In home decorating, color is one of the most important tools you have to create atmosphere. Ideally, you will need to match color schemes to the style of home furnishings and even the architecture of the house. This is because mood is not determined by color alone but is created in the meeting of different design elements.

For example, the minimalist look characteristically brings together modernist architecture, clean lines, pure forms, natural materials and neutral tones, resulting in an airy, uncluttered feel. In contrast, the mood of the Tuscan look depends on warm, earthy colors. Other decorative styles are also associated with particular color palettes. A color style mismatch will prevent you achieving your overall goal.

Your furniture and decor style may give you inspiration for an appropriate color scheme. Taking your lead from your room instead of trying to make a room fit a color scheme is the sensible route. That doesn’t mean you have to be timid, but breaking the rules of good interior design can produce a jarring effect that is antithetical to ambiance. A color wheel can help you choose contrasting and complementary colors.

Which Mood?

The original Ficus elastica, the rubber plant, is seldom seen today. Although the plants we buy under this name are related to the wild original, they have been bred, crossed, cultivated and so changed by the hybridists and plant breeders that they now demand on the whole greater light than their parents. There are, in fact, variegated forms with paler green and sometimes even golden streaks and blotches that to some give them greater attraction.

There are many variegated ivy plants, the additional color being white, cream, silver or gold. Variegated ivies will hold their color indoors but the more light they get the better will be their variegation, and if the plants are taken outside and naturalized on a wall or scrambling along a bank the color variegation will be accentuated to the extent that it is sometimes almost impossible to recognize it as the same plant.

Unfortunately this presents us with a decorative problem. If a dark leaved plant is to be placed in a dark corner of our rooms, who will see it? The only answer I have been able to discover so far to this conundrum is the Spathiphyllum wallisii, a dark leaved plant, again an arum, which bears attractive white flowers. Yet to get the white flowers in the first place it is necessary for the plants to be in comparatively good light, which brings us back to where we were in the beginning.

When crumb structure breaks down, as it does on the whole more quickly on sandy soils than on clay soils, there’s a build-up of carbon dioxide in the soil, (a) because it cannot get away, and (b) the air cannot penetrate.

Furthermore, it may not be possible for the water to soak in and so it lies on the surface of the ground and inay, in fact, run off the surface, taking some of the sandy soil with it. This we call result erosion.

It must not be thought that the opinions given are those of the writer only. Dr. W. S. Rogers, D.Sc., M.A., the Head of the Pomology Department at the East Mailing Research Station, once said in a lecture to fruit growers : ‘Organic matter in the soil is important in many ways. It is a regulator of water-supply; it acts as a kind of chemical sponge; it is a reservoir of nutrients more or less ready balanced. It affects the biological condition of the soil.

We must therefore start by choosing the higher part of the garden if this is possible; we must reduce frost liability if possible by allowing the frozen air to escape, and, when air drainage is not possible, some covering must be given to the fruit we wish to protect.

If the pots of your houseplants are stood inside a larger container without holes in the base, then the space between the flower pot and the container can be filled with peat, sand, crumpled Florapak or any other moisture retentive material. Then when we water the plant we need not fear that any excess moisture trickling through the hole in the base will damage the furniture.

The thing to remember with plants that like a high degree of humidity is that so long as a certain minimal amount is provided constantly, only an occasional burst of high humidity is required. This will last them for some time.

First, we should look for color. The greatest degree of color, certainly the most obvious color, in a plant is in its flower. So if a plant is grown for its flowers rather than its foliage we know immediately that it must have good light.

Even simpler than this is to stand the plant pot again in a larger container, but instead of packing the space between the two with peat or other absorbent material, stand the plant pot on an upturned saucer, on gravel or pebbles, on a block of wood or on anything else that will serve to collect excess moisture and release it gently to the atmosphere without at the same time allowing the base of the plant pot to paddle permanently in water.

Although the epiphyllums are cacti they are different in appearance, having long, narrow stems almost with the appearance of leaves, (in fact these are sometimes called ‘ leaf-flowering ‘) and their method of treatment is entirely different, for as we have seen earlier they grow on trees in a decomposed leaf mold compost and they consequently require more water and less intense light than their terrestrial cousins. On the other hand their stems are fleshy and capable of absorbing and holding considerable quantities of moisture, so they can live for long periods without watering and although they prefer some shade they will not suffer unduly if subjected to intense sunlight.

At home in the wild, growing in little pockets of decomposed vegetation in the crannies of trees, the roots are comparatively confined in space and although the `soil’ mixture is rich and generally moist it is really wet only for brief periods.

