Focus on Flowers

It's important to remove invasive, non-native plants to make more space available for plants that nourish our own native wildlife.

If you are planting a garden this spring around a condominium or in some other small garden space, you may want to consider some of the shrubs that have been developed to grow into a compact shape and size at maturity.

There is magic associated with flowers. How can it be, I wonder, that there are so many different shapes, colors, and sizes to delight the senses?

By the 18th century, it was fashionable in the colonies of North America where a garden was essential to feed a family.

In ancient times, roses were not grown for ornamental reasons but for their medicinal and mystical properties.

After the spring bloomers' flowers faded, I used to have day lily plants that grew up in my beds to disguise the decaying and unsightly bulb foliage. All that changed once the deer in my neighborhood came by in droves and ate all of the day lily foliage.

During the 20th century, growers learned to grow flowers with taller, straighter stems, less blemishes, and, also, to force blooms out of season.

Beginning in the early 18th century in England, many quaint new cottages were built surrounded by plantings of fruit trees, honey suckle, ivy, and all kinds of flowers to create intentionally romantic gardens.

Empress Josephine Bonaparte had the first European ever-blooming roses from China, and her eclectic collection allowed French hybridizers to create many new varieties.

Way back when there were no cell phones, lovers used flowers as coded messages to keep their communications unknown to chaperones.

In North America, frangipani is often associated with Hawaii because of the lovely leis that are made from their blossoms.

Starting in February we can pick garden flowers for indoors.

These plants enjoy rich, moist soil that drains well, and if they're happy in their spot, they will form colonies under deciduous trees but will disappear once the trees leaf out.

King Louis XIV's pleasure gardens were places to entertain and impress, and to glorify himself and his achievements.

In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, and huge amounts of volcanic ash covered the city of Pompeii. The ash preserved the homes and gardens that otherwise would have decayed or been destroyed over time.

Pounding can create emotional release and satisfaction for some, and the resulting images can be quite beautiful.

“Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth / Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth... / Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth / But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.”

If you are looking for a sweet gift for a loved one or friend, check out antique stores and thrift shops for miniature vases or cute tiny bottles.

Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote, "As long as one has a garden, one has a future and as long as one has a future, one lives."

"Love your garden and work in it, and let it give you what it surely will and let no one feel that the benefit is all on the side of the garden, for truly you will receive more than you give."

Flowering plants are forgiving, and they usually give much more than they receive.

During the 1860s, watercolor paintings by English artists depicted rural scenes with thatched cottages surrounded by profuse cottage gardens. It was an idealized version of English country life.

Lancelot "Capability" Brown, landscaper to the rich and famous in 18th-century England, died in 1783. He advocated vistas that were "simple, uncluttered and restrained."

What gardens existed around the world in In the 6th-13th centuries?

A mixed border is usually a defined space with a mix of perennials, annuals, shrubs, bulbs, and/or grasses with a walk, or path, in front and a wall or a fence behind as a backdrop. A mix of plants of different varieties ensures an extended period of interest.