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‘Song of Myself’: A Poem by Walt Whitman

‘Song of Myself’ is perhaps the definitive achievement of the great nineteenth-century American poet Walt Whitman (1819-92), so we felt that it was a good choice for the second in our ‘post a poem a day’ feature. ‘Song of Myself’ is long, but well worth devoting ten or fifteen minutes to reading, whether you’re familiar with Whitman’s distinctive and psalmic free verse style or new to the world of Walt Whitman’s poetry. Below is the 1892 version of the poem, completed shortly before Whitman’s death in the same year.

‘Song of Myself’ by Walt Whitman

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Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. Especially on this day in this era, as those of us in America work to keep our foundation and legacy healthy.

When I was a teacher, I used the following passage all the time. Recently I sent it to one son. When I left teaching, students gave me a gift: Leaves of Grass. My son emailed me – “Where did you find this?” so I sent him a link to this page.

Here’s the passage:

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured. I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!) My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods, No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair, I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

• Pingback: ‘I Sing the Body Electric’: A Poem by Walt Whitman | Interesting Literature
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Preventing Flopping Grass: Causes Of Ornamental Grasses Falling Over

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Whether you want to make a subtle statement or a big impact, ornamental grasses can be just the right design detail for your landscaping. Most of these grasses need very little care and thrive on neglect, so they're perfect for even novice gardeners to grow. One of the few problems you may have with an ornamental grass plant, however, is the stems falling over, otherwise known as lodging of ornamental grasses.

Causes of Ornamental Grasses Falling Over

Preventing flopping grass in the garden is easier once you understand why ornamental grass falls over. Most of the problems associated with flopping ornamental grass is because of gardeners taking too much care of the plants, not too little. The most common cause of ornamental grasses falling over is too much nitrogen in the soil. If you have a habit of fertilizing your ornamental plants on a regular basis, you'll be causing the problem you're trying to avoid. Give these plants one application of 10-10-10 fertilizer first thing in the spring just as the grass blades begin to sprout. Avoid any more fertilizer for the rest of the year. Another reason your ornamental grass may flop over is that it has grown too big. These plants benefit from being divided every three or four years. Once they grow to an overly large size, the sheer weight of the mass of grass blades can cause the entire plant to bend down and fall over. Divide the plants in spring before any fresh shoots appear and plant each new grass clump far enough away so that it doesn't shade its neighbors.

How to Fix Falling Ornamental Grass

So how do you fix falling ornamental grass once it's happened? If the damage has been done and your ornamental grass has fallen over, you can give it a quick fix until the stems are strong enough to hold themselves up again. Simply pound a stake or length of rebar into the ground in the very center of the grass clump. Wrap a strand of garden twine that matches the grass around the entire clump, about halfway up the stalks. Tie the twine loosely enough so that the grass can move naturally, but tightly enough so that the strands all stand up in one vertical clump.

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It’s a gardener’s delight to grow flowers for tea. Learn which flowers make great teas that taste as good as they look, and draw pollinators as well.

By Amy Grant

It’s exciting to try some unusual plants for making tea. Enjoy these unusual tea flavors, and try some for their medicinal qualities.

By Mary Ellen Ellis

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8 Fall Gardening Mistakes That Have a Long-Term Impact on Your Yard

Here’s what you need to know as you make your fall lawn and garden cleanup list.

The air is crisp, you’ve given away all the tomatoes, and summer’s weeds seem like a fading memory. It’s time to put your yard to bed for the winter. And while it’s easy to do what you’ve always done (and maybe what your parents did, too), some long-established fall yard clean-up tasks could use a tweak or two. We asked experts to share the most common fall gardening mistakes—and what we should be doing instead.

• Aaron Steil, horticulturalist with Iowa State University Extension
• Lynsey Nielson, horticulturalist with Red Butte Garden

jim Schlett / GETTY IMAGES

1. Clear-Cutting the Perennial Bed

It’s tempting to pull out the dead perennial flower and plant material and create a nice, tidy-looking landscape going into winter. But there are a lot of good reasons to leave it in place, says Aaron Steil, a horticulturalist with Iowa State University Extension.

