Price :

Features

• Revolutionary kitchen appliance lets you grow your own food indoors all year round right in your own kitchen
• Adaptive Growth Intelligence delivers the perfect amount of light and nutrients from germination to maturity for fast, full growth
• Includes seeds, grow bulbs, nutrient tablets, guide books, and everything else you need
• Organically based and 100% natural
• Measures 16 x 18 x 10.5 inches; 1-year limited warranty

Product Description

The Pro200 Brushed Stainless Steel AeroGardens use microprocessor controlled Adaptive Growth Intelligence to monitor plant growth from germination through advanced growth and instantly adjust water, nutrients and lights to give plants what they need at each stage of growth. The result is up to 50% larger yields. Includes Grow Bulb replacement reminder system and the Super Grow 24-hour light cycle. The new Pro200 incorporates all the elements of the Pro100, plus comes with 24-inch adjustable arm and three deluxe grow bulbs which deliver twice the light and twice the height for faster growth.You also get 2 Free Seed Kits with every Pro 200. 1-Gourmet Herb and 1-Master Gardener. A $40 Value Free.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2009-04-02
The aerogarden does what it says it will do. I used the master garden kit to start a number of seeds for the garden and they all did well.

Review date : 2009-03-23
We got the AeroGarden Pro 200 for Christmas. We just finished the herbs kit that came with it. We could have gone longer, but we really wanted to get the salad greens kit growing.

So far so good. The unit was easy to assemble and easy to plant the first kit. Everything grew so quick and even when you harvested everything you could, there was typically more to harvest two days later.

The pump does make a slight noise at times when running, but no more than a fish tank would. The lamps really do light up the room, so we placed this in the kitchen. You can adjust the time when the lamps shut off, so if the light might keep you awake, you can have it shut off when you go to bed. In the late evening, we rarely turn on the kitchen light to do things as the AeroGarden pretty much lights up the entire kitchen enough to see and do most things.

I am knocking off one star for a couple of reasons. First, there is a light indicator for when the water level is too low. It seems to work ok because when we cleaned the unit for a new planting, we pluged it in without enough water and it knew that. During the herbs growing though, the indicator failed to ever let us know the water was too low. So, we had to routinely check it and fill it and not trust the indicator.

Secondly, when we started our new salad greens kit, we cleaned everything as it said to. There is a little pump filter in there that turns dirty brown and you have to find it amongst the roots. Very hard to find and the instructions do not even give you a good illustration to know what to look for.

Third, it recommends to replace the filters every time or other time you replant and they should include one in every kit. The instructions say to contact support to order filters. These plant kits are $20, so the need to include a filter.

The last issue for knocking off one star is the plant kits themselves. At typically $20, they are rather pricey. They all comes with instructions and growing books. The growing part of the documentation I can understand, but they also include the same documentation that comes with the AeroGarden, so another thick book. What a waste of trees and probably adds to the price.

Is this cheaper than buying anything this can grow? Heck no. However, it is fun to watch and fun to grow things. We spend a lot of money on various organic products, so at least mentally, the AeroGarden feels slightly cost justified.

After I submit this review, I am purchsing another one so we can get even more things growing.

Review date : 2009-03-14
Great inside garden so far. I’ve only had it a few weeks but already harvesting the lettuce as it said in the Quick Start Guide. I love it!

Review date : 2009-01-31
We never realized how much we would enjoy this item. We placed it on our dining room table and can’t stop watching it grow; so much so we are considering purchasing additional units.

Review date : 2009-01-24
The Aerogarden 200 works great. It’s hard to believe how the lights can smoke. They are 3 low energy flourescent bulbs.

Fast growth and looks beuatiful. Not practicle if you are doing this to expect to save money on produce. You buy this for fun.

Do you buy a rose for fun or for it’s edible qualities.

I love it!!!

Transplanting seedlings is one of my favourite tasks in the garden. There are a few simple things to consider to give your young plants the best chance to flourish you want them to thrive, rather than just survive.

Timing

Think about the time of year. Just because certain seedlings are available at your nursery, dont assume its the right time to plant them out. If youre not sure, read the label most tell you the best time of year to plant. You could look in gardening books, research online or ask family or friends who are gardeners (they might even give you some seedlings if theyve bought too many).

You can plant tender plants before the risk of late frosts has passed, provided you listen closely to weather forecasts and are prepared to cover your babies with protection or enclose them in a cloche.

Hardening Off

If youve grown your seedlings from seed you probably know to harden them off before planting. But if youre buying them from a nursery take a look at where theyve been living. Have they been in a glass-house, under shade or exposed to the weather? If you seedlings have been grown outside exposed to the weather, they wont need hardening off. But if theyve been pampered, theyll need a bit of toughening up to prepare them for the real world.

To harden off your seedlings you need to leave them outdoors for a longer time each day. Protect them under a porch or behind shade-cloth, bringing them indoors at night for the first few days. After a couple of days, you can expose them to the morning sun. At the end of a week, they’ll be tough enough to transplant to their permanent plot.

