health sectionhealth sectionFenugreek is an aromatic spice with a sweet flavor and fragrance similar to maple syrup when heated. It is featured in Indian curries, pickled foods, seasoning blends and daals, which are stews made from hulled lentils or other beans. As a seasoning, fenugreek refers to the ground seeds of an annual plant native to the Mediterranean. Fenugreek is also an herb you can grow in the garden -- the leaves of the plant are used as a vegetable or dried seasoning.
Long a cheerful mainstay of cottage gardens and wildflower meadows, the coneflower (Echinacea spp.) has achieved notoriety in recent years as an herbal cold remedy. Species within the Echinacea genus aren't fussy about soil conditions, asking only for a sunny bed to bloom in. Most species and cultivars are hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 to 9. Although they're often compared to daisies, echinaceas' distinctively raised flower centers, or "cones," set them apart. The core colors of the native species are purple, yellow, pink or white, but hybrids and cultivars offer a rainbow of colors.
English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is as useful as it is beautiful. This humble plant has been used for thousands of years to freshen the air, reduce anxiety and even combat insomnia, says the University of Maryland Medical Center. The climate of northern Wisconsin is not particularly suited to growing lavender, but a determined gardener can make a success of growing this charming plant with a few extra tricks.
The common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis) is native to most of the United States and its bright yellow flowers are often thought to symbolize the beginning of the summer wildflowers. There are about 125 different species of the plant, which is often found on wasteland or by roadsides. Evening primrose is renowned for the size of its flowers which can be up to 5 inches in diameter and are a stunningly bright shade, with a rich, lemon aroma.
The round white bulb and fern-like leaves of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) have a mild anise-like flavor that complements both cooked and fresh foods. Fennel grows during the cool spring or fall season when temperatures are between 50 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The large bulbs are used as a vegetable, while the seeds and leaves provide a flavorful herb. Plant fennel outdoors only after frost danger has passed and temperatures are within the optimum range. Fennel takes between 60 and 90 days to reach harvest time.
When your adorable cat digs her claws into your prized teal blue living room carpet, she's not trying to annoy or upset you -- she's simply being a feline. Scratching is a normal and innate kitty behavior, whether done as a means of sending a message or out of tedium.
Many herbal supplements have a variety of different skin care benefits that you really should learn about. Get tips on herbal supplements for skin with help from a master esthetician in this free video clip.
Fennel root recipes typically call for just a few key ingredients and a little bit of your time. Find out about some great fennel root recipes with help from a restaurant owner and chef in this free video clip.
Mushroom fennel salad is a delicious treat that the whole family will love. Make mushroom fennel salad with help from experienced mushroom professionals in this free video clip.
Taro root tea is a great drink you can make right in the comfort of your own home. Learn how to fix taro root tea with help from a coffee shop owner in this free video clip.
Lavandula angustifolia “Silver Edge,” also known as common lavender or English lavender, matures into a small shrubby plant if grown in full sun and well-drained soil. Pruning helps shape this perennial plant so it produces more flower-bearing tips. Keep dead branches and foliage trimmed away so the plant stays healthy and attractive. Start pruning your lavender plants when they are small to develop full, bushy plants, and continue to prune them through maturity. Every time you harvest the herb you’ll be pruning the plant as well.
Many species of lavender will grow in partial shade and exhibit moderate shade tolerance, but vigor and full blooms are hard to come by in such conditions. If you want strong plants and a heavy aroma from your lavender, you should plant it in a location with full sun and little or no shade. Some species of lavender are more shade tolerant, while others will have a harder time growing at all in low light.
Fennel is a strongly aromatic vegetable that's widely used in Mediterranean cooking. Its wide celery-like stalks form a tight crown, or bulb, at the base of the plant. The bulb shares a fresh anise flavor with the plant's seeds and fronds. All three portions are edible, with the fronds used as a fresh herb, the seeds as a spice, and the stalks as a vegetable. The bulb can be eaten raw, or cooked in several ways. Fennel has a high sugar content, and is often caramelized to make its flavors more intense.
If your juvenile budgie or budgerigar has a lavender cere, you are raising a male bird. The cere is at the base of the beak, below the forehead or crown area. Males have lavender or blue ceres, while females have tan or light yellow ones. Budgies, also known as parakeets, are personable, attractive and colorful. They are also relatively easy to care for, hardy and inexpensive, making them an excellent choice for a pet.
