Field of Science

Garden roundup - Flowering & diversity

TPP finally got caught up on his first day of flowering data & got his database up to date except for a few unresolved issues involving a faulty memory. Firstly, for certain plant species only groups of varieties are recorded and kept track of, e.g., hostas.  Our gardens being shady have lots of varieties b but when it comes to flowering there are early varieties, mid-season varieties (most of them), fragrant ones (a different species), late small-leafed varieties, and really late flowering varieties (like Red October).  But there are dozens of varieties altogether, but only those flowering entries.  Species are all treated individually, if known.
In total, for the 2017 season, which started for us on the 12th of February (the recently mentioned witch-hazel).  And which ended on the 4th of October (wolfbane or Monk's hood), our gardens had 337 flowering events, actually more but only herbaceous and woody perennials are counted, no annuals unless they are native & take care of themselves, to get the total diversity the 'did not flower' species and the 'new' (dnf) plants also have to be counted, bringing the total of  363 flowering plants, plus another 28 gymnosperms and 19 ferns for a total diversity of a bit over 400 species.  It keeps us busy, but wandering our gardens to see what's new is a favorite activity for the cocktail hour. Native species weigh in at around 121 species and growing as our woodland garden expands, but it won't when the leaf guys take away all the chopped leaves.  Hey, you owe us a couple of tons of leaves!
Finding new plants that will grow here is becoming more difficult.


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