Showy Wild Flowers Lady's-Slipper

This is one of the largest and most spectacular of our native terrestrial orchids. The stout stem grows to a height of three feet, and may be leafy to the top. Elliptic leaves, tapering to pointed tips, reach a length of eight inches. One to three flowers grow at the summit of the plant, conspicuous in their bicolored attire. Because of its spectacular beauty this species has been picked unwisely by those who are not satisfied to enjoy the sight of a flower in its natural state. The Showy Lady's-slipper should be rigidly protected if it is to remain a member of our native flora. It grows in cool swamps and bogs from Newfoundland to the mountains of North Carolina, west to Tennessee, Missouri, and North Dakota. The flowers appear in June and July, rarely in May or August.

SMALL WHITE LADY'S-SLIPPER

This slender plant of sphagnum bogs and marshy meadows is not as common as the preceding species. Three to five elliptical, pointed leaves clothe the erect stem, which rarely is more than a foot in height. The flowers occur usually singly at the tip of the flowering stalk; they bear slender twisted sepals which taper to a point, and a plump saclike lip. This species flowers in May and June, and can be found mainly in restricted areas from New York to North Dakota.

RAM'S-HEAD LADY'S-SLIPPER

The slender stem is leafy nearly to its tip, with several small elliptical leaves two to four inches long. The flowering stalk, six to twelve inches in height, bears a single flower at its summit. The red-and-white strongly veined lip is prolonged at its tip so that there is a striking resemblance to a ram's head. This is a rare species of cold woods from Quebec and Ontario in New York, west to Michigan and Wisconsin. The flowers appear in May and June.

Introduction About Wild Flower Growing

Technically a flower is the reproductive structure which produces fruit and seeds. This is slightly different from the popular usage which often asesms the entire plant, as when we speak of the "wild flowers of the United Saks." Many flowers are brilliantly colored, but such a feature is not necessarily the criterion of a flower. Some flowers are an inconspicuous green or Isaank others are small and easily overlooked. Still others, in themselves insignificant, are associated with colored accessory parts, as in jack-in-the- pulpit, Bunchberry and Pearly Everlasting.A typical flower consists of four parts. In the center is the pistil in which the seeds are formed and from which all or part of the fruit is developed. Its tip may be a striking feature of the flower, as in Pitcher-plant and Blue Flag. Surrounding the pistil is a group of stamens which produce the powdery yellow pollen. Stamens are sometimes a conspicuous portion of the flower, as in Meadow Rue. In the majority of flowers, however, it is the floral envelope or perianth which is the showy portion. This may consist of undifferentiated colored segments as in Lily flowers, or it may be differentiated into an inner corolla and an outer calyx.

The calyx is usually green and may consist of separate segments known as sepals. However, the calyx is the conspicuous portion of the Dutchman's- pipe flower, and the sepals are the colored flower parts in Marsh Marigold and Hepatica. The corolla is usually the colored portion of the flower; its segments are known as petals. Thus a complete flower consists of pistil stamens, petals and sepals in that order. Occasionally leaf-like structures or bracts are present beneath the flower, adding to its conspicuousness. Such are the red-tipped bracts of Painted Cup, the white spathe of Water Arum and the white petallike bracts of l3unchberry.

Not all flowers possess all of these floral parts, or the same numbers of each. Hence it is possible to identify many flowering plants by careful observation of the flower structure. In some families there is no perianth, as in the Spurges and Cattails. In others the perianth is present but not differentiated into calyx and corolla, as in the Lily family. In most cases there is both a calyx and corolla, but again there may be a great variation in the number of petals and sepals, and the degree of their fusion with each other. The Buttercup and Rose families include many species with separate petals and sepals; in the Morning-glory and Composite families the petals are fused to form a tubular or funnel-shaped corolla.

Introduction About Wild Flower Growing

Some leaves arise from a short stem, or directly from the crown of the mot, sorrounding the base of the flowering stalk. Such leaves are known as I ead leaves and are exemplified by Saxifrage and Hawkweed; they often farm a compact rosette as in Mullein. When leaves grow in the erect stems they generally follow one of three patterns of arrangement. If only one If arises at a point on the stem, the leaves are said to be alternate, as in False Solomon's-seal. If the leaves appear in pairs they are known as opposite, as in Boneset and Honeysuckle. When three or more leaves grow at the same level on the stem, they are whorled, as in Indian Cucumber-root.

