Articles written by Richard Pearman - Page 2

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About me - Richard Pearman

My main areas of expertise are computers (particularly graphics), genetics, religion and cacti and succulents. I work in web design/computer graphics and produce a web comic mostly in the underused SVG format.I am knowledgeable about XML, (X)HTML, Perl

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Home & Garden > Houseplants Great houseplants that can't be killed: 3 of 5
This article includes a lot of Latin names of plants. You can look these up in books in any language or find information from search engines. Obviously no plant is completely indestructible but some come pretty close. Let's start by considering things that tend to kill plants: Lack of water Too much water Lack of light Too m... More..
Home & Garden > Perennials Growing sedum: 2 of 3
The definition of Sedum is "member of the Crassulaceae which doesn't fit in another genus". Therefore it's hardly surprising that recent genetic research has discovered that it includes plants that aren't closely related. Consequently it will probably be split into a number genera (and/or have some of it's species re-assigne... More..
Sciences > Botany Cactuses growing in deserts: 3 of 4
This contains a lot of Latin names of plants and scientific terms for groups of plants. You can use a search engine to look these up. Let's start by getting a few things straight. Not all cacti grow in deserts. Many grow in semi-deserts, mountains, beaches or even rain forests. Not all cacti, even desert ones, have fleshy st... More..
Politics, News & Issues > Politics in the Middle & Near East Assessing the future of the Arab-Israeli conflict: 15 of 18
Maybe somebody will say, "Stop it's silly!" and the Arabs and Israelis will say, "Oh, yes, it is," and they'd all start living in peace and having picnics with each other and then all the other countries will decide to stop fighting and there will be pretty unicorns and rainbows everywhere. Yeah, right. I really think it wou... More..
Education > High School Math & Sciences Science fair project ideas: 29 of 34
This project is probably more suitable for high school students and deals with a serious, but generally ignored, social issue. In American culture, it's generally accepted that nerds (also called geeks) are people, usually male, who have poor athletic ability, poor social skills (particularly poor ability to find girl/boyfri... More..
Home & Garden > Houseplants How to care for a jade plant: 11 of 11
There are a number of different Jade plants but they're basically two species, belonging to two different families. The commoner species has leaves about 3cm long, grows to about 1m high and has whitish flowers. This is called Crassula ovata (its previously gone by a number of other names: C. argentia, C. arborescens and C. ... More..
Home & Garden > Houseplants Growing Christmas cactus: 8 of 8
While most people think of cacti as desert plants, there are a number which grow as epiphytes in rain forests. Epiphytes are plants which grow on trees but aren't necessarily parasitic and the epyphytic cacti aren't parasites (which means you don't have to worry about a host plant). Many orchids and bromeliads are also epiph... More..
Home & Garden > Perennials Growing yucca for your garden: 3 of 3
There are about 45 species of the genus Yucca, of which only a few are hardy in the colder climates (England and Canada) where I've done my gardening. Y. glauca and Y. fillamentosa are probably the hardiest species. They are both short stemmed with rosettes of course leaves. Y. glauca is larger and Y. fillamentosa has loose ... More..
Home & Garden > Trees & Shrubs How to grow hardy cacti outdoors in cold climates: 2 of 2
When I first told my wife that cacti grew wild in Alberta, Canada, she didn't believe me. Then we went out to Drumheller and found some Opuntia polyacantha. In addition to Alberta's three native cacti, there are a number of others that can be grown in gardens here. When we got a house, I built a rockery in my south facing ba... More..
Home & Garden > Houseplants Grafting cactus and succulents: 2 of 2
Here I'm going to talk about selecting appropriate stock plants. I'm afraid this relates to the scientific classification of plants so there will be some technical words and hard to pronounce names. "Family" is a term for a large (usually) group of related plants. All cacti are the same family, as are all Orchids, all palms ... More..