There’s always that little girl inside every woman who just adores butterflies fluttering around a wonderful garden full of delicate flowers, all just starting to bloom under the morning light. But creating ones requires a lot of work and a little bit of patience, since attracting butterflies is no easy task. You have to research thoroughly and think creatively so the butterflies will be attracted to your garden and consider it as a new-found home.

The basics of creating an organic butterfly garden is pretty easy because you only have to do one important thing, which it to plant a lot of flowers. If you love a variety of butterflies to visit your garden, then you need to diversify your plant choices, all encompassing the correct taxonomy. You may also have to put a water area or two to make it look and seem more livable for these insects. But these are mainly the basics. Planning is a different story if you want more than just a crowded garden full of random butterflies.

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Post tags: Butterfly, Butterfly gardening, Flower, Garden, Monarch

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In case anyone was wondering, I’m a “Peace Patroller”:

Neo-hippie. Whoa.

And if you don’t like it, get your own server.

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Post tags: Activism and Peace Work, Liberalism, Peace movement

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Conventional wisdom says that organic gardening is a simple process wherein one just plants seeds and for it to grow to its potential, fertilizers are put around the area and pesticides are used to brush off annoying insects that may storm the garden. However, organic gardening is more than a step-by-step process; it is a science and even an art by itself, with myriad ways to let the plant flourish and it is always scrutinized by millions of scientists around the world to ensure safety and efficiency of the gardens growth.

Also, common wisdom says that organic gardening simply involves a plough and a rake. In fact, it can be as high-tech as the newly released cellular phone. This agricultural art utilizes many things like rotary tillers, synthesized fertilizers and even biodegradable pesticides. With all the wonderful inventions for gardening, it seems as if its possibilities for growth are limitless and the dream of the disappearance of famine and hunger will soon be reachable.

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Read the rest of What Is Organic Gardening? at Suburban Ecology

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Post tags: Garden, Home, Organic, Organic horticulture

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Are Bamboo Floors Ecologically Friendly?

Bamboo floors. We’re not talking about some uneven, bumpy tiki-lounge decor here — we’re talking about a manufactured product much like our familiar hardwood flooring that comes in tongue and groove planks. Only bamboo flooring is not made from trees like oak or pine or maple — bamboo flooring is made from grass, the woody shoots of bamboo to be specific.

Except for the grain, bamboo flooring materials can be made to look very much like the hardwood materials they are meant to replace. They typically come in light colors resembling beech and dark colors resembling oak. Because darker bamboo flooring goes through a process called carbonization that partially breaks down the bamboo, dark bamboo floors are somewhat less durable than light bamboo. Manufacturers put bamboo through an intensive process to make it into ready-to-install tongue-and-groove strips. The process begins with the removal of knots from harvested bamboo stalks. Then the manufacturer sorts the bamboo stalks by size and splits them in order to attain a uniform raw material ready for further processing.

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Read the rest of Bamboo Flooring at Suburban Ecology

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Post tags: Bamboo, Bamboo floor, Floor, Floors and Flooring, Wood flooring

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Compact fluorescent light bulbs, those spiral bulbs that give off the same amount of light as conventional incandescent tungsten bulbs for a fraction of the energy-cost, are great. In the long run, they can lower your energy bills. Though they’re somewhat less efficient than tubular fluorescent bulbs found in office buildings and schools, because compact fluorescents fit into standard light fixtures the associated convenience outweighs the loss, and CFL bulbs have become almost ubiquitous in homes.

CFL Drawbacks And Options

Some of the drawbacks with CFLs are:

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Read the rest of CFL Mercury, The Hidden Home-buying Hazard at Suburban Ecology

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