Planting Out

The garden bed they are being planted in should already have been prepared with layers of organic matter, compost and mulch. Water seedlings 10-15 minutes before planting out.

Before removing seedlings from their containers, arrange them where they will be planted. When youre happy with the arrangement, use a trowel to dig a hole about twice the size of the rootball. Doing this prep work reduces the length of time that the roots will be exposed (drying out). Fill each hole with water. This supplies moisture to the plants root zone rather than the surface where it may quickly evaporate. Gently ease the first plant from its container, working from the bottom and sides to loosen it. Dont try and pull it from the container by its stem you may damage it. Only handle these young plants by their individual leaves or by the root ball. Keeping the rootball intact will help prevent transplant stress, but gently tease the roots to loosen them.

Place the plant into the ground at about the same level that it was growing in its container. Backfill the hole until it is almost level with the soil. I like to add some organic fertilizer at this stage, to give my babies a head start. Just use a small amount you can add more later. Finish backfilling, pressing the soil lightly around the roots to ensure good soil-to-root contact.

Water them in well, avoiding overhead watering, immediately after transplanting. Water daily for about a week until seedlings are well established. Bring mulch around the plant, leaving about a 10cm (4inch) diameter clear around each plant.

Other things to consider

Avoid transplanting vegetable seedlings when the weather is expected to be excessively hot. If you can, choose a day that is cloudy or transplant late in the afternoon or evening so that your plants can recover through the cool of the night, without sunlight beating down on them. If you cant do this its a good idea to provide some temporary shade, particularly in hot weather.

An initial watering with an organic seaweed fertilizer will provide a wide range of nutrients and help reduce stress on your young seedlings.

Get all your equipment ready before you start hand trowel, gardening gloves, kneeling pad, your water bottle and hat.

Tomatoes are an exception to the rule as far as planting depth goes. You can plant them right down to the first set of true leaves. They will grow new roots right up to the soil level, making them more sturdy.

Seedlings from the Cucumber family (cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, melons) do better planted in hills. This allows for better drainage and warms their soil to give them a better start.

Price : $18.78

Product Description

Inspirational, practical, and easy to use, this book was created with the aim of conveying the awesome diversity and beauty of California’s native plants and demonstrating how they can be brought into ecologically sound, attractive, workable, and artful gardens. Structured around major California plant communities–bluffs, redwoods, the Channel Islands, coastal scrub, grasslands, deserts, oak woodlands, mixed evergreen woodlands, riparian, chaparral, mountain meadows, and wetlands–the book’s twelve chapters each include sample plans for a native garden design accompanied by original drawings, color photographs, a plant list, tips on successful gardening with individual species, and more. Both residential and professional gardeners will learn the benefits of going native with gardens that require less water and fewer fertilizers, attract wildlife, engage the senses, create a sense of place, and, at the same time, preserve our rich natural heritage.
Designing Native California Gardens includes:
* More than 600 selected native species recommended for the garden
* More than 300 photographs of native plants, natural plant communities, and residential native gardens
* Recommended places to visit for viewing each plant community

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-06-08
I was looking for a book that would give me a comprehensive guide to xeriscaping with native plants. This book contains one section that approaches my needs but is more of an overview over the native plants of the many diverse vegetation zones of the states. For what it is, it is a nice book. Just not a match for me.

Review date : 2007-11-18
This book is a must have for the California native gardener. I’d say the book’s biggest strength is in its’ inspiration- contains nice photographs of natural landscapes and gardens modeled after them. It groups plants by communities which is nice, though maybe hard to do. I know I live in an area which doesn’t fit exactly into of any of the communities they list, but I can still get the idea they are trying to convey, and look around at what is in my community. California is so diverse you almost want a bunch of more specific and in-depth books for different areas inside California, but I guess maybe those areas of interest are too small to sell enough books to make it worth the while.

It does a good job listing different kinds of plants, my only complaint with this book is that I would have liked more pictures accompanying each plant for which information is given- because you really can’t tell from the brief physical description what the plant looks like. As someone else has mentioned, this book is best paired with California Native Plants For The Garden. However, this complaint should be taken with a grain of salt, for designing a California native garden I think this book is the best on the market. Together, these two books provide the backbone to build your California native plant book collection around.

Review date : 2007-11-14
Love this book, gets you to think in terms of plant groupings & not just on a singular level.

Review date : 2007-10-10
-We need more books like this to make Native Gardening more amenable. What "Landscapers’ Challenge" did for Landscaping, this book will hopefully start to do to open up the still rather arcane world of Native Plants. It is practical and full of detailed, appropriate, high quality photographs of sample materials. Visually on par with "Landscape Plants for Western Regions" by Perry.

Review date : 2007-09-26
This book is excellent, with many good photographic examples of complete native landscape. It also set for an excellent philosophy for landscape design for the both the use of native and non-native plants. However it really shouldn’t be thought of as a complete source for native gardening. I would also suggest that you pick up ‘California Native Plants for the Garden’ by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien. Even between these two books all of the possibilities for beautiful California native plants and landscapes created using them have not yet been fully explored, but these books are an excellent start.