How To Tell The Difference Between Foliage Plants

By Kent Higgins

Foliage plants are an integral part of any home garden, they are not effected by any seasonal changes and continue growing beautifully all year long. There are thousands of species and varieties of plants available. The choices of size, color, leaf shape, is unlimited.

The plants in this article are able to be grown in any location, any part of the country and easy to find and available anywhere. The Chinese evergreen, is one of the easiest plants in the world to grow. The plant does well in either water or soil and require minimal care, other than an occasional spray.

There are many different varieties with different characteristics. The most well known is the Silver Queen, and the stem is about three feet long and the leaves are pointed and can reach up to one foot in length. A commutatum is not as big, but the size and shape are similar and has dark green striped leaves that can reach up to ten inches in length. One of the most beautiful foliage plants is the coleus, which has leaves colored pink, yellow and brown that contrast strikingly against green. It is not harmful to water them with warmer water during the winter.

There are several popular varieties of the plant that has leaves ranging from an inch to up to eight inches. These varieties look best on gardening planters and self watering containers. You can make the leaves larger by pinching them back and limiting the number allowed to grow. The plant is easily propagated by seeds or cutting, and make sure to use insecticides to prevent mealy bug infestation.

The Dracaena is a member of the lily family and has long striped leaves and can grow to large dimensions with leaves that can reach up to three feet long and possibly touching the ceiling. D. sanderiana, one of the more popular variety, have leaves that can measure up to ten inches in length and are green with a white border and grow in clusters. D. godseffiana, grows from a stalk and the leaves are green with white spots. D. fragrans, is the tall growing family member and should be propagated by air layering when it starts to grow overly tall and a bit more leggy. The plants do ideally well when kept at a consistent temperature year-round and you can increase your propagation by seeds or cutting the stems.

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Places To Go To In East Africa

By David Hughes

When you think of Africa, you perhaps think of savannas packed with different breeds of animals. You think of safaris, of white water rafting, and about the abundance of wildlife. East Africa is no dissimilar, and in truth is exactly this - more so than even other regions of Africa. The best spot to enjoy all that Africa has to offer is absolutely Kenya, one of the most admired traveller destinations in recent times.

Kenya has a teeming tourist trade. In fact, it receives so much revenue from its tourist trade that it has become the second biggest source of income for the country. The majority of this money comes through safaris in its 19 national parks and game preserves. Moreover, there are mosques in Mombasa, the Great Rift Valley, coffee plantations, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and its stunning beaches.

If you are going to Kenya, you must unquestionably go on a safari through one of its numerous national parks. These safari trips have extremely skilled staff and guides available for its tourists. These parks comprise of the Amboseli National Park that stretches through to Tanzania, Kora National Park, Lake Nakuru National Park, Mount Kenya National Park, and Nairobi National Park, which is the tiniest and at only 7 kilometres from the city.

You can book a wildlife safari either through your travel agent, or when you reach Kenya. You can choose from many options such as from budget safaris, where you will be back in the city by nightfall, or longer and more luxurious safaris where you will stay in five-star cabins in the park and go out for a safari during the day. You will love this experience as you view the Big 5, and enjoy the stunning vistas made up by the teeming wildlife and diversity in plantations.

You can also choose to go white water rafting. Some tour operators will lump the two experiences, so if you sign up for a five or seven day package, you will be able to white water raft along the river, and then stop at a national park and go for a safari. The combined package of safari and white water rafting is relatively cheaper than the individual trips to these spots.

A further great way to spend your time in Kenya is on the beaches. The seashore extends on forever, and the waves are unimpeded by any island on their way from the Indian Ocean and strike into the beach, making a beautiful view.

Ensure you also head over to the coffee plantations to check out how the coffee you drink every morning reaches you. You will love the heady smell, and the information you will get from visiting the coffee plantation locations. You can also head over to Mr. Kilimanjaro, where you will be astonished by the attractiveness of the mountain and its territory.

Hence, instead of dreaming of Africa, this year head out to Kenya and experience Africa. Learn for yourself why it is that individuals go back again and again to this superb country.

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For Luxury Holidays in East Africa Beach try the Mnemba Island Hotel

How to use RSS to Enhance Your Business

By Lynette Chandler

Did you know there are lots of ways RSS can be used for your business? Here are some example uses that you may not know about. Quick note: Some can be easily abused so use them wisely, if you use it.

Twitterfeed: This is a great little tool, used to update your twitter account each time you make a new post on your blog. This is all done automatically.

Facebook: Create updates when you make new posts. There are applications you can use to do this. I've found Facebook apps to be very flaky but one that seems to work is My Blogs.

Widgets - create a widget that updates with your blog, so others have the option to display the feed on their own blogs or even their desktop. Example applications include "Spring Widgets" and "Google Gadgets".

File delivery: If you are already publishing a podcast, then it should be easy to start offering PDF documents or video downloads via RSS.

Brand RSS feeds for affiliates - Allow affiliates to display your blog posts, and reward them by embedding their own private affiliate URL. I've use this technique, and have some good success.

Search for special deals in your niche - this can offer your readers some good money-saving deals. Sales can be tracked via a private affiliate account from major online retail outlets like Amazon.com. For deals related to Internet marketing, find a feed like deal.com, and add it to your RSS reader.

Track packages: Track your own packages with SimpleTracking.com or let your customers know if you sell a physical product.

Yahoo answers - If You use Yahoo answers to promote your business by answering consumers questions, you can subscribe to an RSS feed that specifically notifies you if a question comes up that is related to your field or product category.

Blog tracking - There are times when e-mail servers as a delays or are under maintenance. An alternative to e-mail is using RSS. Most blogging accounts Offer the option of an RSS feed. For example, if you use WordPress blog, the feed will usually be located at http://yourblog.com/comments/feed/ or http://yourblog.com/?feed=comments-rss2.

Competitor watch: Find out what competitors or other marketers are doing on social networks, blogs, video and more using FriendFeed.

Stay updated with your industry: a nifty little option when using MSN or Yahoo, is the ability to subscribe to feeds based on the keyword you submit to the search engine. The icon usually appears in the browser bar with IE7 and Firefox.

Advertising - I haven't done any advertising on RSS myself, but I have displayed ads in RSS feeds. I've noticed that click through ratios have enhanced, sometimes better than actual site visitors. Try using FeedBurner, Text-Link-Ads or Pheedo for this type of service.

Service status update: keep your clients and customers in the know by displaying your service status via RSS feed. This is especially useful for those that offer web hosting, shopping carts or payment gateways.

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