For starters, leftover stems, leaves, and grasses add a layer of protection to help the underlying plants survive winter. Stems also tend to collect and hold leaves from nearby trees, adding more to that winter blanket.

Perennial plant material also provides winter cover for beneficial insects. "A lot of our native bees are cavity-nesting bees, so they need hollow reeds like the ones in grasses and perennials to nest in," says Lynsey Nielson, a horticulturalist with Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City.

Need more reasons? Perennial seed heads provide food for birds, whether they’re wintering over or bulking up for their journey south.

2. Leaving Plant Debris in the Vegetable Garden

Unlike perennial gardens, vegetable gardens tend to have issues with insect pests and diseases. And both can survive the winter in plant debris. "Getting your vegetable garden all cleaned up is really beneficial, so there isn't a spot for those things to overwinter in the plant debris and potentially impact our plants next year," Steil says. Another way to help is rotating crops to new places in spring.

3. Pruning in Fall

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After a whole summer of thriving, your plants and trees probably look like they could use a haircut. But fall is one of the worst times to get out the pruning shears.

Blooming, lilacs, forsythias, viburnums, hydrangeas, and other woody plants have already set buds for the following year. That means any pruning you do now will remove buds for next spring’s flowers or fruits. Other plants, including fruit trees and roses, will push out new growth quickly after you prune them. "And that will open it up to cold injury once you get snowpack or frost," Nielson says. Larger trees have preferred seasons for pruning as well, so do a bit of homework on your trees or better yet, call in a certified arborist before jumping in.

4. Failing to Protect Trees From Wildlife

From fall to late winter, bucks rub their antlers on the trunks of young trees, first to remove the velvet that has been growing there all summer, later to mark their territory during the breeding season, and finally, to shed the antlers. All that rubbing can easily girdle a tree, robbing it of the layers that carry food from roots to leaves. "They can absolutely destroy a young tree in just one night," Steil says. "It's devastating to find, because usually it's a tree you just planted." His advice: Pound three or four posts in the ground around the tree, no more than 18 inches apart, to keep deer from getting their antlers in close enough for a good rub. You can also add chicken wire or wrap the trunk with plastic tubing to keep hungry rabbits from nibbling away your young tree’s bark. Just make sure it’s tall enough to deter them when there’s snow on the ground, he says.

5. Leaving Full-Size Leaves on the Lawn

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On garden beds and around the base of trees, fall leaves enrich soil, hold moisture, and insulate roots. They also provide cover for overwintering bumblebees as well as eggs and larva from good insects like fireflies, pest-munching beetles, butterflies, and Luna moths, keeping them in your environment for next year and providing food for birds.

But turfgrass is not a good place to leave your leaves. "Whether you're looking to have a golf-course-fairway of a lawn or you're OK with some of the quote-unquote weeds, like clover and dandelion, all of that could potentially be smothered if you leave that layer of leaves on the lawn over the winter," Steil says.

That will leave bare spots, which crabgrass, foxtail, purslane, spurge, and other weeds will be more than happy to fill in. "And even if you're trying to be more friendly to pollinators by encouraging flowering plants in your lawn, like clover, those plants—like foxtail and purslane—don't have flowers that are beneficial for pollinators," Steil says. Instead, rake leaves and move them to garden beds or a compost pile. If the leaf layer isn’t thick, you can also mow over it a time or two. You’ll know the pieces are small enough when you can see the grass, Steil says, and the mulched leaves will break down and add more organic matter to the soil.

6. Dividing Perennials Too Soon or Too Late

Some perennials —including hostas, daylilies, Oriental poppies, phlox, and purple coneflowers—form clumps as they grow. Eventually, the overcrowding slows their blooming and can even cause some in the middle to die.

