(Outdoor creatures) Planting Austin Friendly Flowers : A Guide To A Low Maintenance Garden
No commentsBy Ki Gray
Do you love the beauty and color of flowers but cringe at the thought of the maintenance required for their upkeep? If your colorful blooms have a tendency to turn brown and crunchy from neglect in the hot Austin sun, there may be some flowers made just for you. Flora native or adapted to the Austin area thrive where others perish, resisting drought, pests and other hazards. Just choose your plants wisely and you can have fabulous landscaping for your property with little work.
There are many benefits to growing native plants. In addition to saving on water and fertilizer you save on time by choosing plants that thrive in the unique climate of Austin Texas. Your gardening is also more enjoyable when you are not fighting mother nature in an attempt to grow plants that are not suited to the Texas Climate. It is also nice to help maintain the original ecosystem of your locale by promoting local plants and flowers.
Perennials are an essential part of a vibrant landscape, and a beautiful choice for any Texas flowerbed is Cedar Sage. A shade lover, Cedar Sage has bright red spiky flowers that bloom spring through summer and can bring a pop of color to an otherwise gloomy spot in your yard. Sage comes in several other varieties, too, including Majestic Sage, Mealy Blue Sage and Mexican Sage bush all of which produce beautiful flowers and require very little water, just like Cedar Sage.
Trailing Lantana is another great choice, especially when used as a ground cover. It is very tolerant of poor conditions, highly drought resistant, and its lavender flowers are very attractive to butterflies.
Purple Cone Flowers, also know as Echinacea, require a little more water than the previous plants, but they are nonetheless exceptional specimens for an Austin garden. These daisy-like flowers are a Texas native and produce violet or white blooms. Preferring sun or partial shade, they can be planted almost anywhere.
Mexican Honeysuckle is another low-water plant. It displays its orange flowers spring to frost, attracting hummingbirds with its sweet smell. It only requires an occasional pruning to encourage full growth.
Ornamental grasses are another option for sprucing up your landscape, and there are many hardy varieties to choose from, such as Big Muhly, Little Bluestem and Dwarf Fountain Grass. Some grasses can be quite invasive, so be careful where you plant them, because they will thrive and take over.
These are only a few of the many ideal plants for your Texas landscape. There are a multitude of choices available out there, so next time you go to a nursery, make sure you do your homework first or ask the people running the nursery which plants and flowers are native to Texas. The city of Austin has worked to promote a green and environmentally friendly city. The city of Austin has a Grow Green plant list featuring native and adapted landscape plants that thrive in Texas. By planting smart you can save water, fertilizer and time.
Ki works as a realtor in the central Austin real estate market helping individuals looking for homes as well as investors looking for cashflow properties. His site provides a free search of the Austin MLS along with a blog covering news and statistics on the Austin Texas real estate market.
Vinyl Chloride Classified As Carcinogen
By Katie Kelley
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the National Toxicology Program, classifies vinyl chloride as a documented carcinogen. In fact, vinyl chloride appears in all registered carcinogen indices, and there is no level of exposure at which the adverse health effects are negligible. It is considered both a nephrotoxin (substance harmful to the kidneys) and a heptotoxin (substance harmful to the liver).
The following are some health risks and symptoms which may develop with prolonged exposure to vinyl chloride:
* Lymphoma: Cancer which develops in the lymphatic system, a major component of the immune system.
* Leukemia: A malignant disease marked by a proliferation of white blood cells.
* Angiosarcoma (brain, liver, lung): Cancer that begins in the lining of blood vessels.
* Adenocarcinoma: Malignant tumors which form in the glandular tissue of organs (e.g. lungs, cervix, prostate).
* Pseudo-scleroderma: A progressive disease characterized by the deposition of fibrous connective tissue in the skin and often in internal organs; results in a thickening, swelling and hardening of the skin.
* Acro-osteolysis: Marked by ulcers on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, also disintegration and fragmentation of the ends of the fingers and toes.