The leaf shape is another important identification feature. If the blade is considerably longer than broad, grass-like and with parallel margins, it is said to be linear, as in Phlox, Cattail, and Iris. If the margins are not parallel and the blade tapers to a pointed tip, the leaf is lanceolate, as in the Milkweeds. If the blade is but a little longer than broad, with parallel sides, it is said to be oblong, as in some Aqueberries. A broad egg-shaped leaf is ovate, as in the Trilliums An ova eaf is found in Showy Orchis. Elliptic leaves are typical of Turtlehead. Many leaves have a cordate or heart- shaped outline.

The leaf margin is also a clue to the plant's identity. If the margin is not indented in any way, the leaf is entire. Rounded indentations in the margin results in a lobed leaf, represented by Bloodroot and Compass-plant. The margins of many leaves are variously toothed; some teeth are delicate and fine, others are large and coarse. Currant is a good example of a toothed leaf.

In summarizing the use of leaf form and arrangement in identifying a plant, we should remember to notice ( 1) whether the leaves are simple or compound, (2) whether they grow alternately, opposite or in whorls, (3) the leaf shape, and (4) the leaf margin. A combination of these leaf features will often give considerable assistance in placing the unknown flowering plant in the correct family, genus or species.

Introduction About Wild Flower

Edith Farrington Johnston was given a full palette of colors to portray these native plants. She traveled far to secure her models and when necessary had the freshly picked flowers shipped to her by air. With a botanist's eye for accuracy and the artist's appreciation of beauty, she has produced a group of paintings which are remarkable not only for their verity but also for their artistic design.

The accompanying text was planned to provide the specific information every flower lover needs—common names, botanical names (the nomenclature of Gray's Manual of Botany, 1950, has been followed); size, appearance, habitat and geographical location. Starting with the Common Cattail, and then the Jack-in-the-pulpit and Sweet Flag of the simple Arum family, the arrangement follows through the course of gradual plant development to the closing pages of the Star-Thistle, Tall Coreopsis and Gum weed of the Composite family, covering over five hundred individual flowers that grow wild in the region from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains, and often beyond, and from Florida to southern Canada.

A French Classical Garden

Flower gardens were by their nature small, and it is to them that we must look for inspiration for today's small gardens. By 1800 their format was determined. They could either be formal, as typified by Kew, or irregular, as exemplified by Nuneham Courtenay. The formal element owed much to the French, and there was already a revival of ancien regime formality in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. In the newly formed United States the formal tradition was never broken, and continued on through the revolutionary period into the new century.

Gardening still remained largely the prerogative of the rich. and it was they who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century in search of a new informality of life and closer commune with the world of nature, 'discovered' the delights of small-scale living. While the rural poor lived in direst poverty. the aristocracy and gentry built cottages ornes, in both the classical and the Gothick style, retreats suitable for 'men of study, science or leisure'. Adorned with verandahs, and climbing plants, they were surrounded by small flower gardens of direct eighteenth-century descent. These had lawns with winding walks and shrubberies, and flowerbeds cut into the turf close to the main living room so that the flowers could be enjoyed to the full while their scent wafted inside.

Developing in parallel with cottages ornes were town gardens, small rectangular tongues of land at the back of the terraces and squares of houses which sprang up in London and Bath during the century. J.C. Loudon described their value for the owner The] should surround his plot with an oval path, that he may walk on without end and without any sensible change in the position of his body'. The most important feature of all these gardens was clearly their gravelled walks. As these houses were usually used only seasonally, the design of the gardens rarely rose above a central area of green turf and a surrounding border of trees and shrubs. These had to contend with heavy air pollution caused by the smoke from coal fires, which explains the huge popularity of container plants for both the house and the garden. It was only as the century progressed that proper town gardens developed, with built structures to act as eye-catchers, flowerbeds and other delights.

More important than this in the long term, perhaps, was the plant dialogue with America which was to transform the flower' garden. The key figure in this story was the Quaker John Bartram (1699-1777) who sent on subscription to British gardeners an annual box of seeds of about a hundred different species. Among those were the first American rhododendrons and magnolias and a large number of aster and phlox species. This influx was complemented by a burgeoning commercial nursery industry, dedicated to propagating plants and making them available to an ever widening public. By the close of the eighteenth century all the ingredients were in place for a vast expansion in garden-making.

