Winter has an effect not only pot plants outdoors, but also indoors. Find out what are the key factors that affect your plants in winter and what you can do to help them stay healthy at this time of the year.

1. LIGHT is the very first element to consider. In winter, when the light is not so strong, you can place your plants closer to the windows, and rotate them regularly so all the leaves receive enough light.

Choose the most appropriate location taking into account the following window orientations:

-North: it doesn’t receive direct sunlight, but it is a good source of light for your plants. Most convenient in summer.

-South: it receives the most sunlight. Very convenient in winter.

-East: it allows early sunlight, which is very important for an excellent growing of your plants.

-West: it receives much sunlight, but its convenience depends on the amount of light the plant can receive.

2. TEMPERATURE is another key factor to consider because in winter we increase the temperature of the room via heaters, fireplaces and other heating devices. Plants suffer many times because of this, and we do not realize.

When the temperature of the room increases, the water of your plants evaporates quickly, and so it may be necessary to increase the amount of water they receive. As always, the exact amount of water will depend on the type of plant you have.

A solution to this is to place containers with water close to the plants. The leaves will absorb the water by transpiration, in a natural way.

And a quick reminder: although plants show beautifully when displayed on mantelpieces, remember to remove them before starting a fire, as the excess of heat could kill them.

3. WATERING your plants in winter is important for the reason told above. To water your plants properly, do so with abundant water fewer times, rather than with less water and very often.

The reason for this is because the water needs to reach all the roots of the plant, including the deepest ones. When you use abundant water, the plant does not need more water for a while, so you can space the watering.

If not watered properly, the plant may die, even though the surface of the soil may appear wet.

4. VENTILATION is a key factor since some indoor plants need air moving around them occasionally, so their stems and leaves can gain in strength.

Although they do not need a continuous flow of air, the truth is that they get exactly what they need under friendly weather conditions, that is early autumn, spring or summer, when we naturally open doors and windows and allow breeze to flow.

But in winter we keep windows closed for longer periods of time, therefore preventing air flows. Again you should ensure that your specific plant is receptive to air flows (not all indoor plants are).

5. Some plants may undergo a period of HIBERNATION during winter. Hibernation is just a natural mechanism of the plants to protect themselves of adverse weather conditions.

During this sleeping period the plant may stop growing or even appear weak and loose their leaves. Consequently, the owner believes (wrongly) that the plant is dying or dead and ends up throwing it away.

The thing is, while plants hibernate, they don’t need so much water nor fertilizer. If you doubt whether your plant is hibernating or actually dead, just leave it where it is and water it occasionally, and you might just see it alive again in spring.

Cristina Diaz Garcia is the Author and Founder of the Beautiful Gardens Email Club. Visit her page for an useful Pot Gardening free report at http://www.soapystuff.com/free-garden-reports.html

Price : $21.80

Product Description

Rain gardens encompass all possible elements that can be used to capture, channel, divert and make the most of the rain and snow that fall on a property. Using the innovative and attractive approaches described here, it is possible to enhance outdoor spaces and minimize the damaging effects of drought, stormwater runoff, and other environmental challenges. Nigel Dunnett & Andy Clayden have created a comprehensive guide to water management techniques for the garden and built environment. Filled with practical, manageable solutions for small and large-scale implementations and utilizing authoritative research with state-of-the-art case studies from all over the world, Rain Gardens is the first book on sustainable water management schemes suitable for students and professionals.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-10-01
A very informative book on an important topic. Pictures are used well to illustrate.

Review date : 2008-02-22
This book only covers about 16 pages of rain gardens out of ~175 pages. A more appropriate title should be its subtitle, not rain gardens. If you’re looking for rain garden info, this is not the book. It is a good reference for other sustainable water practices – standing water retention, swimming ponds, green roofs, etc.

Review date : 2007-12-28
A thorough treatment of all possible ways of dealing with storm water run-off, not just rain gardens. No detailed instructions on "how-to" which I had expected.

Review date : 2007-12-27
Let me first state that this is an excellent book. However, it is really a book about taking things to the next level. If you are looking for solid how-to information about installing a rain garden in your back yard, you might be disappointed.

Landscape architects, designers and accomplished amateurs with advanced skill sets looking to handle water both innovatively and creatively will delight in this book. I did … but then I already have three rain gardens in my own landscape and teach how-to classes on installing them. If the concept of rain gardens intrigues you and you are looking for the basics on a DIY level, the free, downloadable rain garden manual from the University of Wisconsin is still the best source of that information, as of January 2008.

