Garden Pics - Garden Photos

Blue Strawberry Flowers, Memecylon caeruleum, Botanical Gardens, Singapore, originally uploaded by Rana Pipiens.

I’m not a huge fan of close-up pictures of flowers but this close-up of tiny strawberry tree blossoms caught my eye and seemed like it deserved some attention. It’s not just the clear detail of the tiny flowers but the composition of the photo is excellent with a predominant grouping of five pink blossoms and the single fully open purple blossom creating a creat colour combination.

I’ve already hinted that I love giant plants and huge ornamental onions are right up there on my list of fave plants. Allium ‘Globemaster’ is my favourite variety of the ones I’ve tried. They are a consistent performer with extra large bloom heads that are well proportioned to thier height.

globemaster allium, the disco ball of flowers, originally uploaded by this is emily.

Fall is approaching and that’s the time to plant alliums if you want the to show up next year in early summer. Purple is the most common colour for alliums but a few of the many varieties come in pink, white and even blue or yellow. (more…)

Nenuphar de l’ile Maurice, originally uploaded by greg..!.

I’m not sure if these lily-pad-like water plants are a type of water lily or if they are some other exotic water plant but the effect is dramatic and I love it. Trying to describe it in words has me realizing the limits of my water gardening knowledge. What do you call the foliage on water garden plants?

It didn’t take me long after discovering an interest in gardening to grow a keen interest for giant plants and Gunnera manicata is what started it all. It’s not often a choice for the home gardener, but around Vancouver where I live the city parks department has planted giant rhubarb plants at several parks around the city. This one is situated right by the duck pond on Granville Island.

Gunnera manicata, or giant rhubarb, is an ornamental plant in the Gunneraceae family. The underside of the leaf and the whole stalk have spikes on them. The leaves of Gunnera grow to an impressive size. Leaves with diameters well in excess of four feet are commonplace. This plant grows best in damp conditions eg by the side of garden ponds.

jenny n persian shield, originally uploaded by la fattina.

Flowers are nice but but I really love it when gardeners get creative with foliage. This foliage combination of creeping Jenny with Persian shield uses sharply contrasting colour and shape to really pop out and make a statement.