Dividing is a simple matter of digging up each clump, carefully separating the roots, and replanting the crowns. But hitting the right weather window—after summer’s heat has passed but early enough to allow new plants to establish before winter—is important to their success. 

"A good rule of thumb is to give yourself at least six weeks before frost," Nielson says, adding that a layer of mulch will also help protect the newly established roots during winter, so you’ll have happy campers next spring.

7. Letting Cool-Season Weeds Go

Maximkostenko / GETTY IMAGES

By the end of the gardening season, we’re tired. It’s tempting to believe that winter will finish off the new weeds sprouting in our garden beds and landscapes. But don’t give in.

"There are a lot of cool-season weeds that come out at the end of the season," Nielson says. "They only have a small window, so they can go from seed to plant to flowering to seed again in a very, very short period of time."

  In other words, even if winter’s cold kills off the weeds you see now, their offspring will be around next year and beyond. It’s worth your time and effort to remove them.

8. Being Too Hard on Yourself

Worried that you got one of these items wrong? It’s OK. Part of the joy of gardening is learning, and there’s plenty of room for the lessons of our mistakes.

"Gardens are dynamic," Neilson says. "And just because you fail once doesn't mean that you don't have a green thumb. Just need to keep trying. That's gardening."

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3 Common Gardening Injuries and How to Prevent Them

By Susan Burke, OTR/L, CHT, regional director, Hand and Upper Extremity Program, MedStar Union Memorial Hospital

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If you are experiencing a medical emergency , please call 911 or seek care at an emergency room.

For many of us, the time we spend gardening is enjoyable and even therapeutic. It’s important to remember, in addition to our fresh annuals and budding perennials, potentially dangerous hazards may also exist in our flower beds. From insects and bacteria to improper sitting and lifting, our yard work could lead to an injury or infection.

The most common gardening injuries include cuts and scrapes. Other gardening injuries can occur from lawn mower and tool accidents, ring avulsions, and using improper body mechanics, especially when lifting heavy loads.

How Cuts and Scrapes Can Lead to Infection

It’s easy to get small cuts and scrapes on exposed skin while working in the garden. The soil contains bacteria and fungi that are beneficial for plants, but can be harmful for us, and those cuts and scrapes are a gateway for bacteria to enter our bodies. There are two serious infections that can be contracted while gardening:

• Tetanus-an infection that can occur when contaminants found on garden tools or rose thorns enter the body, usually through cuts and scrapes. Symptoms may include weakness, stiffness, cramps, and muscle paralysis, particularly in the jaw. Muscle paralysis in the jaw, also known as lockjaw, can lead to difficulty chewing and swallowing.
• Sepsis -an infection introduced to the body through cuts and scrapes, particularly when handling soil, mulch, or fertilizer with animal manure. When sepsis enters the bloodstream, your body reacts with an inflammatory response. Sepsis can escalate quickly, leading to life-threatening septic shock and organ failure.

If you have a cut or scrape, the symptoms listed below could be a sign of infection. If you experience any of these, please seek medical attention right away.

• Redness near the irritation site
• Redness that expands beyond the cut or scrape
• Skin that’s warm to the touch
• Swollen lymph nodes

It’s important to remember, cuts and scrapes can happen anywhere on our body, not just our hands and fingertips. Be sure to wear gloves, long sleeves, long pants, and protective footwear.

What is Ring Avulsion?

Ring avulsion occurs when rings are caught on objects and your body’s weight follows, pulling or tearing the skin around the finger. Avulsions are not very common, but they are very serious injuries. Damage from the harsh tug can range from simple bruising, to degloving, and even finger amputation.

Degloving is when the finger’s skin is stripped from the bone, damaging the nerves and tendons. It can result in severe tissue loss, and in the most extreme cases, the amputated finger cannot be replanted. Side effects of ring avulsion include pain, bleeding, loss of sensation in the finger, discoloration, and disfigurement.

Preventing a ring avulsion is very simple: remove rings when gardening, operating machinery, and participating in sports or outdoor activities. Wearing gloves will not prevent an avulsion; the ring can still catch objects from under the glove.

