When moving to your new home in Hernando and Citrus County, Florida, one of the hardest things to leave behind is your garden! Especially, those beautiful roses that you spent so much time and effort into nurturing into a healthy rose bush.

Most roses are easily rooted from cuttings but since each variety is different, there is a plastic bag method that seems to work well every time! Take a gallon-size zip-lock bag, and put approximately three inches of a seed starting mixture in the bottom of the bag. To take a cutting from your rose bush, measure approximately three inches from the tip of the stem downward. Make sure that you remove any buds, flowers and all the lowest leaves. Dip the cut ends of the stems into a rooting powder than place the cutting in the seed starting mixture in the zip-lock bag. Fill the bag with air and seal it up, place in a warm spot but not in direct sunlight. Once you start to see the roots grow, add a little bit of water and let the cuttings grow for around another week or so. Once your cutting is ready to be potted, introduce sunlight to it gradually.

Viola! You have now successfully brought a little bit of your old home to mix with the new!

While staging your home for selling, bonsai trees are a great way to add beauty to both the inside and the outside of your home. Working with bonsai trees can also provide a wonderful new hobby. It’s the art of dwarfing, pruning and training trees to grow in trays or containers to accomplish the style that you desire. It’s really a form of horticultural art!

The word bonsai is a Japanese word meaning ‘pot plant’, it’s history dates back thousands of years. There are two types of bonsai trees, tropical and temperate. A tropical bonsai cannot withstand the cold temperatures and needs to be protected from the frost. Temperate bonsia’s can withstand the cold but they have shallow roots, so they do need to be somewhat protected.

Bonsai’s can be grown from either a cutting or from seed. No.. there is no such thing as a Bonsai seed! Bonsai is the name of the art, not the name of a tree. You can use any seed from any tree, however varieties with small leaves are the best suited for trays. These trees are kept small by training and pruning the branches into different styles. There are five common styles of bonsai trees, formal upright, informal upright, slanting style, cascade and semi-cascade.

Although, all styles are beautiful, my favorite is the informal upright. When looking at trees grown in nature, they tend to sway away from shade, buildings, or toward light. When growing an informal upright bonsai tree, the trunk will slightly bend and twist in one direction or the other, giving the tree a dramatic effect. Japanese Maples, Beech or any conifers will do well with this type of style.

Bonsai’s do require quite a bit of commitment, but if cared for properly, they can provide beauty in the home that can last for hundreds of years. They are something for your future generations to enjoy and continue to pass down to the next generations.