Echinacea purpurea, or purple coneflower, occurs naturally across the prairies of central and eastern North America. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental perennial for its showy, purplish-pink flowers and tolerance of poor growing conditions, which allows it to withstand drought and high heat with little damage. Despite its rugged nature, Echinacea purpurea is nevertheless susceptible to several common diseases, which are easy to spot if you know what to look for.
Goldenseal has long been used as an herbal remedy by Native Americans from the New England region and later by early European settlers. Interest in the plant continues to this day, but many people now also grow goldenseal as an ornamental plant in gardens for its palmate leaves, dainty flowers and showy red berries. Although root division is the most common mode of propagation used to grow goldenseal, it is also possible to germinate the seeds to grow new specimens, which is less invasive and damaging to the parent plant, while offering a success rate that's similar to root divisions.
Fennel is a bulbous vegetable with a licorice or anise taste. The pale green bulb, which has roots dating to ancient Mediterranean countries, is eaten raw and cooked. Its feathery fronds are chopped fresh into salads, and fennel seeds are common in a range of culinary applications. Fennel enhances many dishes, and its seeds and leaves are appropriate ingredient substitutes for anise and parsley, respectively.
Lavender vera, often considered the original English lavender, thrives at higher altitudes and often exhibits the best scent and qualities for medicinal and aromatherapy purposes. As with any lavender variety, growing lavender from a cutting is much quicker and simpler than starting from seed. The plant grown from a cutting will exhibit the same characteristics as the mother plant, so take your cuttings from a thriving, healthy lavender vera plant.
Many pet owners love their cats but dislike how kitty is slowly destroying the family's furniture, draperies and bedding with her sharp claws. Many veterinarians will perform a de-clawing procedure, but this surgical procedure has risks of extreme pain, infection, post-operative behavioral problems, and the inability of the cat to defend herself. Cat owners can try alternatives to de-clawing before they take such drastic measures.
Lavender oil is produced from the flowers of the lavender plant (Lavandula latifolia). As an essential oil, lavender is a powerful fragrance with numerous uses. It is an effective and natural tool for the control of insects. Ants enter your home in search of food. They are attracted to certain odors, and repelled by others. Lavender infuses your home with a scent that is unattractive to these pests. It can be used in a dried or liquid form.
Growing ginseng can provide the ardent gardener a valuable crop for resale and beneficial healing herbs for use professionally or at home. There are several ways to transplant ginseng including planting seeds or commercially available rootlets, or harvesting transplants from the wild. All methods of transplanting ginseng roots have pros and cons, but the advantages of harvesting from the wild are many.
When regular cleaning products don’t do enough to remove odors on various household surfaces or appliances, lemons come in handy. Lemons are natural deodorizers that can be used in many ways throughout your home. In addition to using them alone, you can mix lemon juice with vinegar as a nontoxic, "green" cleaning solution — with a less pungent odor than using straight vinegar. What’s more, the 5 percent acid content in lemon juice has antibacterial effects, killing germs as it freshens your home.
Echinacea purpurea is known to many gardeners by its common name, purple coneflower, which refers both to the color and shape of the large, showy flowers. The highly ornamental appearance and butterfly-attracting properties of purple coneflower make it a suitable addition to many gardens, and it is widely cultivated across the United States. Several propagation methods are used to grow purple coneflower, but seed germination provides one of the most reliable means of creating new plants. However, seed-grown echinacea plants sometimes take up to two years to bloom and may exhibit color variations in the flowers.
Lavender oil is an effective repellent for rodents, such as mice and rats, because they do not like the odor. A repellent is often the best method to control rodents for people who despise handling mousetraps and are hesitant to use poisons to rid their homes of rodents because they have small children and pets. Others avoid using harsh chemicals to protect the environment. Poison also has the potential drawback of causing rodents to crawl into hidden areas to die, resulting in a foul odor in your home. Along with other preventative methods, lavender oil prevents infestations if you use…
Cats living in the home often make incredible roommates, with a few exceptions. Furniture clawing is a natural behavior for cats who simply wish to exercise and stretch muscles while maintaining healthy claws. When you have invested in leather furniture, however, that natural behavior becomes damaging and frustrating. Rather than replacing expensive leather furnishings, sometimes leather furniture can be repaired using leather repair products. These products are available individually or in kits used to mend damage to different types of leather furniture.
Lavender is prominent in many flower gardens for its lovely purple flowers and delicate fragrance. It grows best in full sun and reaches anywhere from 18 to 36 inches tall, depending on the variety of plant. Lavender can withstand dry conditions quite well and is fairly pest resistant. The lavender plant is quite hardy and will tolerate transplanting well, as long as you dig it out properly using methods that reduce the risk of damaging the roots.