How to Avoid Lawn Mower and Tool Accidents

Every year, we see partial or complete amputations from lawn mower accidents. It’s important to properly maintain and clean lawn mowers. Remember to always use a tool or broom, never your hands, to clean debris or dislodge jams from a lawn mower. Be sure to turn off the lawn mower and wait until the blade stops moving before clearing debris.

Even when the lawn mower is off, use a tool to clear jams. Sometimes, once the jam is removed, the blade will begin spinning again from momentum–even if the lawn mower is off!

Always wear proper clothing and protective gear, including footwear, when operating machinery, such as lawn mowers, edgers, and hedge trimmers. Wear sneakers, not sandals or bare feet, long pants, and safety goggles.

8 Tips to Prevent Gardening Injuries

Other gardening injuries include poison ivy and insect and spider bites. Though some of these injuries can be serious, the good news is most are easily preventable with proper clothing.

Here are eight simple tips for preventing gardening injuries:

• Wear gloves at all times. This will protect your hands and fingers from cuts and scrapes and potentially harmful bacteria.
• Wear protective clothing. Always wear long sleeves, long pants, and sneakers to protect your arms, legs, and feet from insect and spider bites, as well as cuts and scrapes. Additionally, wearing hats and sunscreen can protect your skin from prolonged exposure to the sun.
• Remove rings. By taking off your rings, you eliminate the chance of ring avulsion.
• Don’t sit back on your knees. Sitting back on your knees stresses knee joints and requires you to use your hands and wrists to stabilize. It also requires your hands and wrists to bear your weight while shifting from kneeling to standing. Try using a garden stool or bench.
• Use good body mechanics , especially when picking up heavy items like mulch or topsoil. You can prevent upper extremity and back injuries by distributing the weight, using your legs to lift, and keeping the load close to your body when lifting. Remember not to bend at the waist. You can also use a wage or wheelbarrow to transport heavy loads.
• Safely store your tools. Store sharp blades facing down and keep tools out of reach of children.
• Don’t drink alcohol. Avoid alcoholic beverages while gardening or mowing the lawn. Save the beer or cocktail for when your yard work is done.
• Take breaks. Stretch before, during, and after your yard work. Try to minimize sustained periods of repetitive motions, which can lead to tennis elbow and tendonitis.

Use these tips to stay healthy and injury free, while enjoying your time in the garden!

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7 life lessons your garden can teach you, "i say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life." - from calvin & hobbes by bill watterson.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated .

A garden delights every sense – the bees humming amongst the flowers in garden beds , the soft dirt between our fingers, the bright colors of ripening fruits amidst the greens, the taste of a freshly picked tomato. But true garden lovers know that the benefits of gardening aren’t just physical. As the years pass season to season, gardens teach us things about life that change who we are.

1. Learning to look at things from a different perspective can save you a lot of heartache

My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. – H. Fred Dale

There are gardeners who battle against the elements, fighting to put a specific plant in a specific place, only to find that the same pests return year after year to destroy their best-laid plans. ‘Why don’t the chemicals work?’ they cry, and, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ When you’re beating your head against the wall because the same old thing isn’t working any more, maybe it’s time to reevaluate and try something new. Change is good, especially being able to see something with new eyes.

2. Optimism is important

Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding you up until your back gets used to it. – Author Unknown

Seed catalogs arrive when snow is still on the ground in most places, and garden planning is really just an act of imagination. The failures of the previous year and the hard knots in your lower back have faded away just long enough to dream of an even better garden this year. Trusting that the future holds the possibility of better things, new growth, and sunshine (as well as much-needed rain) is the first step to making good things happen.

