flowers

Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio has earned the title ‘The Roller Coast.’ But there is just as much thrill in the grounds as in the rides.

Enjoy some suggestions for flowering trees that could substitute for Callery Pear.

 

Seven-son-flower or Heptacodium miconioides (HM) can be a large, rangy, irregular appearing, multi-stemmed, deciduous shrub, but it can also be trained into a delightful, single-trunked tree.  HM typically grows 15-25 feet in height at maturity with a 10' spread.  As stems and trunks mature, the light brown to tan bark begins to peel off and shed in long strips creating plant interest, especially in the winter.  This incredible plant is in the Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family and its name is derived from the flowers it bears; specifically, Hepta...

How Plants Mate is not just for botanists. Understanding the nuances and variability of the different modes is a key horticultural skill, whether plants are dioecious (male and female flowers on separate plants) or the vagaries of grafting and making new plants through propagation, How Plants Mate is central knowledge.

The Silver Maples, Acer saccharinum, in my neck of the woods are blooming.  February or not... feels like "spring" to me!

 

 

 

Silver Maple trees are among the first to bloom in Ohio clocking in at 34 growing degree days (GDD) for first bloom and 42 GDD for full bloom.  I caught these photos at 51 GDD.  You can check your own location by visiting the OSU Phenology...

  A lovely tradition of celebrating diversity (Oslava Květin) was started by Norbert Čapek, a Czech Unitarian, in 1923, with flowers as symbols of the universality of nature and ecumenical love. Start your own flower celebration in your home, for every business meeting, with your customers, sharing the beauty of flowers – especially this time of year: this “lusty month of May” (from Camelot). Everyone bring a flower! Here are a few floral fineries from my home and neighbors.

  The cover image for this bygl-...

  Flowers are, of course, wondrous, the birds and the bees and all that, the pollen grain germinating on the receptive stigma with the pollen tube then delivering sperm nuclei to the ovules below, with the thus fertilized eggs becoming seeds surrounded by the ovary ripening into the fruit. Flowers may be inconspicuous, but they may also may be beauteous; here are a few captured by camera this past week