Desert gardeners find plenty of cat's claw vines (Macfadyena unguis-cati) while shopping at local nurseries and gardening centers. It's one of the most popular flowering vines in desert cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix. cat's claw vine takes its nickname from the sticky, claw-like structures along its stems. They cling to just about any material. Although the vine typically doesn't damage stucco as some vines do, it takes a long time to remove once it covers the side of a stucco home. cat's claw vine grows to 25 feet or more in length and, although it is native to…
Lavender is both a garden ornamental and an herb. A member of the mint family, it is grown for its aromatic spikes of purple flowers. While there are different types of lavender, the hardier types go dormant over the winter and – if properly pruned -- return, lush and full, in the spring. The secret to growing a large, dense lavender plant is pruning it early in its life and on a yearly basis. Pruning is generally a task that is performed after the plant finishes flowering. If you wait until it is dormant, make sure you prune well before…
Exfoliating your skin produces a healthy complexion because it removes dead skin cells, tightens the skin and enables the pores to breathe. You can make an all-natural remedy for exfoliating made from lemons. The citric acid in the lemons breaks down the proteins of the dead skin cells and makes removing them quick and easy. The lemons are the ordinary kind that are carried at grocery stores and are low in price. A few household supplies will be needed as well.
Bitter gourd is a gourd popular in the cuisines of the Far East, with China and India being two of the places that bitter gourd is prized. It is also sometimes known as bitter melon. The key differences between the cultivars grown in China and those grown in India are the shape of the fruit and the texture of the skin. Many Indian varieties have small, sharp “teeth” all over the skin, giving them a spiney appearance. Chinese bitter gourd are often bumpy in skin texture and are more cylindrical, as opposed to the spindle shape of the Indian bitter…
The lavender-blooming Hibiscus syriana or rose of Sharon "Lavender Chiffon" bears creamy purple blossoms from summer to early fall that attract butterflies and hummingbirds. "Lavender Chiffon" grows readily in USDA hardiness zones 5 through 8. This shrub can be grown in containers or planted in a row in the ground to form a privacy screen. Annual pruning improves blossom yield.
Along with other ingredients, fenugreek seeds spice up curry powders and chutneys. The plant grows as an annual herb throughout Mediterranean countries. In the United States, fenugreek is not a common garden herb, but is gaining popularity for its interesting appearance and its tasty seeds. This herb grows best in full sun to a height of 2 feet and bears yellow flowers with a violet tint. Although they prefer not to be moved, with proper care you can transplant your fenugreek seedlings or plants.
A unusual yellow-blooming wildflower daisy from the south-central United States, the yellow or Ozark coneflower (Echinacea paradoxa) requires similar growing conditions and maintenance as its more famous cousin, the purple coneflower (E. purpurea). Yellow coneflower matures as an upright, branched herbaceous perennial 3 feet tall and 18 inches wide. Grow it in U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zones 5 through 8.
Your curtains are a perfect target for a cat to relieve its natural instinct to claw. The vertical material won't fall no matter how hard the cat pulls at the material and tears it. Cats need a stable surface in order to stretch their muscles, mark their territory and feel good through clawing. Redirect cats' clawing instincts to save your curtains and still let your cats engage in the healthy feline behavior of clawing.
"Pokemon SoulSilver," a remake of the 2000 release of "Pokemon Silver," brings back both the Johto and Kanto regions that the original game first featured. Players begin in the Johto region, defeating the gym leaders and the Elite Four before moving onto the Kanto region, which features the classic towns from the first generation of Pokemon games, including Lavender Town. Reaching Lavender Town features no difficult obstacles along the way, so you can access it with relative ease.
Cats claw furnishings because of their instinctive need to scratch. Scratching is a stretching exercise for the cat, and it makes the cat feel happy. Scratching also helps a cat mark its territory. Because you can't stop a cat from scratching, unless you have the cat declawed, learn to deter the cat from places you don't want clawed and torn, such as your favorite chair. Approach the process of deterring a cat from scratching a chair from multiple angles and do not give up after your initial attempts fail.
Cat scratches can ruin not only the look of your sofa but also the comfort of the seat. Minor scratches that do not actually tear the surface of the leather can be easily fixed with a few items found at a general hardware or home improvement store. Depending on the type of scratch and the level of damage, there are different fixes you may employ.