3. The most beautiful things in life are sandwiched between a rock and a hard place

In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death. – Sam Llewelyn

One of everyone’s least favorite gardening jobs is thinning seedlings (or at least mine is). I feel guilty every time I pinch away the tiny little plant which has just sprung from the soil. Plants die, either through their natural cycle, or because something killed them. They rely on the nitty-gritty business of bees and wind to produce seeds, and they struggle through the soil around rocks and tiny creatures just waiting to devour them. The garden is a battleground of survival, but through it all is this miraculous and beautiful life, which is not only thriving, it’s exuberant in its existence. Life needs that struggle and the reality of sex and death to create the beauty within it.

4. It’s okay to be alone sometimes

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought. – James Douglas, Down Shoe Lane

There are a few people who revel in aloneness, but there are many more of us who find it insufferable to be alone, in the quiet, with our own thoughts. The magic of the garden is that it somehow always feels okay to be out amidst the plants, sweating and pulling weeds, feeling the satisfaction and pride of a well-tended garden, absolutely alone. If you must choose between the meditation of sitting in a quiet room and the meditation of gardening, it’s far easier to empty your mind in the physical exertion of a garden than it is in the dark, sitting on the floor. And then, in the quiet of your mind surrounded by the noisy chaos of wind, bees, birds and crawly things, you will find that being alone is often good.

5. Every good thing requires hard work

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made by singing, “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade… – Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Glory of the Garden’

First-time gardeners are surprised by the time it takes to make a good garden. There are anthropologists who argue that one of humanity’s biggest mistakes was to switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers, because it took up so much more of our day and our energy. We chose the life of agriculturalists because it produced a surplus – a way of creating some insurance for the future. Hard work is the secret ingredient for every good thing in life, especially really hard work. The harder you work at something, the better it will be.

6. Failure is the necessary stepping stone to success

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. – May Sarton

Every year in the garden is a circle of successes, and even more failures. Which variety of lettuce will do better in the heat? Why did I have so many cutworms ? Why didn’t my carrots sprout? It’s an experiment that takes place over and over again to find the right formula, and often there isn’t one. What worked one year might not work the next.

A ‘successful’ garden is a misnomer: there is no such thing as 100% success in gardening. When you are dealing with nature, there are no guarantees. There is also not a single successful person who does not have a long story to tell about the extreme failures they experienced on the road to that success. If you were only able to take one skill to a deserted island, being able to fail well and learn from failure will be the secret to finding your way out.

7. The unexpected can often be beautiful and magnificent

You can plan ahead but the unexpected will happen and it’s not always a bad thing. Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. – Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia

Just like our gardens, life is short, fraught with the unexpected, filled with failure and adversity, and never seems to go as we planned. It’s also magnificent in its beauty as we experience love and laughter, adventures, and the small joys that can fill us with sublime happiness.

Almost none of the happiest moments in life are planned – instead, it’s the spontaneity of life that is the most delightful part. Let us revel in the little things and find joy in the dirt !

About the Author

Nicole Faires Nicole Faires is an urban farmer and best-selling author of books on sustainable agriculture and food policy. Originally from Montana, she now lives with her family on the West Coast. Find out more at deliberatelife.ca or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Garden overwhelm: 8 tips to help you cope when garden tasks feel like a burden.

I took a walk around my gardens the other day and noticed everything that needed to be done. It felt like I had a huge task ahead of me. Fall planting time is here and I already feel behind. This summer has been brutal and I lost my garden excitement when the squash bugs moved in and decimated my beautiful watermelon and spaghetti squash. I was experiencing Garden Overwhelm. I just wanted to give up. Have you ever felt that way? Obviously, I have. Almost every season. If you have felt this, don’t despair. With a little bit of dedicated effort, you can get caught up in no time. Here are 8 simple steps to get you moving in the right direction and feeling like you can conquer the garden again.

1. Take A Step Back

It’s easy to look at your gardens at the beginning of a new season and wonder how you’re going to get it all done. When this happens, you are experiencing Garden Overwhelm. Take a step back and narrow your focus. Decide what is priority and what steps need to be taken first to get the ball rolling. Create a plan of attack and then follow that plan.

