Home and Garden Guide

Plant Evergreens * For Beauty jflML

With a little money and a lot of energy, you can bring year-round beauty to yjour property' by planning evergreens, the trees which are always awake and alive. The young trees you buy at your local nursery or garden center will proably be balled and burlapped. This means the roots are balled and then wrapped in burlap. Savvy gardeners call these young trees "B&B" plants. WHEN SELECTING your new trees, remember smaller plants can be planted more successfully and with much less work than larger ones. The old warning, "handle with care," applies to the trees to be planted or transplanted Never carry the plant by the trunk and. when you are moving heavy plants, always support the root ball by rigging a sling of canvas or burlap IF YOU DROP a bagged and burlapped plant, the root ball will break into a million soil pieces and, unhappily, each bit of earth scattered around will contain a piece of broken root.

In transplanting an existing evergreen or planting a new tlee. dig a hole to the depth of the plant s root ball and make it twice as wide as the root ball. Be sure the soil at the bottom of the hole is smooth and undisturbed for. if the soil is rough, the root ball will settle, which can lower the tree to a dangerous level. THE CROWN of your tree — where the trunk meets the roots — should never be below soil level. If it is, the soil will gradually fill in the depression and bring on a fatal disease, crown rot. When the hole is the proper size, set the tree in place and pack soil around the base and sides to hold it upright. Once your tree is securely in place, remove the rope or nails holding the burlap and fold the material back and under the root ball so it will be totally buried when the hole is filled. Natural burlap will disintegrate into the soil with time and weather.

IF YOUR NEW tree is wrapped in a synthetic material, it .will not disintegrate, so unwrap the root ball completely and discard the synthetic wrapping. The next step is to add the backfill soil until the hole is filled. Once you've completed this job. make a raised rim of soil about four inches high around the plant to create a natural watering basin. Fill the basin with water and don't bother to tamp the soil — the natural setting of wet dirt will fill air pockets and stabilize the plant. IF YOUR TREE settles a little bit, you can raise it by gently rocking it back and forth or by applying a little upward pressure with a shovel and letting the water and soggy soil fill in the space under the root i ball. The rocking or lifting of the root ball can be | repeated on opposite sides until the plant is at the level i you want and perfectly straight Finally, remove rocks i and big clods of soil and give the basin its final contours.

Capture Period * Look Remember when your grandmother threw out her / Depression glass and Aunt ^Jane's Shirley Temple tea set? < "Worthless junk," she .called it > k About the same time, she slapped — or grandpa did — white paint on all the beautiful old Victorian oak trim in the house and donated the dark wood furniture and marble-topped tables to the Salvation Army i "Heavy, ugly old stuff!") THEN SHE PUT in a couple of picture windows, nung a Jackson Pollack in the living room, and filled the whole house with blond Swedish modern furniture. The new age had arrived. But today, as the song says, "Everything old is new again." And many's the home that's decorated with the same things grandmother was so eager to get rid of, THANKS TO modern materials and techniques and good furniture reproductions, "period" decorating is extremely popular And not just one period, either. Items from various eras are mixed to great effect. Once frowned upoit^bqt now common, this har-"^-~. monious blending of the best of past af/bs has become a legitimate decorating approach With what's available today — not only in ceilings but in furniture, wall coverings, flooring and the rest — you can mix the best of the old and new and create your very own decorating look. Hmmm — if only grandmother had kept those mar-ble-topped tables...

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