for beautiful gardens
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Fascinating Flower: There need be no question in your mind about the market for good flower photography. One of the big slide film distributors has found flower fanciers the most consistent buy ers of all among slide collectors, even though the pictures offered are strictly of specimen flowers. These cannot possibly have the same appeal as pictures of flowers grown by the buyer in his own soil. The only flower fancier who is not an eager prospect for pictures of his blooms is one who has never seen a color slide transparency of a beautiful flower projected. A close-up of a lovely flower on a screen is a sight to make anyone, flower lover or not, gasp at its beauty.Other sights of the hundred-island metropolis include: The Royal Palace; the Rijksmuseum (a very great gallery of art; Rembrandt's Night Watch has been cleaned, revealing several surprises!); Rembrandt's Home; the Municipal Museum (van Gogh and other moderns); and the Museum for the Tropics (fascinating flower Indonesian lore). A rubberneck Boat trip through the city, starting from the Damrak, near Hotel Victoria, should certainly find a place in your sightseeing even if you have only a day or two for the city. For those who have more ample time there is much more to see and do, including leisured "bummeling," for sheer individual pleasure, in this ever-fascinating flower city. See Also Fennel Flower:Foeniculum vulgare (z8 10) Fennel Fennel is both highly decorative, with feathery bluish-green leaves, and very useful in the kitchen. The anise-like flavor is even stronger in the dried seeds than it is in the fresh leaves. The leaves are best used to accompany fish, vegetables, and salads, while the seeds add flavor to bread or soups. At 7ft high, this herbaceous perennial makes a stately addition to the border.Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) is also known as the fennel flower and is another plant that has been in cultivation for over 400 years. The name refers to the pastel-colored blooms that hover just above a tangle of light green, fern-like foliage. Plants are especially attractive when massed in the front of the border. 'Persian Jewels' jves flowers of rose-pink, light blue, or white. Its ripening seedpods nflate like balloons crowned with jester's caps. Love-in-a-mist do not transplant well and should be sown directly in the garden or tarted in individual peat pots. Plant 8 inches apart and use succes-ive sowings to have flowers all summer long. On The Other Hand See Spider Flower Cleome:They are good at the back of the border because the individual blossoms which close at night are large and easily visible from a distance. Germination takes two to three weeks and they are hardy annuals. Set plants 6 inches apart and make successive sowings over the summer. The cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) has made such an impressions on my consciousness that it has a special essay on page 26. spider flower Cleome flower (Cleome Hasslerana.) gets its name from the spider flower Cleome-like (or more truthfully, daddy-longlegs-like) blossoms with many long, waving stamens. Planted in large masses, spider flower Cleome flowers look j like blooming shrubbery.Also for late July into August a pot containing one blooming lily-of-the-Nile (Agapanthus africanus 'Albus') should be moved about for the best effect. This plant is only hardy above Zone 8 and should spend winters in a greenhouse or a cool north window. Among the annuals used for the moonlight garden are white geraniums (Pelaragonium x hortorum), white petunias (Petunia x hybrida), white nicotiana (Nicotiana data 'Grandiflora'), white cosmos (Cosmos tipinnatus 'Purity'), white spider flower Cleome flower (Cleome Hasslerana 'Alba' or 'Snow Queen'), and for a final round of color under a Harvest Moon, some white bedding mums (Chrysanthemum x morifolium). |