2. Take One Simple Step

Instead of looking at your garden bed full of weeds and worrying about how you’re going to have tomatoes to harvest, take one simple step to start clearing the weeds. One simple step. Or, if you need to make repairs on your irrigation system, dedicate time to focusing on just that one project. Directing your attention to multiple tasks at a time is one sure way to give in to that feeling of overwhelm and ultimately give up. On the other hand, when you direct your attention to a small task, you will feel a sense of accomplishment and a renewed desire to carry on.

3. Build On What You Are Accomplishing

Once that watering system is in place, or whatever task you chose, you can move on to amending your soil, sowing seeds or planting transplants. Accomplishing small tasks will give you satisfaction as they build on one another and pretty soon you will have that garden whipped back into shape.

4. Give Yourself Permission

In the gardening community, just like the home decorating community or fashion industry there are trends. As you look around social media and other people’s gardens, don’t feel the pressure to have to commit to those trends. If you don’t like to eat something or don’t like the look of a certain flower or plant, find a way to modify the use of that item or simply just don’t grow it. Give yourself permission to be ok not being on-trend.

One of those trends in the past that I found a way to modify is kale. I don’t love the texture and toughness of kale and, let’s be real, kale tastes like frowns! However, I know that kale has amazing health benefits. I knew that if I grew kale, it wouldn’t get eaten and it would have been a waste of water, time and valuable garden real estate just to grow a trendy vegetable.

Ultimately, I decided that I wanted the benefits of kale and I could modify the way it was consumed in my household. I grew the kale, harvested the leaves, freeze dried them and then ground them into a powder. I now add that powder to sauces, soups, smoothies and more without having to chew the leaf or taste the frowniness. Because I grow this way, I only have to grow kale once every two or three years.

You may feel overwhelmed because you don’t have hours to spend getting your garden in shape. In that case, give yourself 5 minutes and go outside and complete a small gardening task. Set a timer, put on your earbuds and your favorite podcast or music and get to work. It might be organizing and cleaning your gardening tools so that they will be ready to do the work in the future. It could be organizing your seeds or planning out your beds. You could spend that five minutes sowing seeds indoors for transplanting later.

Perhaps you could focus on a small corner of your garden to weed and amend. Or you could get your composting area in shape and ready to compost. You could deadhead or prune unsightly foliage. Continue this pattern everyday for a week and you will be surprised at what you are accomplishing. You may even find that because you have given yourself permission to only spend 5 minutes, you are in reality spending 10 minutes in the garden, accomplishing tasks that seemed overwhelming and you are actually enjoying it! As it makes sense, increase the amount of time you spend working in the garden until you have it in the shape you want.

6. Harvest What You Have

When things are overgrown it may seem easy to just give up on everything. Don’t do this! Instead, cut those vegetables or flowers that are actually growing and blooming and bring them inside to eat or enjoy. Simply having them in your home and reaping the benefits may just give you the motivation to go back out there and refocus your efforts.

7. Accept Failure

There will be failures in gardening. It is inevitable. Whether it be weather, pests, animals or operator error, some crops will fail. Accept this as truth and move on. Don’t allow discouragement to creep in and keep you from getting back out there and taking one simple step to get going again. I have found this to especially be the case in the hot summer months here in Arizona. I usually have to give myself permission to stop everything in August, knowing that I will pick back up again in September.

8. Prepare For The Coming Season

It is so much easier to get ready to garden when the beds have been properly retired the previous season and prepared for the coming season . This is especially true in the fall for many who live in cold climates. Put those beds to rest at the end of your growing season when the ground can still be worked to get them prepped for spring. It is much more difficult to prepare a bed in spring when the ground is still frozen or wet from winter snow and rain.

If you prep the bed for the upcoming season, you can get a jumpstart on planting, which will also give you an earlier harvest than if you hadn’t done so. And, in return, you will not be dreading the spring and having to prep the beds for the season when that time rolls around, thus eliminating that initial overwhelm.