This book has a decidedly European flavor to it. And why shouldn’t it? It is written by a couple of Brits. Although I am hard-pressed to see how some of the models given in the book will pass muster with the Americans with Disabilities Act, codes and other regulatory bodies, they should indeed stimulate the mind. The examples (of which there are many) also include public and even larger municipal installations. I find this a good thing for Americans to be exposed to. The Europeans are far ahead of us in green thinking. Included are some examples of essentially, municipal civil engineering projects both implemented and functioning with panache.

This is a book that I value having in my personal library. Someone looking for basic information may not.

Review date : 2007-12-17
As some of you may know, the LEED building rating system focuses on 6 key areas: Sustainable site development (SS), water savings/efficiency (WE), energy & atmosphere (EA), materials and resource (MR), indoor environmental quality (IEQ), and innovations & design process (ID).

"Rain Gardens: Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape" is a very useful book on water savings/efficiency (WE). It described various ways of caturing, channeling, diverting and re-using water from rain and snow, including permeable paving, storm-water chains, bioretention ponds and green roofs. Rain gardens create great environment for wild life. They are visually pleasant, economical and sustainable. I live very close to several of the retention ponds of my local water district. They are fine examples of rain gardens, I always love to visit them and see the beautiful birds and plants in or near the retention ponds. Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden described many of the techniques that are used by my local water district. These techniques are unconventional and can be useful all over the world. They can effectively capture the storm water and let the water settle and clean itself through the natural process and save it for drought period, instead of using concrete-paved flood channel to rush the storm water to the ocean.

"Rain Gardens: Managing Water Sustainably in the Garden and Designed Landscape" has 188 pages and many line drawings and beautiful interior color photos. It is a great book on sustainable design.

Gang Chen, Author of "LEED AP Exam Guide" & "Planting Design Illustrated," LEED AP, AIA

Price : $11.20

Product Description

Gardens of Water is an enthralling story of two families, and two faiths, in Turkey at the time of the cataclysm of 1999. It tells of Sinan, whose daughter, Irem, dreams of escaping the confines of her family and the duties of a devout Muslim woman. She sees in Dylan, an American boy and her upstairs neighbor, the enticing promise of another life. But then a massive earthquake forces Sinan and his family to live as refugees in their own country and leads to a dangerous intimacy with their American neighbors, as Irem and Dylan fall in love. When Sinan finds himself entangled in a series of increasingly dangerous decisions, he will be pushed toward a final betrayal that will change everyones lives forever. Powerful and beautifully written, Alan Drews Gardens of Water marks the debut of a brilliant new American writer.

Customer Reviews

Review date : 2008-09-26
I put this book down with a sense of loss. It was totally engrossing and believable. I can’t remember a book I’ve enjoyed so much. I feel as if I lived through the earthquake with these characters.

But no-one has mentioned how totally foreign Sinan’s values are. He doesn’t want the American Marcus to have the comfort of knowing how his wife died because he feels he will be indebted if the man knows his wife saved the life of Sinan’s son. His boss gives him a gift of money out of sympathy for his plight and he resents him rather than being grateful, and later steals from him. This is a man whose grudges go back generations, who dispises those who help him because of his shame at needing help, who for all his love, has not taught his son about his religion, nor loved his daughter as much as his son, nor spent any time playing with his children. After the quake, he abandons his wife and children rather than trying to take care of them. His pride dictates his behavior, and though we understand the suffering of the Kurds, it has turned him into a man devoid of empathy, understanding, and compassion for others. He plunges from one action to another, ruled by his emotions, blaming others for his mistakes and rationalizing all the harm he himself has caused.

Nulifer, his wife is heartless, despite her obsession with her son, passive, and unquestioning of the rules that limit her choices. She never talks with her daughter, judging her instead without any attempt at understanding, and depriving her of the love the girl clearly desires. She too blames everything on outside forces and never examines her own behavior.

The Americans’ behavior is inexcusable as well. These fundamentalists are doing so much harm.

My husband and I have been reading books about Turkey while planning a trip there this spring, but I am coming to dislike the Turkish culture so much, we may change our destination.

