Hotel Flower Garden

This property is 2 minutes walk from the beach. Hotel Flower Garden houses an outdoor pool, a spa and a gym. Offering free Wi-Fi access, it features chalet-style cabanas set in a tropical garden.

The property is about 3.7 miles from central Galle and an hour’s drive from Colombo.

Fitted with a private balcony and a four-poster bed, Flower Garden’s accommodation is air-conditioned, and features a flat-screen TV and an en suite bathroom with hot/cold water supply, toiletries and a hairdryer. Tea/coffee making facilities and a minibar are included.

The restaurant serves a variety of local and international delights, and specialises in seafood dishes. Room service is provided.

Guests can make travel arrangements at the tour desk, or head to the 24-hour front desk for assistance with airport shuttle, laundry and ironing services. Safety deposit boxes are also available.

New disease on apple trees

Spots and discoloration on the leaves of apple trees and premature leaf fall are caused by various pathogens. Most of these are apple scab or leaf spot diseases caused by fungi of the genus Phyllosticta . In recent years, home gardening and organic farming has more often seen a premature leaf fall in which the leaves had similar symptoms. According to investigations by the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture, however, the causative agent in these cases was not one of the known domestic pathogens, but the fungus Marssonina coronaria.

After a summer of frequent rainfall, the first spots may form on the leaves as early as July. They later converge and larger leaf areas turn chlorotically yellow. Also striking is an early onset of leaf fall, often in the summer. The fruits remain basically free from attack, but the leaf fall leads to a reduced fruit size and quality. The shelf life of apples is limited. In addition, next year is expected to lower flowering and fruiting.

The symptoms of fungal disease vary from species to variety. The leaves of 'Golden Delicious' show distinct necrotic grains, in 'Boskoop' the leaves are yellow in color and speckled with green dots. Idared, on the other hand, shows few symptoms. Interestingly, the strain 'Topaz' is particularly vulnerable, although it is quite resistant to apple scab, for example.

The home of Marssonina coronaria is Southeast Asia. The fungus can, like the well-known apple scab, overwinter on a fall foliage and the fungal spores infect the fully developed leaves after the apple blossom. Temperatures over 20 degrees and permanently damp leaves favor the infection - therefore the infestation pressure is particularly high in rainy years. Due to the possible climate change with increasingly humid summers, a further spread is likely, especially in home gardens, organic apple orchards and orchards.


Because the mushroom (Marssonina) overwinters during fall foliage, you should carefully collect it and promote a loose crown structure through regular fruit tree trimming, so that the leaves can dry well during the growing season. Fighting in the home garden with fungicides does not make sense, since the starting point for the hobby gardener is difficult to recognize and repeated spraying would be necessary for a sufficient effect. In conventional fruit growing, the disease is usually combated by the preventive scab treatments.

Pittsburgh-based botanical garden adds vertical garden display for visitors

The Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has utilized LiveWall’s green wall system to showcase the possibilities of vertical gardening.

The conservatory was founded in 1893 and has served as a leader in sustainability, conservation and green building design among public gardens.

Phipps strives to promote human and environmental well-being and one of the latest methods it has been pursuing is the support of growing local produce in urban areas. The botanical garden offers various programs to youth and adults on the benefits of raised bed vegetable gardening, local food production and healthy eating.

“Limited space is a significant challenge for urban gardening,” said Michael Bechtel, display horticulturist for Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. “With our green walls, we have the opportunity to study, evaluate and learn about growing edibles on space-efficient vertical gardens. This forward-thinking approach enables Phipps to offer education and assistance to homeowners, schools, and community organizations on planning, installing, and maintaining their own green walls so that they can benefit from fresh produce.”

Phipps sponsors Homegrown, its outreach program that increases community access to fresh produce and since 2013 it has helped establish more than 200 vegetable gardens in urban areas.

In 2015, the botanical garden tested out LiveWall Inspire Living Wall Panels along with several other living wall systems on its south facing wall of the Production Greenhouse Facility. After the initial testing was complete, Phipps installed nine more Inspire panels.