Gardening should be fun, therapeutic and beneficial. Give yourself grace and time to get back on the wagon. By following these 8 suggestions, you will prevent Garden Overwhelm, and find that you can get back out there and whip your overgrown and unruly garden into shape. When you reap a bountiful harvest, you’ll be so glad you did!

Stephanie Walker

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T086 - Past Tense Simple or Progressive

Gap-fill exercise.

Fill in the correct form of the PAST TENSE : Simple or Progressive !

• My brother ( DRINK ) while he ( DO ) his homework.
• He ( WALK ) into the classroom, then he (SAT) down.
• Harry ( SING ) a song when Jane ( COME ) in.
• Nothing ( HAPPEN ) when I turned on the radio.
• It ( START ) to rain while I ( WALK ) through the park.
• Jackie ( LISTEN ) to the radio when the doorbell  ( RING ).
• He ( FIND ) some money when he ( CLEAN ) the cupboards.
• He ( SEE ) the accident when he (DRIVE) home from work.
• While Jimmy ( TELL ) a joke his teacher ( WALK ) in.
• The Smiths ( FLY ) to Italy yesterday.
• It ( BEGIN ) to snow while we ( PLAY ) football.
• They ( LIVE ) in Portugal when the earthquake ( HAPPEN )

Good Advice for Gardeners: What's That Rash?

Poisonous life overwhelms many gardens, and as summer arrives and patients head outside, poison ivy becomes a timely concern.

Many patients forget to wear protective clothing while doing yard work, which leaves them vulnerable to accidentally encountering poisonous plants. Many others are unaware that OTC barrier topicals containing quaternium-18 bentonite can prevent rash.

Retail clinicians are well-placed in their communities to ensure patients are aware of the types of poisonous plants and how they can protect themselves from exposure. Poison ivy , poison oak, and poison sumac are well-known for their urushiol-containing sap. Approximately half of American adults are sensitive to these plants and can develop an itchy red rash up to 4 days after exposure. As the rash ripens, blisters usually appear in streaks.

Patients may fail to realize that direct contact isn’t the only way to develop a rash from urushiol oils. The oils can also persist on gardening tools, gloves, and clothing, while pets can carry the oil to unsuspecting humans.

Airborne contact is possible if the plants are burned, which releases urushiol into the air. Airborne exposure usually leads to widespread rash and can cause severe irritation in the respiratory tract.

Good gardening advice is, “Leaves of 3, let it be,” but poison ivy and other urushiol-containing sap plants aren’t the only rash-producing plants in the petunia patch. Retail clinicians should advise their outdoorsy patients to be wary of the following plants:

â–ºStinging nettle plants are carpeted with sharp hairs resembling tiny hypodermic needles. A quick brush on exposed skin can lead to histamine or acetylcholine release and blotchy hives within an hour of exposure. The rash usually resolves spontaneously in a few hours. Strawberries, onions, garlic, tulips, and lilies can also cause hives.

â–ºSpiny, thorny, or glochid (barbed spine or bristle-bearing) plants can deposit plant material in the dermis, causing itchy, bumpy eruptions. Usually, the rash resolves without incident, but irritated areas can become infected with staph or fungal infections.

â–ºSome patients react to goldenrod, daisy, or tansy, which contain sesquiterpene lactones.

â–ºRue, a spring-blooming plant with pretty blue-green foliage, can cause phytophotodermatitis—a rash caused by 1) exposure to a plant that contains psoralens, and 2) followed by exposure to ultraviolet light. Giant hogweed, limes, Queen Anne’s lace, bergamot oranges, and celery can also cause this reaction.

Treatment depends on the patient’s exposure and reaction.

If spines, thorns, or glochids are implicated, they should be removed carefully with tweezers. Some particles are extremely small; for these, apply glue and gauze to the site, allow it to dry, and peel it off.

Minor itching, irritation, or rash can be treated with oral antihistamines or OTC topical steroids. If the rash is more extensive or uncomfortable, a more potent topical steroid can be considered. Severe rash mandates a strong topical steroid or a 2- to 3-week course of oral steroids.

For poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac, retail clinicians should advise lukewarm baths and soaks with products containing aluminum acetate, calamine, or topical steroids. Additionally, oral antihistamines will lessen itching and skin irritation, but avoid topical antihistamines. Some patients are allergic to these products, which can aggravate the problem.

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7 Things Your Lawn May Be Trying to Tell You

By Jennifer Noonan

Updated on Nov 16, 2020 5:15 PM EST

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn More ›

“I’m Thirsty!”

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If you can see your footprints in the lawn after you’ve walked through the grass, that’s a sign your grass is starting to wilt. Translation: It needs water. This is most likely to happen in the dog days of summer, when the heat takes a serious toll on turf grass. So drag out those sprinklers , and give your lawn a drink!

Related: 7 Ways to Save Water in the Yard

“Help! I’m Drowning!”

Lawn mushrooms are a sign that your yard is too wet. If these fungi appear after a heavy rain, they will usually go away on their own. However, you see them  regularly , you’ll need to find a way to dry out your lawn. The first step is to cut back your watering routine. If that doesn’t help, try improving drainage with the use of a lawn aerator. Toadstools still haunting your lawn? Consider trimming overhead tree branches to let in sunlight and banish mushrooms.

Related:  7 Lawn Care Myths Debunked

“Your Mower Blades Are Dull!”

If your grass is turning an unhealthy shade of brown, your mower blades may be at fault. Dull blades can rip and shred grass blades, quickly turning a lush lawn into a scraggly yard. Examine your grass blades. They should be cleanly cut across the top. If they look frayed or torn, have your blades sharpened.

Related:  9 Mowing Mistakes Everyone Makes

“Ouch! Too Much Fertilizer!”

You really can have too much of a good thing. Take fertilizer, for instance. Apply  too much  to your lawn, or apply it unevenly, and it can result in fertilizer burn. When that happens, the grass will turn yellow—or if it’s particularly severe—crispy brown. The good news is that a lawn that’s been mildly burned with chemical fertilizer can recover. If you suspect that your lawn has been damaged, flush the mineral salts out of the grass with water. Run the sprinklers until water saturates the yard, then continue to water for the next several days to dilute the fertilizer.

Related:  7 Real Reasons to Consider Fake Grass

“I’ve Got Grubs”

If you see irregular brown patches in your lawn, you may have a grub problem . Grubs are insects in the larvae stage, and they dine on the roots of turf grass, causing it to wilt and die. To diagnose a grub infestation, dig up a patch of grass in a suspect area. If you see a white, beetle-like creature rolled up in a C-shape, you’ve got grubs. There are a few proven ways to eliminate these creepy crawlies, such as spreading nematodes or milky spore on a troubled lawn.

Related:  The Invincible Yard: 17 Ideas for Lazy Landscaping

A lawn that has turned from dark green to a pale yellow is likely experiencing chlorosis, or a lack of nitrogen. In other words, your lawn is hungry, and it needs food. It may be time to apply some fertilizer . Before spreading store-bought fertilizer, read the instructions thoroughly to avoid accidental overfeeding.

Related:  Don’t Make These 8 Mistakes in Your Front Yard

“I’m Choking!”

Thinning grass and  weed-infested lawns  can indicate soil compaction. Compacted soil prevents air and nutrients from getting to the roots of the turf grass, which causes it to die back. To evaluate your soil’s compaction problem, push a screwdriver or pencil into the turf. This will be very difficult to do if you have compacted soil. If you notice a problem, know that it’s time to aerate your lawn. You can do the job with a lawn aerator, available for rent or purchase at most home centers.

Related:  7 Remedies to Rescue a Dying Lawn

Pay Attention

bobvila.com

Mother Nature often gives signs when the grass or garden needs something . Different changes have specific meanings for what could be wrong. With a little research, you can pinpoint the issue and see your plants flourish again.

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