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Updated September 6, 2007
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ScienceMan's Flower Page
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September 6, 2007
It just occured to me that I should be dating the updates on this page so people know what season I'm talking about! So I'll do that from now on.
Today I have a special treat, a bit of a virtual tour of Gale's Garden - ScienceMan's better half maintains a very fine garden, and she's very modest about it. In recent years her garden was a feature in the Edmonton Horticultural Society's garden tour. This year, the garden has been particularly beautiful. I'm proud of her and her beautiful garden - I'm obviously very lucky to have such a talented gardener as a spouse!
The following QuickTime movie is a brief tour through only part of the garden - please be patient while it loads, it's a big file (188 MB). I hope you enjoy Gale's Garden as much as I do!
Old Updates - 2006
ScienceMan just happens to have a very nice tea rose blooming right now, here is one of the gorgeous blooms:
This flower update is also a subtle nod of the hat to Apple for the release of their latest, extremely cool iMac models. Not only has Apple come out with a stunning 24" model, but they have also been very respectful to schools and educators by keeping the 17" model, and also offering a very affordable model with a combo drive and shared video memory. These are very smart concessions to save schools money (in Canada, the low-end iMac is being offered for only $999 CAN at the education store), so Apple deserves a huge round of applause!
So how is the flower a tribute to Apple? Well, just click on the flower, and a 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution version of the flower will load... which just happens to be the screen resolution of the new 24" iMac! Some lucky new iMac owner out there can have a beautiful flower on their desktop!
Here's a picture of one of my favourites, a Stargazer lily - I have no good scientific reason for posting this at all, sorry about that!
But here's one that's a little more interesting - normally a pansy has 5 petals, but the pansyflower on the left in the following picture is a 'mutant', with two complete sets of petals for a total of 10 - weird!
These are about the size of a quarter - they're "Glory-of-the-snow", and belong to the Liliaceae family, genus Chionodoxa - I'm not sure of the species name.
If you are interested in learning more aobut flowers or just want a quick reference, I really like the site GardenGuides.com. Sure, it has shopping links, but for the most part the site is a superbly organized series of guides, with excellent pictures and information. Check out the flower guide, then simply use the pull down menus to select the flowers you are interested in. Great for browsing even if you don't know squat about gardening!
Many of you are blessed to live in regions where you enjoy plenty of blooms this time of year - but for those of us on the prairies, things are still dry and brown! So to get the spirits of the gardeners up, here are a picts of a few neat flowers;
Click on the images to get a bigger picture. From the top going clockwise, these are prairie crocus, siberian squill, and striped squill. The squill are actually very small flowers - about the size of a dime - but they sure are pretty!
 
Click on either picture for a larger view!
Everyone knows the flower on the left is a lilac - but what's the one on the right? It's kind of uncommon... species name Draba azoides.
Pardon me while I spoil the ScienceMan botanically-minded visitors with a few more pictures! ScienceMan's just excited at seeing Alberta gardens spring to life with recent rains (finally!) These pictures are of an interesting snap-dragon family plant known by the common name "Purple Haze", species name Penstemon fruitocucus; (Click on any of the pics for a larger view)
 
And just one more flower... this one is of a fairly uncommon tulip species called the "Lily-flowered tulip" - mostly closed up due to cool rainy weather, but still very pretty!
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