There’s no denying that pruning a plant can be stressful. Prune too early, no flowers. Prune too late, maybe kill the tree. Don’t prune at all? That can lead to overgrown bushes and dangerously decayed tree branches. Pruning is a part of the gardener’s life.
Like with most things in life, pruning just takes a little practice and experience to get the hang of it. Master the art, and your plants and trees will prosper. Just remember that you can always cut more, but you can’t cut less. So take your time, do your research, and never make these eight pruning mistakes.
Pruning Too Aggressively
After a long winter, it’s understandable that you want to hit the garden and start snipping your shrubs into shape. Don’t let the power of the pruning shears go to your head, though. Yes, it can be fun to prune, but unless you’re turning your hydrangea or crepe myrtle into a topiary, don’t overdo it. Over-pruning can permanently damage a plant, stunt its growth, and make it susceptible to disease.
Pruning Too Early
If you prune too early in the season, there’s a good chance you’ll snip the buds right off their branches, which means no flowers in the spring. Before you cut, do a little research, like with our pruning guide, or just wait to trim until the plant has finished blooming for the year. As our resident Grumpy Gardener says, “If in doubt, you can never go wrong by pruning a flowering plant right after its final blooms fade.”
Heavy Pruning During the Growing Season
When a tree is growing, pruning can possibly starve a tree. After all, pruning is basically cutting leaves and leaves are how trees make food. In the hot summer heat, leaves also provide important shade to the tree bark and branches, cutting too much can make plants vulnerable to sunscald. During growing season, which typically runs from spring until late summer, take care to leave enough leaves to keep the tree healthy and growing.
Using Dull Tools
Having your pruning shears sharpened is probably pretty far down on your to-do list, but dull tools can cause a whole heap of problems. Unsharpened implements can cause rough cuts that rip the bark, shred the wood, and leave large wounds that are difficult for a tree or shrub to repair, making them susceptible to disease and pests.
Topping a Tree
While occasionally a tree outgrows its allotted space, cutting the top off is generally frowned upon. The process, known as topping, shocks a tree, weakening it and sending it into repair mode as it tries fix the damage and start regrowing. This is why it’s important to pick the right tree for your space. To trim the tree without topping it, try trimming the lateral branches to cut down on size, if not height. The best course of action, though, might just be to call in the professionals.
Ripping Bark
Bark serves as an important barrier for plants, keeping out bugs and water that can otherwise damage or even kill them. Clumsy pruning with dull implements can end up ripping off the bark, leaving the plant vulnerable to pests and water damage.
Not Hiring an Expert When Needed
While most folks can handle cutting a shrub into shape, when it comes to pruning a tree, that may be another time when it’s best to call in the pros. The taller the tree the greater the potential for injury and damage both to property and to the tree itself.
Not Pruning at All
While pruning can seem daunting, it is important to do. Pruning keeps plants healthy, looking good, and, particularly in the case of trees, safe. So do what’s right for your plants and pick up the pruning tools.
Even before COVID-19 made us hyper-aware of our microscopic surroundings, it was no secret that getting on an airplane meant coming up close and personal with some seriously germy conditions. What many may not realize is that you’re still facing an onslaught of microbes as you check in and prepare to board your flight. And according to recent research, there are some places in airports that are consistently the germiest when tested for viruses and bacteria. Read on to see which surfaces you may want to avoid touching before taking off.
1 Shop payment terminals
Picking up a last-minute bottle of water, magazine, or snack can be vital before jetting off. Unfortunately, the same shops that provide travel essentials and meals are also some of the places where you’re most likely to find germs—especially on credit card payment terminals that require customers to touch buttons or screens. Results of a study from University of Nottingham found that half of all surface tests taken from payment kiosks were positive for at least one respiratory virus.
2 Security checkpoint trays
The security checkpoint is already arguably one of the most unenjoyable parts of the airport experience. After all, no one likes having to take off their shoes or rearrange their luggage after a bag gets called over for closer inspection. But according to the University of Nottingham study, the same trays that carry your phone, wallet, and jacket as they’re being scanned were also found to be one of the consistently germiest surfaces in airports.
“We found the highest frequency of respiratory viruses on plastic trays used in security check areas for depositing hand-carried luggage and personal items,” the study’s authors wrote, noting that viruses tend to survive longer on non-porous plastic surfaces. “Security trays are highly likely to be handled by all embarking passengers at airports; nevertheless, the risk of this procedure could be reduced by offering hand sanitization with alcohol handrub before and after security screening, and increasing the frequency of tray disinfection. To our knowledge, security trays are not routinely disinfected. Although this would not eliminate all viruses on hands, (e.g., alcohol gels have been found to be less effective than hand-washing for rhinovirus), it is effective for many viruses, including influenza.”