Review date : 2008-07-27
GARDENS OF WATER is a tragedy for our times. Pick up today’s newspaper and you will read stories about natural disasters, terrorism, religious fanaticism, intolerance, graft, greed, corruption, tradition vs. modernity, women’s rights, Islam vs. the West, disaffected youth and intergenerational misunderstandings. Within this novel, Alan Drew’s first, there is rich food for thought on all of these topics. Drawing on his personal experience of Turkey, Drew brings us this compelling story of a Kurdish family living near Istanbul. The family has moved to the city seeking a better life, and we follow their lives just before and for some time after an earthquake strikes. In Sinan, the father, we get to know a Muslim male figure with three dimensional depth, one of the few I have encountered in present day novels. Sinan is a proud, religious man who loves his family and struggles to provide for them, as he tries to plan for the future and to make sense of his own past. Orem, the teenage daughter, is caught between the (relatively)conservative religious world of her parents and the tantalizing freedom of more secular Turks and, particularly, an American boy her own age. Ismail, is the doted on, much beloved, younger brother. Nulifer, the dedicated wife and mother, is perhaps the least well-developed character of the family. However, the thoughts and actions of both female characters gave me a much greater understanding of the concept of modesty and honor in the world of Islam. A family of American missionaries are secondary characters in the book and present the reader with an opportunity to view Christian proselytizing from a Muslim’s point of view. I would highly recommend this book to those with an interest in world events, more particularly an interest in Turkey, the Kurds, the Middle East and Islam. Auther Drew, without preaching or arriving at judgement, paints a gripping and tragic picture, and leaves each of us to draw our own conclusions.

Review date : 2008-06-07
After reading a story about Alan Drew in Poets and Writers magazine, as well as the positive reviews on this website, I read Gardens of Water, and throughout the entire story kept thinking, "What are people in this country willing to settle for?"

The book, as well as its reviews, tend toward some study or commentary over the supposed cultural/religious clash in the book (clue: there really isn’t one except for some individual character’s personal experiences, and even then the writer couldn’t decide if it was a cultural clash or a religious one), but the characters themselves are not well thought out, and Drew never considers the more overarching themes of what faith and belief are, how they are culturally influenced, or what stays of that culture render a specific belief zealous and relevant or benign. The dialogue (conversations) that takes place in the story could’ve easily been thrown out because just about every conversation was smalltalk (who cares?).

Gardens of Water was not a story that HAD to be written, that the world needed to hear. It was not daring, innovative, or even that well-written. Drew spent five years writing it. Maybe he should’ve spent seven, like Junot Diaz, and put out something as touching, poetic and worthy as The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Review date : 2008-05-03
In a complex world of clashing cultures, both between nations as well as within one another, Alan Drew weaves a tale that captivates the readers emotions, taking hold until the very end.

The story begins as Sinan and his Kurdish family celebrate their son’s rite of passage. It is at this early point in the story that we discover that Irem, their teenage daughter bares a slight jealously towards her beloved brother for their parents favored treatment. We also learn of Irem’s relationship with the American boy who lives in the apartment above them.

Suddenly, an earthquate hits the town that changes the life of each and every character forever.

So begins a tale that will ultimately lead to passion, fear, regret, loss, friendship, forgiveness, guilt, anger, and peace.

Irem will have you quickly reminiscing of those feelings as a rebellious teenager stricken with a desperate case of puppy love.

Sinan, the most complex character of the novel, will cause your emotions to fluctuate as you journey with him through the depth of a father’s love, his misconstrued hatred for America and his contemplation of how to regain the honor of his family.

The ending comes as quite a surprise and I am sincerely impressed with this fresh novelist’s debut into the literary world.

It is with great anticipation that I await his next project.

Review date : 2008-04-22
Garden’s of Water, a debut novel, by Alan Drew, is a rich and multi-level work. The book is an honest and tragic look at at a small Kurdish family; however the appeal is universal. Parts of the novel harken back to the tragedy of King Lear and the star-crossed lovers in Romeo and Juliet.

In synopsis the story is rather simple with six main characters a small Kurdish family: Father, Mother, Ismail, the young son and the teenage daughter, Irem, and the family of a Christian missionary educator,( poorly fleshed-out), his wife and teenage son.

Rather than recounting the story; I would rather list some major themes: a clash of cultures, a father’s honor, the role of women in Islamic society, the power of community and the hopelessness of poverty.

The Water of the title runs as a theme throughout the book: the Bosphorius, a life saved by water, a life ended by water,water for healing and washing for prayer.

A beautiful little book with a real insight into a man’s soul.The book will stay with you long after you finish it. A gem of a book, I highly recommend it.