LiveWall was chosen thanks to its soil volume and depth for growing, its integrated irrigation system and durability, according to Bechtel. The Inspire standard panels are four feet wide and seven feet, four inches tall. Each has 24 modular planting boxes.

“Green walls, also known as living walls, are structural and horticultural systems that attach to existing walls and transform them into vertical gardens,” said Dave MacKenzie, president of LiveWall. “Growing vegetables and herbs on its green wall display is an innovative way for Phipps to demonstrate how families and community groups can grow their own fresh, healthy produce even if they do not have areas for large garden plots.”


The vertical wall display will feature beets, carrots, collard greens, kale and kohlrabi growing in the spring and in the summer, it will include basil, rosemary, thyme, celery root and various peppers.

Montreal’s Chinese Gardens re-open after 3 years

For the past three years, the Chinese Gardens at the Botanical Garden have been getting a big face-lift.

On Thursday, the largest Chinese gardens outside of Asia were ready to show off their new shine for their official opening Friday.

Its seven pavilions were restored to their old splendor, just like they were when they opened back in 1991.

The intricate roof tiles were carefully refinished by specialized workers from Shanghai. Montreal craftsmen assisted in the job.

Their collaborative work showcases the friendship between the two sister cities, a constant theme throughout the garden.

“It was very emotional to have these two cultures -Chinese and Canadian Montrealers- come together and rebuild this magnificent garden cause it’s one of most popular gardens, the Botanical Gardens,” Charles-Mathieu Brunelle, Space For Life’s Director, told Global News.

Nick Faldo confirms for Bear Mountain golf tourney

To Sir with love, from Bear Mountain.
Sir Nick Faldo, England’s greatest golfer and knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2009, is the latest competitor to confirm he will play in the Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship from Sept. 11-17.
Faldo’s impressive list of accomplishments includes three Masters championships and three British Open titles for six majors in total. The unflappable six-foot-three native of Hertfordshire also won nine times on the PGA Tour and 30 times on the European Tour.
The 60-year-old is still receiving exposure as a commentator for the Golf Channel and CBS.

“Sir Nick is a true golf legend . . . he is an impactful addition to an already strong field,” said Pacific Links International president Rudy Anderson, in a statement. Announced last week for the Bear Mountain tournament was John Daly, among the most bombastic figures in golf history.
The $1.8 million US stop on the PGA Tour Champions, which is for players 50 and over, is in its second year. Colin Montgomerie from Scotland outlasted Scott McCarron in extra holes to win the inaugural Pacific Links Bear Mountain tournament last year.
Confirmed for this year’s tournament are Faldo, Daly, Montgomerie, Charles Schwab money leader Bernhard Langer of Germany, Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Stephen Ames, and former PGA Tour regulars such as McCarron, Mark Calcavecchia, Fred Funk, Jay Haas and Paul Goydos.

Who is denying global warming?

Recently, the "New York Times" published an article entitled "This is not what you imagine: the summer is getting hot" article. NASA retired climate scientist, Columbia University professor James Hansen (James Hansen) of a study shows that since the 1950s, the summer temperature gradually tend to be extremely hot.

Hansen and his two colleagues obtained a fixed baseline mean by comparing the actual summer temperatures for each decade since the 1980s. On the basis of this, from 1951 to 1980, one-third of the summer in the northern hemisphere was considered "normal", one third was "cold" and one third was "hot". After 1980, summer temperatures drastically changed, between 2005 and 2015, two-thirds of the year fell into "hot", and 15% went into a new district: "extremely hot".

Nevertheless, global warming is still a controversial topic. Last week, Project Syndicate released the article "Uncovering the Mask for Closer of Climate Change", author Benjamin Franta, a former researcher at the Harvard Institute of Science and International Affairs at Kennedy College, Harvard University, currently at Stanford University A Ph.D. degree in scientific history, dedicated to environmental policy and scientific manipulation of the study. He pointed out that 25 years after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the world still did not establish an agreement to deal effectively with global warming, and President Trump also allowed the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Causing the power of procrastination.