3 Water fountain buttons
Frequent flyers know that it’s essential to stay hydrated while flying. But the next time you go to get a sip from a water fountain in the terminal, you may want to think about washing your hands soon after, too. In a study commissioned by InsuranceQuotes.com, 18 surface tests were conducted across six surfaces from three major U.S. airports during the busy holiday travel season. Results showed that the buttons on water fountains were among the dirtiest places in airports, finding they had an average of 19,181 viable bacteria and fungal cells per square inch, or colony-forming units (CFU). Just how dirty is that? By comparison, most household toilet seats have an average of 172 CFU.
4 Airline gate bench armrests
It can feel lucky to score an open seat near your gate while waiting for your flight to board. But according to the InsuranceQuotes.com study, the seat you take before you get on the plane can be filthy. Results of their tests found an average of 21,630 CFU on chair armrests in boarding areas at gates.
5 Self check-in kiosks
We can thank the addition of self-check-in kiosks for making it easier to get through the airport much faster. But even if you’re just looking to print out a copy of your ticket due to a malfunctioning phone or make a last-minute seat change, you might also be unwittingly putting yourself in direct contact with one of the dirtiest surfaces in the entire airport. According to the InsuranceQuotes.com study, self-check-in kiosks contain an average of 253,857 CFU, with researchers noting that one kiosk that was tested had more than 1 million CFU. Fortunately, you can avoid touching the germy machines by downloading airline apps to check in from your phone and download your boarding pass.
It may seem like losing weight has everything to do with what you eat and how often you move your body. However, it turns out that there may be ways to get your brain in on the action in order to achieve a lean and healthy body.
1. Manage stress
First, it’s key to manage stress/cortisol effectively so you don’t turn to comfort food to feel better.
To effectively lose weight and keep it off, it’s critical to focus on the behaviors that are getting in the way of progress and learn to modify those behaviors in order to reach goals.
2. Nourish your microbiome
Beyond that, you need to nourish your microbiome. Research shows that not only does having a healthy microbiome support weight loss, but it can also boost your immune system and mood.
3. Use self-compassion
The third way to reprogram your brain for weight loss is to use self-compassion to regulate your emotions so you don’t eat your feelings.
Reprogramming your brain, along with retraining your taste buds and using behavior modification, is the way to long-term weight loss. If it was just about the food, people would not be enrolling and re-enrolling in all the large weight loss programs.
4. Take your time
However, remember this one important tip: take your time. Reprogramming your brain along with behavior modification should be done in a slow, steady, and consistent process to be successful.
CLOZE PASSAGES are a fantastic way to engage and challenge your students with reading comprehension. Students must read a text filled with blank lines and complete it with the most appropriate words
This Christmas-themed cloze reading worksheet introduces students to festive traditions like decorating trees, singing carols, and Santa.
Kids complete the passage using context clues.
Fill in the blanks with words from the box at the top.
Even The Grinch likes it!
It’s time to get into the Christmas spirit before it’s all gone.
While we must say we love to use cream cheese when making desserts and often reach for it while baking, we realize there are times when you may prefer a recipe that doesn’t call for a block. Whether you’re having trouble finding cream cheese on the shelves of the supermarket or have family members that don’t particularly love the flavor, there are still plenty of dessert recipes you can make without it. From cakes to cookies to fudge and more, there is a long list of festive dessert recipes that don’t need cream cheese to be delicious. We’ve rounded up 21 of our best Christmas dessert ideas you can make this year without cream cheese.
Red Velvet Cake Crinkle Cookies
These crinkle cookies are rich, cakey, and slightly fudgy—kids will love them and adults will, too. Plus, there’s a surprise here. These treats are coated in a snowy layer of powdered sugar, just like classic crinkle cookies, but inside they’re more like velvety chocolate cake (with white chocolate chips!) than fudgy brownies. To ensure they have a nice deep hue, use gel food coloring rather than liquid. The latter won’t tint the batter as well.
Recipe: Red Velvet Cake Crinkle Cookies | Southern Living
Christmas Fudge
Among the most beloved holiday treats, fudge holds pride of place in gifted Christmas tins and on holiday party dessert tables. Make no mistake, the diversity of fudge flavors is endless, but when it comes to Christmas Fudge, we have the firm belief that simple and classic chocolate fudge is almost always a better choice than anything elaborate and novel. Our recipe makes the most of bittersweet and unsweetened baking chocolate by letting their flavor stand on their own while including a few other ingredients to enhance the richness and the silkiness of the fudge itself. Sweetened condensed milk and butter are used to transform the melted chocolate into a sweetened and milky ganache, while the salt, espresso powder, and vanilla compliment the flavor of the chocolate and make the depths of that flavor more pronounced. The secret ingredient in this recipe is the corn syrup which prevents any crystal formation in the fudge and allows the finished product to be perfectly smooth with a slight chew rather than a crumbly, powdery, and altogether disappointing piece of crystalized fudge. To keep with the theme of simplicity, the decoration for this fudge is a mix of red, green, and white sprinkles that lend a delightful crunchy contrast to the velvety texture of the fudge. Finally, the flake salt called for in the recipe is optional, but when used, it enhances the fudge squares with a subtle saltiness while also adding the visual appeal of flaky crystals—taking something that looks almost like a kid’s treat at Christmas and elevating it to something fun and sophisticated.
