Part Four Of: Summer Scenery On Campus

Sorry it's been a while since I've last posted! My birthday was last week, and I have been working basically nonstop, so I've been busy. But I have returned to show you some tropical touches on campus, and some flowers that are just as sweet by any other name.

 

One day I was bicycling to work when I saw a Landscape Services truck carrying these trees through a parking lot. They looked even healthier than they do in this picture, and I couldn't help but wonder what they were. I had no idea where they had been taken, either. However, when I went around campus looking at various planters, I found them. They seem to be handling the Midwestern summer just fine.



 

So what are these exotic plants? Carica papaya, more commonly known as papaya trees. While I doubt they will flower and put on fruit in this climate, I sure wish they would. I've never eaten a fresh papaya before.

I found these hydrangea bushes a little farther down the path. Their mops look pretty angelic there, floating above their foliage. I know the acidity of the soil affects hydrangea flower color, but I also know that there are different cultivars which apparently can influence color as well. I'd love to know how these plants were manipulated into producing white flowers (as I would love some of these plants in the moonlight garden I dream of creating).

I've seen these bushes all around campus; little did I know they are also hydrangeas. These are Hydrangea quercifolia, or oakleaf hydrangea. I like them a lot. They usually have subtle flower colors, which keeps your eyes from being overloaded when these are placed near regular hydrangea.

Here's a closer shot of the blooms. This is one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken.

Onto the roses! Rose season had started ending when I took these pictures, and it's even closer to over now, but I wanted to show them regardless. Campus has pink and red roses...

...and a few white roses.

Actually, there were a lot of white roses. Stay tuned for the next post to learn more. These were the best-looking clusters of the bunch.

Next post: roses and daylilies.

Part Three Of: Summer Scenery On Campus

Today we shall transition from container plantings on campus to lively plants that live in the ground. The first container for today shares a similar theme to those discussed last time, but I think this container is more successful. It blends just a hint of tropical with more familiar plants, and they're all bright and vivid.

 

 

These flowers were in all of last post's containers, but they are blooming much more aggressively here.

 

I still would not choose petunias to adorn my home, but these are some of the more creative I've seen. Petunias must be easy to breed and design, as I have seen an astounding array of colors and patterns in them this year alone.

Around the edge of the container are warmer-colored flowers. I like this combination of colors and textures. I also like that the bright orange flowers are tucked underneath the more inconspicuous ones. It keeps them from stealing too much attention.

I don't know what these flowers are, but I cannot get over them! They look like lacy cotton candy.

More of the pink froth.

Near those bushes (which were sadly unlabeled) were Stokesia laevis 'Blue Danube', common name Stokes' Aster.

These would be fun to have as a border. Their fuzziness complements the laciness of the pink flowers quite well. They'd both fit in a Victorian-esque garden, for sure.

More of these. Couldn't stop looking at them and wondering what they were.

And, lastly, daylilies in a banana color. Part of me always wants to deadhead the daffodils on campus, but there are a LOT of them, so I never have time.

What summer scenery has adorned your neighborhood this year? What do or don't you like about it?

Next post: knocked out by roses (for real this time).

Part Two Of: Summer Scenery On Campus



Here we are again, embarking on a new journey into the art possible through arranging plants. Today we're going to focus on a few designs that, I think, mix the tropical and temperate very well.

 

This container is the first at which we'll be looking.

 



As the sign says, the large plant in the center is a triangle palm. These arrangements are very temporary--palms cannot survive Midwestern winters. In the summer, though, they add a touch of the exotic.

While I never did manage to get a good picture of them, these purple/green flowers add a hint of the whimsy of the sort that dominated my last post. This is especially true because the spikes curve just slightly at their tips.

And look how bright the blooms are when they're fully flowering! They almost look like they're under blacklights.

Also adorning this composition is some coleus. Coleus is massively diverse in color, leaf shape, and even scent; I think this cultivar was a good choice for this container. It contrasts with all the green foliage around it, and it gives you something flashy to look at that isn't a flower.

Pink vinca are used as a filler in this container. I prefer blue vinca, but the pink is very summery.

Here is the coleus, the vinca, and a vine-y plant with blue flowers, which I really like. It pops against the dark coleus leaves very well. On top of that, the blooms aren't too frequent. I hope the vines spill farther out of the container as the summer goes on.

Here's another pink flower that's been added. Personally, I'd prefer another plant with interesting or colorful foliage to these, since "pink flowers" is a base that's already been sufficiently covered.

The centerpiece of this container is shorter and somewhat less flashy than the triangle palm, but still exciting considering Missouri's climate. Otherwise, the arrangement is the same as in the last container.

This is the last container up for discussion today, and it's my favorite of the bunch. I'm a sucker for purple and yellow, though. Note the striped petunias at bottom right, and the orange lantana at bottom left. These are the real sources of pizzaz in this arrangement, to me. I also like the variation in leaf shapes and types throughout the design. This creates a lot of different textures, and keeps the whole from needing to be saturated with flowers.

