Keeping that "Curb Appeal" fresh in the summer heat.

Not only are we as people hot during this record breaking heat spell here in the East, but our plants are showing signs of stress too.  The leaves on the maple trees are a little droopy, and the grass is turning brown.  Those "widely scattered thunderstorms" that are predicted every evening rarely occur on our neighborhoods, it seems.

If you're trying to sell your home and want to keep the "curb appeal" of your potted plants looking fresh, this weather could be a challenge. Even if the plants are watered every morning, by the end of the afternoon, they can still look wilted.

 Last week I came upon a great idea to keep my potted plants from wilting all day.

 I fill some empty plastic bottles with water, stand them up in the freezer and freeze them over night. In the morning, I put the frozen bottles upside down on the soil of the plants.  It takes all day for the ice to melt, so the plants have that "time released water pellets" thing going that keeps them from looking like death by the end of the day.

This is a picture of a green pepper plant that even though I had watered in the morning, it was still wilting by late afternoon.   I had  forgotten to put out the water bottle on it. 

But on other days when I do give it the iced water drip, they look healthy when I come home from showing houses in this heat.

Easy, free, and ecological!!