So in the home we should aim to give them a similar kind of compost, rich, open moisture retentive but well drained. Good leafmould is probably the best answer, but this is not always easy to obtain and the most obvious substitute is Levington compost, which holds moisture well yet allows free drainage, is easy to water once it gets dry and is rich in the necessary plant foods.

Various conifers, usually junipers, are the most frequently seen bonsai trees, but the range can be quite wide, to include maples, cotoncasters, blossom trees of the malus family, hornbeams, jasmines and even vines such as wisteria. For established trees you will have to rely on what the importer has in stock and you may be advised to wait until new stocks arrive before you can get exactly what you seek.

If you intend to grow and train your own tree, choose with care. If you are buying, go to a good nursery, preferably an alpine or conifer specialist, and choose a type which is naturally slow growing and comparatively dwarf, for this will be much easier for you until you have gained some experience rather than choosing a young tree that by its habit of growth will develop quickly and strongly.

The common names are Chinese Cabbage, Spoon Cabbage, White Cabbage, Shantung Cabbage, Chefoo Cabbage, Flowering Cabbage, Celery Cabbage, Pekin cabbage (Eng.); Paak-ts’oi, Pak-choi (Chin.); Chou de Chine (Fr.); Chinakohl (Ger.); Chinese Kool (Neth.); Col China, Repollo (Chino (Sp.); Pe-tsai (Mal. and Indon.); Pechay (Philipp.); Mkaheji (Swah.).

Tolerant to a wide range of soil conditions, including pH, although excessively well-drained soils are unsuitable for this crop which matures rapidly. Normally grown at elevations up to 1500 m although the leaves are liable to damage by winds in exposed situations. Withstands periods of relatively high rainfall but requires full exposure to sun for optimum development. Flowering is reduced under high temperature conditions but relatively low temperatures of less than 16C promote precocious flower production. A diurnal variation of 5-6C appears to increase the vigour of the plant and an optimum temperature range is 15-20C. High yielding, firm-headed crops of the Pe-tsai type are produced at high elevations during cool weather; at lower elevations heading is less likely to occur.

Fruit a siliqua with convex valves, tipped by a usually seedless beak. Seeds in a single row in each loculus, spherical.

It is a very useful thing to clothe the walls of a house or of a walled- in garden with fruit trees and bushes. The result is that it is possible to grow certain types of fruit trees which might not be so successful in the open. Figs, for instance, and vines, are good subjects for walls, as are peaches in the colder districts. Furthermore, by using the walls a greater number of fruit trees can be grown, because they occupy them and yet take up very little garden space.

They don’t go well together from any point of view. Most fruit trees and bushes like being ‘grassed down’ or mulched, and this is the best way to grow them.

By having your own Fruit Plot-you can largely give the trees and bushes the conditions they need. The grass can then be allowed to grow right up to the trunks of the trees in a few years. The writer has a lawn planted up with pillar-trained pears at 10 feet square, and it looks most attractive indeed.

All dish gardens, bowls, troughs and the like normally have no drainage holes, which means that very careful attention must be paid to a drainage layer when planting and that thereafter watering must be carried out with reference to this lack of efficient drainage.

Then again, because the entire area of soil will be kept uniformly moist, it is essential that compatible plants be used together.

They are perfectly happy, have made great growth and one of them sent out a six-inch flower spike complete with golden inflorescence during the summer.

In the archway between kitchen and dining-room a large Victorian decorated wash basin stands on the floor. It contains about 14 lbs of John Innes Potting Compost and has grown for ten years or more a giant Rhoicissus rhomboidea, which travels up one wall to the ceiling and over the archway. These are just two completely different examples of plantings in which we might loosely call dishes or bowls. Both are intended to be more or less permanent, for both will grow in their present homes for very long periods.

One question that is frequently asked by new gardeners is when is the best time to plant vegetable garden. This is an excellent question, but the answer is that it depends upon the climate in your area. A vegetable garden is a smart decision, but must be carefully planned. For example, there is no easy answer as to when to start your planting - each plant and climate is different.

Bear mind mind, however, that even the finest gardeners can lose some plants because of unexpected frosts and early winters which they also had not expected. Gardening can very much be a process of experimentation, but if it is done the right way, it’s very much worth the effort.

Planting manuals for vegetables will tell you that when you are growing spring vegetables it is necessary to set seed in the latter part of the winter. Summer vegetables need to be started in the first part of spring (following the final frost) and fall vegetables need to be planted in the middle to latter part of the summer.