Thursday, December 6, 2007

A lonely spring flower in Fall

Did you know how the plants growing in extreme climates know when its spring & when its winter..?

The trees, shrubs and flowering perennials have adapted themselves in such a way that they can protect themselves in extreme temperatures. Evergreens are the ones which can stay green all through the year. So these trees has leaves which are modified to spikes or scales which has less water loss compared to the leaves. Deciduous trees /shrubs are the ones which lose there leaves in fall. Perennials are the ones which die back to their roots and start growing once the weather is conducive.

As the temperature begins to drop down, all the plants start preparing themselves for the winter. When they are almost ready for the winter and suddenly when the temperature starts rising on the following days, the plants get fooled that spring is arriving. Its the temperature which makes the plants think of the seasons.

This year we have planted a total of 18 trees, lots of evergreens, decicuous shrubs and perennials. Of these one tree got fooled with the temperature ups and downs for one flower. The flowering crabapple which is known for its enormous white blooms in spring had one single bloom. This was very surprising, but also very exciting that one bloom took the initiative to show what it will look like. The flower had 5 petals with milky white color and it was an absolute beauty. We are eagerly waiting to see the tree fully covered with such beautiful blooms in spring.

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