Recipe: Christmas Fudge Recipe | Southern Living
Old Fashioned Gingerbread
Nothing makes a house smell more like Christmas than the sweet and spicy aroma of a freshly baked pan of gingerbread. We’re not talking about the crisp cookies or the houses covered in icing and candy. The taste of those holiday delights just can’t compare to a slice of tender, richly spiced gingerbread cake. The practice of baking and sharing gingerbread originated in Europe several hundred years ago and then made its way to the colonial South as families immigrated to the region and brought their recipes and traditions with them. Ginger from Asia and dried spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, allspice, and cloves arrived by ship into Southern ports and traveled inland because they were easy to transport and store. Whole dried spices kept well and retained their flavor and aroma for months. When combined with affordable sweeteners (like molasses or honey) and farmstead staples (such as butter and eggs), gingerbread could be made by home bakers when more expensive ingredients were not an option, which is why it became a wildly popular dessert. If you don’t have all the ground spices on hand, you can substitute two teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice along with the black pepper.
Recipe: Old Fashioned Gingerbread Recipe | Southern Living
Kids love the holiday season for many of the same reasons adults do — the festive Christmas activities, giving and receiving gifts, and indulging in Christmas cookies and other special holiday treats. If you want to encourage your children to engage with holiday traditions without the inevitable sugar crash, there are plenty of healthy holiday snacks for kids you can make and serve this year. As a bonus, you can munch on these with the family before Christmas dinner — and still have room for holiday dessert.
Even picky eaters will give these healthier Christmas snacks a chance, and they’re bound to come back for seconds. Many of these easy recipes only require a few ingredients, like fresh fruit and veggies, cheese, and eggs, so the whole family can enjoy a healthy appetizer without the guilt. And because it’s the holidays, you know these healthy snacks are anything but boring. Create a Christmas tree charcuterie board, decorate snowman cheese sticks, or set up strawberry Santas, just to name a few ideas for magical, edible holiday masterpieces.
These better-for-you treats make for great lunchbox additions or snacktime surprises, but you can also invite your kids to help you in the kitchen. (A great idea if you need to keep little ones entertained inside on a snow day!) Not only does cooking together build important skills and make for special memories, but the kids are also more likely to try new foods if they helped make them. With these 24 easy, healthy Christmas snack recipes on hand, you’ll be one step closer to a stress-free holiday season.
Hard-Boiled Egg Snowmen
A pair of hard-boiled eggs, carrot slices, and a sprig of parsley make up these “snowmen.” Psst: a single strand of uncooked pasta holds it all together!
Get the recipe at Roxy’s Kitchen.
Watermelon Christmas Trees
These vibrant watermelon trees are so easy to make you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of this holiday snack sooner.
Get the recipe at One Handed Cooks.
Christmas Banana Snowmen
Looking for a festive breakfast? Serve up these banana, strawberry, and grape snowmen.
Get the recipe at One Handed Cooks.
Christmas Bliss Balls
These Christmas bliss balls might be small, but they’re packed with healthy ingredients like dates, rolled oats, and cranberries.
Get the recipe at Healthy Mummy.
Strawberry Santas
With a strawberry hat and cottage cheese beard, these holiday treats are super cute and fun to eat.
Get the recipe at My Kids Lick the Bowl.
Antipasto Wreath
Kids will love munching on cheese, grapes, sliced meats, and bread — especially when they’re surrounded by a festive wreath!
If we were to draw one key lesson about longevity from the centenarians of the Blue Zones regions—aka places that are home to the longest-living folks on Earth—it’s that it doesn’t come from fad diets, or overwrought workout routines, or really any practice that’s bound to fizzle within months. Rather, these long-living people “live in environments that nudge them unconsciously toward healthier behaviors, like moving more and eating plants,” says longevity expert Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer, Better Life. And those environments start within the spaces of their homes, which include elements of design and organization that facilitate healthy habits.
Here are 9 home-design tips for increasing your lifespan, according to longevity experts
1. Put your TV in a room that’s far from your kitchen
We’re not going to say you can’t ever dive into a bowl of popcorn or even eat a full meal while propped on the couch—but studies have found that people tend to eat past the point of fullness when they’re also watching a show. If you have to walk several steps (or even down the stairs) to get to your kitchen from wherever you typically post up for TV time, you’re not only less likely to snack mindlessly, but also, if you do get up to grab a snack, you’re doing a little bit of walking, too. “It’s that type of regular, built-in physical activity that’s easy to maintain,” says Buettner. “And over time, it can have a more consistent effect than a gym membership, which we’ve found most people use fewer than twice a week.”
