There has been a lot of talk lately about indoor air pollutants and what is known as sick building syndrome. This is when pollutants from carpets, machines, insulation, air conditioning units, furnaces and many other machines and materials found in office buildings are carried and distributed, along with germs, through a confined recirculated air system.
In 1989, the environmental protection agency estimated yearly cost of $60 billion in lost revenue to businesses due to employee sick leave caused by indoor pollutants. A more recent study conducted by NASA noted a powerful ally in fighting this problem: plants.
A NASA scientist trying to find ways of cleaning air in future space stations, discovered that many species of plants, when placed indoors, actually clean the air that is around them.
These plants do this by absorbing toxins and reducing the levels of certain gases. While they cannot eliminate germs caused by human contact, certain plants, when strategically placed, were found to significantly reduce other forms of indoor air pollutants. Some of the plants known as air cleaners include spider plants, English ivy, and Janet Craig dracaena.
If you have had any problems with reoccurring respiratory symptoms, headaches, sore throat or even skin rashes, you may want to give indoor plants a try. A dozen or so placed in a home or small office setting are recommended.
Trees bring all they have experienced, good or bad, into winter. How they fare in the cold could be due, in part to how they fared conditions of the summer and fall and how they were prepared for winter weather.
Watch for these signs this winter:
 | Breakage: Brittle trees' limbs break with weight from ice or snow and fall on ground. |
| Bending: Flexible trees' limbs are overloaded with snow or ice and bend, sometimes drastically, toward earth. |
| Ring Shake: Two wood layers separate, creating minor cold weather damage. |
| Winter drying: Cold and windy weather takes humidity from evergreens, leaving their foliage partly brown. |
| Frost Crack: A sudden drop in temperature results in the bark splitting open with a loud, dramatic cracking noise. |
This last injury is one of the worst and is caused by the expansion of the trunk followed by a sudden contraction. The outer trunk contracts faster than the inner trunk causing the bark to split. The damage can be permanent and could cause reoccurring injuries.
Many winter injuries can be prevented through preseason watering and pruning and other protective measures. Watching your trees this winter will help you and your landscaper know what precautions to take during the growing season and before next winter arrives.
Today we have barometers, television forecasts, and satellite pictures, but there was a time when people tried to predict the weather by watching the animal and plant world around them.
Certain things observed became indicators of future weather. These natural signs were taken seriously, and people prepared for the kind of weather foretold by the common sense of folk sayings.
According to American folklore, the following are indicators of a cold harsh winter:
| Corn husks are very thick |
| Squirrels store a heavy supply of nuts |
| Beavers have heavier coats |
| Muskrats dig burrows with thick walls |
| Onion harvests have unusually thick and tough outer skins |
| Wooly bear caterpillars have a thin middle ring |
If you want to attract certain birds this winter, know which seeds to use:
| Cardinals - mixed feed or millet, safflower and sunflower seeds |
| Doves - cracked corn, millet, milo, sunflower or mixed feed |
| Chickadees - suet, safflower, peanut and sunflower hearts |
| Woodpeckers - wheat, suet and sunflower |
| Titmouse - peanut hearts, suet, sunflower and mixed feed |
"Winter eats what summer lays up.
Winter is summer's heir,"
-- Anonymous Proverbs
This information is provided as a public
service by Alan Horticultural Enterprises, a full-service landscape management company.
Although we've been in business 20 years and service over 80 multifamily properties, we
maintain personal, one-on-one relationships with all of our clients to ensure customer
satisfaction. We are an environmentally conscious company, using EPA-approved products to
maintain healthy lawns that are beneficial for humans, pets and wildlife. If we can help
you with your lawn needs or questions, please call us at 630-739-0205.
ALAN HORTICULTURAL ENTERPRISES, INC.