Rose: Preserving Blooms and Buds
Spring Blues
Green - verdant, lush, and full of life - is of course the colour of spring. But there is another colour of spring which runs a close second - blue.
Look around the early spring garden or woods and blue can be found everywhere. No other colour is as abundant among spring’s herbaceous plants (except the acknowledged spring winner: green!).
Blue-flowering spring plants, including herbs, are common - periwinkle, bugleweed, bluebell, iris, forget-me-nots, lilacs, violets, spiderwort, heal-all. Nature saves most of the bold reds, yellows, oranges and purples for high summer and fall.
In the colour spectrum, blue falls between green and violet. Is this nature’s way of making the transition from winter evergreen - to spring green - to spring blue - to summer’s riot of colours?
The mechanisms of flower colour lie deep within the genetic make-up of the plant; but beyond that the forces of natural selection must have exerted their influence in order to make blue such a prominent spring colour. The blue colour must provide some adaptive benefit to the plants with blue flowers.
Does the blue attract insects more than other colours? Does the blue attract a specific insect which is more numerous in the spring, or only alive then? Is this insect vital to the pollination of the blue-flowering plant? What of other animals - foragers or birds for example? What effect, if any, does the blue colour have on them? Perhaps the blue repels certain foragers. Is the blue colour a result of soil minerals? Is there some quality of sunlight in spring that affects the soil, and so perhaps influences flower colour? Or does the light affect the flower colour directly? Maybe it is human eyesight that changes in the spring so that we discern blue and green more.
Perhaps, the answer involves all these and factors not yet thought of: remember Shakespeare’s line, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!” Or, maybe Mother Nature and the Green Goddess just prefer blue in spring!
To solve the blue puzzle, one would need to be all of botanist, geneticist, mineralogist, entomologist, meteorologist, naturalist . . . soothsayer and seer.
If colours have personalities, blue has a certain poignant, romantic quality. Never known for being cheery, blue is generally sedate and aristocratic. Blue and green, singly or together, have a “cooling” effect. Isabella Valancy Crawford, a 19th century Canadian poet who should be better known, captured this coolness in these lines from “Said the West Wind”:
The broad, bold Sun . . . blots a drop
Of pollen-gilded dew from violet cup
Set bluely in the mosses of the wood.
Whether “bluely” or not, there is no doubt that spring flowers stud spring’s exuberant welcome mat of new growth.
By Jen L. Jones
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Dyes derived from plants such as those growing in this display garden were used to create the warm and bright colours in woollen materials. Natural dyes from wild and cultivated plants provided a rich palette of earthy tones that were incorporated into blankets, socks, and even woollen undergarments that protected the wearer against the harsh Canadian winter.
Melanoma is a cancer that originates in the pigment producing cells of the skin (melanocytes). Melanocytes are the pigmented cells in the skin that give skin its distinctive colour. Sun-light stimulates melanocytes to produce more melanin (the pigment that darkens the skin) and increases the risk of melonoma.
Warning signs of melanoma :
- Enlarging pigmented (especially black or deep blue) spot or mole,
- Changes in colour of an existing mole, especially the spread of red, white, brown, or blue pigmentation to surrounding skin
To enjoy fresh herbs throughout the coming season, you may want to consider growing herbs such as basil, parsley and cilantro, much the way you would lettuce in the garden. Sow a new row every two weeks and remember to pinch back for optimum fullness. You can continue to start seeds right into the first of July and any remaining plants can always be lifted and brought indoors at the end of the season. You will be amazed at the speed in which your herbs will grow once the soil is heated up and the days are at their longest.
May 1st is called May Day and is celebrated by many cultures around the world.
This simple sounding grade school statement is really a grad school level trap, lined with needle sharp hawthorns, ready to snap shut on any unsuspecting herbal inquirer foolish enough to open this Pandora’s box!
A simple spring celebration? Try pagan-Celtic-spring fertility rite-medieval- Elizabethan-Victorian-modern-people’s day-socialist-bank holiday-Morris dancing-labour unionist-Jack in the Green-nature worshipping fire festival/debauch/ribbon and lace bedecked afternoon tea!
Creating beautiful herb gardens with a few tricks of the trade!
Herb gardening is all about the gardener's own personality and taste. Herb gardens can be as wild as the deepest jungles of Africa to the most formal designs of precision and form. Herbs lend themselves to many garden designs and no two herb gardens are alike. Just as the stately wild mullein is at home in a naturalized garden, so too is the garden variety found strategically placed, dominating the English castle wall.
Herbal remedies have surged in popularity and are flying off store shelves. For those consumers who are also parents, natural herbal remedies for children are also of interest. As parents, we all want what is best for our kids, many of us desire to give our kids healthy, safe and naturally derived medicines.
Hay fever is a seasonal allergy triggered by the inhalation of pollen or, less commonly, molds. Medically known as seasonal or allergic rhinitis, the popular name of hay fever is a misnomer: Although symptoms may occur during the haying season, hay itself is not the culprit, nor is there a fever.
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