Which container did you like best? What landscaping design choices have you evaluated lately?

Next post: a closer look at this last container, and some plants in the ground.

Part One of: Summer Scenery on Campus

On the Fourth of July, I had my first chance to walk around campus and see what Landscape Services had done with the place. Our campus is quite large, so these posts will continue for several days.

This building is very old and historic, so the gardens in front of it are supposed to be showstopping and novel each year. Last year's array, as I recall, was more tropical, but I'm happy with what they did here. This is the best (and most encompassing) shot I could get without standing in the middle of the road.

I don't know what these cattail-like plants are, but they're neat. The not-quite-purple, not-quite-brown of the reproductive parts, paired with the whimsical bending of the spike, catches your eye better than most "typical" flowers. But they're only sporadically placed, which creates a good balance.

These flowers are just about the peppiest I've ever seen. They are clearly also meant to be highlights of this display.

Here's a closer shot of the "cattails."

These plants probably get overlooked by all the passersby, but they're sweet and subtle all at once. I always like flowers that fade to green like these do (white hellebores, for instance).

In terms of thrilling, filling, and spilling, these flowers fill. Because there are so many flower spikes, it's nice that a mix of colors was used. This would blow people off the sidewalk if it was all one color.

These bluebell-esque flowers don't seem to be quite in full bloom yet, but they also exhibit a combination of flair and sensibility--they're bright, but tiny. I wouldn't miss them terribly were they not in this bed, but they're nice enough on their own. They resemble snapdragons.

As you can see, these daisy-like blooms were so blindingly white that they wouldn't really show up on my camera. You can get the idea, though. For all the ground cover and filler plants included here, there are still many patches of bare soil. I wonder if that will change as the season progresses.

Albino cattails? These spikes were my favorites because they are hard to spot, but once you spot them, you can't look away. Bright green and bright pink fading naturally into each other! You don't often see that in nature.

These same plants (plus some petunias and a small tree) were combined in these containers. It's nice to have all that color livening up the beige of the (gigantic) building.

So that's that arrangement! What do you think of it? What could be added, improved, removed?

Next post: neon explosion.

Poolside Containers

I finally got ahold of an actual camera! Just in time, too, to capture these fun container arrangements next to the outdoor pool on campus.

The red flowers here are some sort of salvia. Hopefully they grow a bit taller throughout the season, or else this combination will be very short compared to the height of the pot it inhabits. It looks like the purple-leaved plant here will spill out of the container, which will also look better as the summer progresses.

There are a lot of salvia in the greenhouse. I think I like the 'Black and Blue' cultivar more than the red, but it contrasts with the pool nicely.

These sweet flowers balance out the boldness of the salvia, and they do a good job of taking up space.

This cycad-looking plant is the real reason to pay attention to these containers. There was another one, but it's having a lot of trouble. I guess cycads can adapt to temperate regions, but I always think of them as tropical plants. This individual is taking the climate relatively well.

Down the path a ways from those containers were these eye-popping bushes. They are incredibly pink, and there are a lot of them. They would be simply overwhelming were it not for all the green bushes, trees, and mulch around.

Seeing tropical-looking blooms like these herald the approach of summer, so they're welcome in my eyes.

I've never seen a bush so covered with such large flowers before. It's a jaw-dropping effect.

Is my new camera acceptable? It's not as nice as my old one, but I am grateful to have it. I was worried that all of these pictures would be blurry since I'm not used to the camera yet, but it's not hard to operate. Also, what plants have you seen that are screaming, "SUMMER IS COMING"?

Next post: a visit to a farm.

Campus Hodge Podge

I'm still mourning the possible loss of my camera (so excuse the phone pictures), but that isn't stopping me from photographing the best in plants from around campus! Today I have a particularly eclectic collection to show off. The weather is super nice (as in, sweaty nice), so things are starting to liven up in the realm of flora.

The first plants I noticed were these white-flowering bushes. I'm not sure what kind of bushes these are, but they smell amazing. That's one of the great things about plants: they please at least four of the five senses, if you don't count the sound of tree limbs trembling in the wind, which I do.

Also, the flowers on these bushes are adorable. So sweet and innocent-looking.

Next I saw what I believe was a flowering Japanese maple outside my dorm. I couldn't get close enough to the foliage and flowers from the ground, so I took these shots from the inside of a window.

I think the image of the leaves coming out over the dangling flowers is a great one for this time of year. I've seen it in many kinds of trees around town.

This tulip bed was outside the clinic. The clinic's pretty close to the hospital, which has the really impressive tulip display. They have hot pinks, reds, purples, oranges--you name it, basically. This bed only had red and yellow, but tulips are adamant about being upbeat no matter their color.

Oh hi, thumb!

There were only two red tulips in this area, but they were my favorite of the bunch. Here's the better-looking one of them.

What flowers are intriguing you this week? What colors of tulips have you seen?

Next post: a plant list.