Scratching is a natural cat behavior that should be redirected rather than nullified. Scratching reduces stress and exercises muscles, but cats also scratch to mark their territory. It is impossible to quell the instinct to scratch. However, having a three-pronged approach of deterrents, scratching options and positive reinforcement achieves the desired result of keeping cats from shredding furniture in the shortest amount of time.
Roman chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) may be a small plant but it packs a number of big, useful aspects as an herb. Long used in teas, sachets and soaps, chamomile has antibacterial and antifungal capabilities, is an antispasmodic and is known to effectively battle candidiasis. The tea is commonly taken to help reduce stress. This perennial plant -- which resembles miniature daisies -- is often a standard in medicinal herb gardens as well as in home kitchen and herb gardens. Growing the plant is relatively simple, from seed, cuttings or plant divisions.
Face reverse vertex order is a command in the program MilkShape 3D. MilkShape 3D is a three dimensional modeling program in which the user draws polygon faces to represent the surface of an object, and can then manipulate the color and material of those faces. It is shareware, meaning that although it is a proprietary software, free trial versions with limited capability are available. It is often used to create models for games like Half-Life and The Sims.
Chinese herbs are among the most varied in the world, used for both cooking and medicinal purposes. Not only do they enhance the flavor and aroma of ordinary dishes but they also provide alternative medical practitioners different medicines to choose from. Chinese herbs such as ginseng, ginkgo biloba, sweet Annie and dong quai are easy to grow, especially for beginners, and spice up your herb containers with color. Grow the potted herbs indoors if you live in a cold climate.
When the main solo campaign mode on "Call of Duty: Black Ops" has been completed on "Regular" difficulty level or higher, a special zombie mode is unlocked. In this game, a team of four must defend a stronghold against mindless zombies, who swarm in from the distance. To aid the players, several "Perks" can be purchased from vending machines. These give the players special bonuses, depending on which perk they get.
Lavender leaves make a great ingredient for potpourri as well as serving medicinal and cosmetic purposes, and you can hang them up to dry indoors or outdoors. View a demonstration in this free video on harvesting and using edibles from your garden.
Blueberries and black currants grow on bushes that look similar, but each type of berry has different characteristics. The three main types of blueberry-bush species include Northern highbush, Southern highbush and rabbiteye. Each type produces a variety of different blueberries that range in taste, color, size and texture. Currants come in many colors, but black currents stem from the (R. nigrum) or (R. ussuriense) species.
The unique, intoxicating fragrance of lavender also has many beneficial properties. Humans are drawn to the sweet aroma of lavender, which is soothing and decreases stress. However, a variety of insects and moths dislike the smell of lavender and avoid the scent. Use lavender potpourri, essential oil, or incense cones to repel moths from your clothes and home in an effective and environmentally safe manner.
Although fennel plants are hardy, it is best to plant them right after the last frost. This gives the fennel roots a chance to strengthen up all year and survive the following winter. Fennel is a hearty, edible plant. Its leaves and seeds are used for flavoring foods, while the bulbs can be blanched and eaten as a vegetable. Fennel's aromatic leaves also attract bees and butterflies, encouraging pollination among your other garden plants and flowers.
A healthy lavender plant that suddenly erupts with gooey white growths is alarming. While not an actual a growth, the gooey white foam does indicate an infestation of spittlebugs. Spittlebugs invade lavender plants and other ornamentals producing white foam on the stalks, leaves and flowers. Minor infestations are unsightly while major infestations can damage plants. Catch spittlebugs early to prevent unnecessary stress for your lavender plants.
Black currant (Ribes nigrum) is a deciduous shrub native to Europe and Asia. Growers cultivated it widely during the early 20th century, but the Federal Government outlawed it because it spread a disease called white pine blister rust that attacked white pine trees. The federal government lifted the ban in 1966, but some local and state governments still prohibit growers from cultivating black currant shrubs.
Wool clothing is a staple in cold climates, but once the weather warms up and woolen clothing is no longer necessary, people put it away until the next winter arrives. Proper storage of clothing is essential to the prevention of moth damage. There are many substances used to repel moths or kill moths, and some of these products are known to be toxic. Cedar and lavender are nontoxic, eco-friendly natural products to repel moths.
Evening primrose oil is a herbal supplement that comes from the evening primrose plant. It is used for its natural healing properties. It is commonly used for eczema and skin disorders in both human beings and animals. It is also used for Alzheimer's disease, arthritis and heart disease, according to MedLinePlus.
