic pot or glazed pot won’t need as much water as a plant in an unglazed clay pot because the unglazed clay pots let water evaporate throughout the day. Glazed ceramic pots are the most expensive and plastic is the least expensive.

When you are ready to put your plant into its pot, you need to get a few things ready. You will need the pot, a saucer to put under the pot, soil, pebbles and plant food. For the saucer, make sure there is space left around all sides of the pot. Don’t get a saucer that is too small. For the soil, make sure it is good quality soil. They even make an African violet soil, which is perfect.

Cover each drainage hole in the bottom of the pot with a pebble. Fill the pot about halfway with soil and put the plant in. Then fill up the rest of the pot. Press down the soil using your fingers and add more soil. Feed your plant at this time using the plant food you got. Now, to water the plant, fill up the saucer with water. Put the pot into the saucer and let it sit for an hour. After that, take the pot out of the saucer and empty the saucer if there is any water left.

The best place to keep your African violet is in a window. Even though they may look better somewhere else, they will not grow as well. An east window provides the best lighting for the plant. If your plant doesn’t make flowers, that means that it isn’t getting enough light. If the leaves start to get brown edges of brown spots, then it’s getting too much light.

When you water your plant, never water it from above. You should put some water into your watering can and let it sit overnight; this will let any harmful impurities evaporate out. Before watering, stick your finger into the dirt. If the soil feels damp, then don’t water it. Every time you need to water the plant, fill up the saucer and put the pot into the saucer for about an hour.

After you get used to the care that African Violets require, it is very easy to do. If you care for your plant correctly, it will grow very easily. You will enjoy its beauty every day!

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to Gardening