 You can send flowers to Bangalore with best quality flower delivery in Bangalore. You can visit this flower guide for more information about this article.

The Late Medieval garden And An Italian Renaissance garden

A NORTHERN RENAISSANCE GARDEN

This is a garden of a kind that Shakespeare would have known. It retains the medieval love of detail and enclosure but adds to it a Renaissance sense of order. The repetition of a series of identical enclosed geometric spaces is critical to evoking a type of layout which spread through France, Germany, the Low Countries and England from the 1580s onwards in response to the new ideas of the Italian Renaissance. Encompassed by a hedge of quickthom, the standard hedging plant of the age, it includes a hornbeam tunnel arbor (a medieval feature which lived on); a flower garden planted with flowers for seasonal color and evergreen topiary and hedging for year-round interest; and a potager divided into compartments containing vegetable beds, a small orchard and a herb garden.

The potager is a simplified version of the many garden patterns in the Dutch artist Vredemann de Vries's Hortorum Viridariorumque elegantes et multiplices formae... (Antwerp, 1583), which was influential throughout northern Europe. Its most distinctive feature is the woodwork which would give instant, unmistakeable period effect even though the capital outlay would be high. The Renaissance emphasis on symmetry and formality rules out any softening of hard contours by allowing plants to tumble over them, but there is ample room here for fruit trees, soft fruit, vegetables and herbs.

The flower garden is based on one of several designs in Salomon de Caus's Les Raisons des Forces Mouvantes (1615), combined with elements from one of Crispin de Passe's most famous engravings illustrated overleaf. While not complicated to maintain, this garden calls for patience, as the hedges and topiary require between five and eight years to mature — unless you use fully grown specimens.

The atmosphere of introspection is emphasized by the tunnel arbor — a medieval feature which retained its vitality into the 1680s — and another, inner wall or hedge, here of beech. Standard hollies stand at the comers and entrances, presenting a striking contrast in winter to the russet leaves of the beech. Squares and rectangles of smooth turf continue the medieval tradition of appreciating grass for its own special beauties, and form a containing band of restful areas of green, with cypresses acting as stately sentinels in the comers. The flowerbeds in the centre are edged with clipped box, and are filled with topiary and flowers which, to be correct, would be sparsely planted. I would cheat and make it denser, but avoid any suggestion of anachronistic bedding out.

Plants For The Water Garden

WATER GARDENS BY TWENTIETH-CENTURY DESIGNERS

GEOFFREY JELLICOE

Shute House Dorset, England

The garden of Shute House near Shaftesbury in Dorset is among the most influential of the twentieth century. Created by the designer Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe (19oo-1996) when he was in his late sixties, it combines the experience and skills of a lifetime of garden and landscape design with exuberance and a great sense of fun.

Sir Geoffrey was commissioned by Michael and Lady Anne Tree in 1968, shortly after they had acquired the fine eighteenth-century house. Curiously, it was Ronald Tree, Michael Tree's father, who had given Jellicoe his first major commission — for Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire — m 1933. Later, Jellicoe was commissioned by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) to design the gardens of Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park and of Sandringham, another royal residence, in Norfolk. Jellicoe also designed the John F. Kennedy Memorial on the River Thames at Runnymede, Berkshire, four years before Shute reached his drawing board.

Unlike his earlier commissions, which some describe as formal — with strong axes but unsurprising in concept — Shute combines all sorts of influences garnered by Jellicoe during his long career. He wrote Italian Gardens of the Renaissance in 1915, and there are strong echoes of the Italianate at Shute. More surprisingly, however, the garden also shows a Mughal influence. The centrepiece of Shute must be the musical cascade, a rill that relies on a gentle slope to fall in steps. Between the steps are differently shaped geometric pools, each with a bubbling central fountain. Each waterfall pours into copper bowls that Jellicoe designed to play musical chords. Musical purists rather pooh-pooh this idea, but it makes a pleasant sound. Although a Mughal prince would be surprised to see the lush green lawns that flank the cascade, the running water has the same cooling and calming effect that was intended in Indian gardens.