colorful spring bulb look in front of brownstone For a Fabulous Spring Look call Plant Specialists today – the choices are endless !! PLANT SPECIALISTS GREENING NEW YORK FOR OVER 52 YEARS ! Article written by our Staff Horticulturist, Peter B Morris, BSc, MSc, MBA All photographs used with permission […]
The Color Purple
Green Most leaves look green, but many are red, brown, purple, yellow, and orange! What’s up with that ! Green The green comes from the vast amount of the pigment chlorophyll (used in photosynthesis) inside the cells. From sunlight, it absorbs many wavelengths (think rainbow) except one – GREEN ! It reflects […]
PARENCHYMA
THE UBIQUITOUS PARENCHYMA Plants contain many types of tissues and within each, various specialized cells – but none of them beat Parenchyma ! These are the biochemistry machines of the plant. They are alive at maturity (unlike wood) and specialize into many forms. The basis for all plant function – they are everywhere and in […]
OFF WITH HER HEAD !
Perhaps the Queen of Hearts would have said it about the Queen of Flowers but we will never know! A rosebud Deadheading It is of course the practice of removing spent flowers to promote more new flowers. By doing so you redirect all the energy it would have made into seeds […]
Dominance and Flower Color
Genetic expression Dominance is a description of genetic expression. The various flower color variations are due to the degree at which the individual genes are expressing for this one trait. Plants have two sets of chromosomes in their cells, each containing many genes in a sequence along its length. The ones in the […]
ALLELOPATHY
Our observations Many years ago we noticed how when planting sweet potato vine into containers for a summer display – all the hibiscus also planted with it would stop flowering soon after ! We also noticed how some annuals didn’t do well in pots with marigolds. And nothing liked to be in a […]
A rose by any other name
Damask That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?Deny thy father and refuse thy name;Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,And I’ll no longer be a Capulet Romeo: [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall […]
PLASMOLYSIS
Turgidity Normal cells are in a state that is called ‘turgid’. That is, they are pretty full of water and hence there is enough pressure against the cell wall for the cell membranes to keep their shape. If the plant does not receive water in time – it wilts. It’s basically a result of […]
Water
The water molecule Water is chemically known as H2O – that is, 2 atoms of Hydrogen stuck to one Oxygen. This assembly is kept together by their attraction to each other at the atomic level. Hey – maybe its the water inside us that makes us attracted to one another ! I wonder? Diagram […]