* Various fetal damage issues, spontaneous abortions and birth defects.
* Upper respiratory irritation: including, but not limited to, asthma, allergies, pneumonitis and bronchitis.
Raynaud’s Phenomenon (a disorder that affects the blood vessels in the fingers, toes, ears and nose. The disorder is characterized by episodic attacks, called vasospastic attacks that cause the blood vessels in the extremities to constrict and cause feelings of coolness and numbness.
* Drowsiness, dizziness, lightheadedness, headaches, unconsciousness.
* Nausea, stomach ulcers.
* Frostbite: With exposure to liquid vinyl chloride.
If exposure to vinyl chloride has occurred and an individual is exhibiting any negative health problems a doctor should be contacted and the local authorities for an inspection for occupational or domestic overexposure. Many manufacturing and processing plants in the country use vinyl chloride, however not very many produce it. Vinyl chloride monomer is presently produced at 12 locations in the United States:
* Westlake, Calvert City, KY
* Borden, Geismar, LA
* Condea Vista, Lake Charles, LA
* Dow, Plaquemine, LA
* Formosa, Baton Rouge, LA
* Georgia Gulf, Plaquemine, LA
* PHH Monomers, Lake Charles, LA
* Dow, Freeport, TX
* Formosa, Point Comfort, TX
* Geon, LaPorte, TX
* OxyChem, Deer Park, TX
* OxyMar, Ingleside, TX
Toxic tort law exists to protect you and those you know from hazardous and harmful exposure to substances like vinyl chloride. No one should be put at risk due to negligence or intentional carelessness.
Visit http://vinyl-chloride.legalview.com to learn about vinyl chloride contamination. Also use http://www.LegalView.com and find resources on various legal issues affecting millions of Americans each year including the Cipro recall and Levaquin warning issue, which affects all of the fluoroquinolone antibiotics.
Learn About Outdoor Creatures In Wildlife
Environmentally Friendly Wholesale Promotional Items
By Robert Melkonyan
Energy efficiency and environment friendly products are very hot discussion topics in countries around the world, with the cost of fuel sharply increasing almost every business activity has been affected which is why moving adapting energy efficient tools to our daily routine can represent big short-term savings as well as in the long run.
If you own a tech business, or any other type of business for that matter there is a way for you to find a correlation between your business activities and energy efficiency, not only that but you can use energy efficiency as a way to promote your products and services within your community or business area for instance, cell phones and telecommunication devices have become extremely popular over the course of the last decade and the demand is projected to increase as more and more people in different countries around the world are able to purchase and have access to mobile communication.
With so many portable electronics such as cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, laptops, etc. there is a huge demand for energy and devices which will make it affordable and more convenient to keep these electronics working, this is why portable devices which are able to harness and transform the power of the sun into usable electricity have become very popular.
This natural power generators are in demand it makes a lot of sense for you to incorporate promotional items which can do just that, generate power for other portable goods and at the same time market your products and services to the right demographic group. What does this mean for you and your business? — if your business prospects and customers use their PDAs, their cell phone, their MP3 players on a daily basis they will obviously give a great use to your power generating devices and if they are branded with your company logo and a customized message they will help the bottom line of your business which is to establish itself within its niche by becoming a trusted and well-known organization which will be able to capitalize on the marketing message being delivered by such promotional goods.
Purchasing such devices in order to market your business can sound a bit expensive but the fact of the matter is that they can be very affordable if they are purchased in bulk and because these are extremely useful tools the revenue generated for your business will grow as your message is spread. Some examples of environmentally friendly promotional items are: echo friendly pens, solar chargers for cell phones and other electronics, flashlights and radios which run on solar power, etc.
Promotionalwholesalers.com.au offers high-quality solar power products as well as recycled pens and pencils to help you create an environment friendly image around your business, visit us today to learn more.
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm and is filed under environmental. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
