Colorado Homes & Lifestyles’ Post

Want to learn more about using stands of oak trees as wildfire buffer zones? Check out this insight I wrote for the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden website! I explain the new “Shaded Oak Fuel Break” at the Garden, and some of the science behind it. https://lnkd.in/eMDfeAH3

#FridayFlora - Huntington Library, Art Museum, & Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, has one of the largest Camellia collections. Superintendent William Hertrich first planted camellias on railroad baron Henry Huntington’s southern California estate in 1908-09. The original planting consisted of two dozen plants. Now there are over 1900 camellias planted at Huntington. While the last of the original plants, a ‘Pink Perfection,’ succumbed to root rot in 2011, a propagule lives on. It is not possible to plant all of the 50,000+ known Camellia varieties, but Hertrich wished to obtain all possible varieties for the garden in his lifetime. Since Hertrich’s passing, Huntington’s collection goals remain broad in scope. The collection aspires to select and add: 1. Camellias that educate the public horticulturally and botanically, 2. varieties with outstanding characteristics, 3. unusual and “breakthrough” introductions, 4. camellia species. Due to limited space, they have sought to remove duplicate plants in their collections to make way for new ones. #GoPublicGardens #PublicGarden #PublicGardens #supportlocalgardens #communitygardens #FridayFlora #FloraFriday #flora #HuntingtonLibrary #California #Camellias

Details about the upcoming 2023 Nature of Place Symposium at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens on the topic ""Faith and the Environment."

#FridayFlora - Today, we feature the geranium collection at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Hardy geraniums occur naturally in every country of the world, excluding Antarctica. Perennial forms, which make up the bulk of the genus, have a lengthy flowering season evident here from May to October. There are species adapted to sun, shade, and various soil conditions. Hardy geraniums usually clump plants, but their trailing stems make excellent groundcovers. A handful of them acquire colorful fall foliage, too. They are favored Midwest landscape plants with multiple attributes. The Garden has the largest number of Geranium taxa in the United States and acquires more yearly. The collection started in 2007 and comprised 160 identified/known taxa (including 118 cultivars). #GoPublicGardens #PublicGarden #PublicGardens #supportlocalgardens #communitygardens #FridayFlora #FloraFriday #Flora #geraniums #ChicagoBotanicGarden

This short essay on botanic gardens as places of healing is based on a talk I gave in Xining, China last year. It's one of the first papers published in a new journal, 'Biological Diversity', supported by South China Botanical Garden and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It builds on some familiar themes if you've been reading what I've written over recent years, but relatively succinctly! https://lnkd.in/dtikxGzD

The 2009 UK Kew Gardens 50p Brilliant Uncirculated Coin https://lnkd.in/g_8qxsHH Before we delve into the coin itself, it’s essential to understand the historical and cultural significance of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which served as the inspiration for this commemorative coin. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, commonly referred to as Kew Gardens, is one of the world’s most renowned botanical research institutions. Founded in 1759, it boasts a rich history and is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Situated in the southwest of London, Kew Gardens is home to a vast collection of plant species, including rare and endangered ones. It has played a vital role in the study and conservation of plants for over two and a half centuries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #blogstory #bloglikeyourown #storylikeblog #bloglikestories #bloginuk #blogger #blogs #blog #caeerblog #businessbloggerger #bloggingtips #seoblog #guestposting #writeforus #writeforusblog #KewGardens50p #Numismatics #CoinCollecting #ukcoins

Delightful post about one of my favourite authors, and his collection of pressed flowers taken from the hillsides of Bologna 500 years ago. This flora is unlocking knowledge about how the climate crisis and human migration is changing landscapes in northern Italy. Picked between 1551 and 1586 by the Renaissance naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, the 5,000 delicately cut and dried plants form one of the richest collections of its time. The collection contains 5,000 dried plants picked by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. Aldrovandi’s original purpose was to identify plant species and understand which could be used for pharmaceutical purposes. Nearly half a millennium later, his carefully pressed specimens are helping botanists document the enormous changes that have taken place in the surrounding landscapes, according to new research published by the Royal Society. During Aldrovandi’s time, Bologna’s hills were rich in species that are threatened or have even disappeared today, such as motherwort, which was used for medicinal purposes and is now likely extinct in the region. The total number of the species has increased since 1500s, but the quality of the flora has decreased, with many rarer species declining, researchers said. The Italian population increased by 560% during the study period. One part of that transformation is the huge influx of non-native species. At the time the collection was formed, just 4% of flowers were American species, which were almost exclusively cultivated in private or botanical gardens. Plants such as sweet pepper and courgettes were imported thanks to early exploration in Central and South America. Since then, there has been a 1,000% increase in non-native flowers from the Americas, which illustrates the growing importance of American-European trade routes from the Renaissance onwards. +++ Aldrovandi is also known for his famous book on Serpents and Dragons, "Ulyssis Aldrovandi ... Serpentum, et draconum historiæ libri duo", celebrated in Michel Foucault's "Les Mots et les Choses" as an example of how categories of thought were so different to ours in the 1600s. A wonderful read in today's Guardian...

The delightful Bloomfield Penda (Xanthostemon verticillatus) forming a small wreath of pale creamy-yellow stamens, petals and green calyces within the Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. Note also the whorled leaves (verticillatus - Latin for whorled or rings around a stem), an unusual feature for the genus Xanthostemon. Bloomfield Penda is a multi-stemmed shrub reaching between 1.5 and 3m tall. Growing in rocky river channels and bouldery stream beds subject to consistent, high-velocity flows, this species is restricted both to this narrow riverine habitat and to localised areas of the Bloomfield and Daintree Rivers in far north Queensland. Much less well-known than the commonly planted street tree Xanthostemon chrysanthus (Golden Penda), this species has obvious horticultural appeal.

Blooming Amorphophallus Titanum, also known as “corpse flower” Some information about it from the Chicago Botanic Garden: "We have heard tales of some titan arums in their natural habitats growing 10 to 12 feet tall with a bloom diameter of up to 5 feet, but more typically in cultivation, an arum reaches 6 to 8 feet in height before the spathe unfurls into a bloom, with a diameter close to 3 feet. While it looks like a 6- to 8-foot-tall flower, the titan arum's bloom is not really a flower: Technically, the bloom is the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. The tall spadix (flower spike) is wrapped by a spathe (a single, frilly, modified leaf). In its vegetative form, each Amorphophallus titanum looks like a small tree, but is actually a single umbrella-like leaf. The leaf stalk is called the petiole, and is covered in branch-like rachis, supporting the many leaflets. Titan arum leaves can grow 8 to 15 feet tall." #botanicgarden: #blooming #bloom #flowers #unique #weird #rare #worldfamous #flower #spike #deathpositivity #deathpositive #nature #big #tall #wow #palm #corpseplant #corpseflower