2. Keep a shoe rack by the door
According to Buettner, this is a one-two punch for longevity. With a rack by the door, you’ll be more likely to take off your shoes right when you get home, a common habit among people in Okinawa, Japan (one of the Blue Zones regions). “We’ve found that 28 percent of shoes carry fecal bacteria,” says Buettner, “and you don’t want to drag that into your home because you can get sick from it.” And separately, a rack also encourages you to keep comfortable walking or running shoes near the door, which will make you all the more likely to put them to good, active use.
3. Eat with family members or roommates as often as you can
Sharing a meal with others is an easy way to become more intentional about eating—which can, in turn, lead you to eat more slowly, allowing adequate time for the fullness signal to reach the brain. Not to mention, socializing is one of the core tenants of the Blue Zones regions, says Buettner. “And one of the best ways to build bonds with family or friends is to sit around the dinner table,” he says. Doing so also creates natural punctuation between the go-go-go of the workday and the personal time of the evening, which can help you maintain work-life boundaries.
4. Grow a vegetable or herb garden
If you have any kind of outdoor space, use it to grow edible things, whether in the ground or in containers on a porch or terrace. “Gardening is something we see in every one of the Blue Zones, with people well into their nineties continuing to tend to plants and vegetables,” says Buettner. This has the triple-whammy effect of encouraging you to spend more time in fresh air, be active (weeding and watering require bending down and standing back up, after all), and eat more freshly grown foods.
And if you don’t have access to outdoor space? Set up an indoor herb garden. This way, you’ll at least be more likely to consume fresh herbs, of which Buettner recommends growing rosemary and oregano, in particular. “These are often found in the Blue Zones, and they’re not only high in antioxidants but act as mild diuretics, which could help reduce blood pressure,” he says.
5. Bring elements of the outdoors into your home
To mimic the beauty of nature, Frederick suggests decorating your home with houseplants, which can naturally reduce stress. “If you can’t do that, even having pictures of natural landscapes or incorporating natural earthy and green colors into your home can help foster a positive and creativity-boosting environment,” he says, referencing the biophilic design that’s characteristic of longevity hot spot Singapore. That concept also extends to filling your home with natural light during the day by opening blinds and windows, if the weather’s nice enough to do so.
6. Design spaces with low furniture and rugs
It’s estimated that a quarter of Americans older than 65 fall each year, and it’s one of the leading causes of hospitalization, says Frederick. But no matter your age, incorporating low couches and chairs throughout your home is one simple way to steer clear of a fall that could compromise your longevity.
In Okinawa, they take it one step further and sit on the floor, says Buettner: “That means you have a 100-year-old woman getting up and down from the floor 20 or 30 times a day, which is essentially a squat. They end up having better balance, more flexibility, and great lower-body strength.” You can certainly copy that in your own home by sitting on the floor, though Buettner says low furniture works well for this purpose, too.
7. Safeguard bathrooms against slips and trips
Because of their slippery-ness, bathrooms rank high on the list of spots that people tend to fall. To prevent that, Frederick suggests laying slip-resistant mats on the floor (or installing slip-proof tiles, if you’re able to renovate), adding grab bars to the walls in the shower, and even placing a little bench in the shower. And if you’re in the market for a new place, consider choosing one with a shower instead of a tub, if you have the option, so that you don’t need to climb over the ledge to get into it, adds Frederick.
8. Calm-ify your bedroom
Creating a space that’s as conducive to sleep as possible is an easy way to get more, well, sleep—which offers a host of longevity-boosting benefits, like boosting cardiovascular health and improving cognition. In that vein, Frederick suggests installing blackout curtains on any bedroom window that gets a lot of light and setting up a white-noise machine that can fill your space with a calming and sleep-inducing sound, while also helping block out noise from outside. Regularly dusting and vacuuming your bedroom and making your bed can also help create the kind of tranquil, sanctuary-like space that’ll help you regularly clock more zzz’s.
9. Make your home welcoming to guests
In the same way that eating with family members can strengthen longevity-boosting bonds, socializing more with neighbors and friends can foster the kind of relationships that may also extend your lifespan. While you might already have a dining-room or kitchen table, Frederick suggests creating other little nooks for gathering with tables and chairs throughout your space, or perhaps right outside your front door.
“There’s certainly research to suggest that having close friends supports longevity, but we also know that loose ties, like you might have with neighbors or people in your community, can also boost your overall health and well-being,” says Frederick. And the more opportunities you have for engaging with those folks in and around your home, design-wise, the more likely you are to do it.