Art exhibition adds splash of colour Helmsley Walled Garden

ARTISTS Connie Fairweather and Margaret Rivers are contributing to the colour of the Orchid House at Helmsley Walled Garden with a staging of their paintings inspired by nature.

The exhibition runs until Sunday and can be viewed by visitors to the garden every day from 10am to 5pm.
Connie and Margaret, both from Ripon, take their inspiration from the natural world.
Connie, who trained at York School of Art in the 1960s, focuses on the wealth of beauty to be found in nature and works in several different mediums to explore and develop her ideas.
Margaret is a self-taught artist who started producing pen and ink drawings of botanical specimens to go towards a native flora when she was living in Sierra Leone.
On her return to the UK, she took a range of short courses, including a course on botanical illustration at the University of Sheffield. Both have exhibited in various locations around the region, but this is their first time exhibiting at Helmsley Walled Garden.
Tricia Harris, marketing manager, said: “We are so pleased to be able to exhibit the work of Connie Fairweather and Margaret Rivers in the wonderful setting of the Orchid House, a restored Victorian glasshouse.
“Their work, exploring themes in nature complements the Garden and the beauty to be found inside its walls. “We hope visitors will enjoy the exhibition and perhaps take a picture home as a souvenir of their visit.”

Why won’t Fuji apple tree bear fruit?

There are a variety of possible reasons why your Fuji apple tree is failing to bear fruit, including pruning techniques, variety and pollination.

If the tree has never bloomed, you may be pruning too severely. Most fruit trees require the development of spurs or short shoots on which flowers will form. It is important not to cut off all of the 1-year-old growth.

Allow dappled light to enter throughout the tree by thinning out crowded growth. Lack of sunlight can also prevent flowering and fruit set. In addition, avoid excessive heading cuts, especially during the dormant season, since heading encourages vigorous growth and reduces flower development.

If the tree has bloomed but has never set fruit, it may not be a Fuji or may need to have an additional pollinizer placed nearby to encourage bees and pollination. Although the Fuji cultivar should be "self-fruitful," meaning that it should not require cross-pollination from another apple cultivar to set fruit, it may be possible that the tree just needs additional help. Because it did have one instance of bearing fruit, perhaps a nearby apple cultivar in a neighbor’s yard helped with cross-pollination.

If the tree is not a Fuji or "self-fruitful," it will require a pollinizer (a tree or branch of a different apple variety with a similar bloom period) planted nearby (no further than 35 to 50 feet away). If there is no room to plant an additional tree, a pollinizer variety could be grafted onto the existing tree.

To test this solution, try placing flowering branches of a different pollinizer variety in a jar filled with water and set the jar in the tree canopy. Bees will visit these flowers and cross pollinate the existing tree.

When choosing a cultivar for cross-pollination, be sure that the bloom times overlap with the existing tree.

If the tree has bloomed and set fruit normally but the fruit dropped off prematurely, a variety of other factors could be causing poor fruit set, including the weather. During bloom time, strong winds and cold temperatures can greatly reduce or prevent adequate bee activity. Frost during or shortly after blooming can cause young fruitlets to abort even though no frost damage is seen.

Too much or too little water during the summer can cause fruit to drop. Drooping or yellowing leaves would indicate improper irrigation.

In addition, backyard fruit trees do not require heavy applications of fertilizer. Too much nitrogen will cause excessive new growth, which will shade out branches and cause poorer fruit set.

Depending on where the tree is located, it may be receiving too much shade from nearby trees or buildings or is competing for nutrients from other plants. Root constriction caused by hardpan or compacted soil, sunburn, borer insects, soil nematodes, root rot, powdery mildew and spider mites might also be affecting the tree. Take a close look and see if you can observe any other factors that might be impacting the tree’s health.