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Cooler temps means cooler colors?
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Posted by cam76034 ncentraltexas (My Page) on Fri, Oct 30, 09 at 11:33
| Why is it that in the fall I see so many more blues and white flowers than in the summertime, when orange and yellows and reds seem to predominate? |
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RE: Cooler temps means cooler colors?
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I'm a master gardener, and I'll admit that I don't know! It doesn't work that way here in Phoenix.
If you miss yellow, orange, or red flowers in the fall, plant mums, or the appropriate colors of Polyanthus primrose, or 'Gold Crown' and 'Padparadja' pansies. All of these can take light frost and keep blooming (sometimes medium frost, in the case of the pansies and primroses).
If you miss blues and purples in the summer, plant "Texas tulip" (Eustoma grandiflorum), Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon strictus), cup flower (Nierembergia), or summer snapdragon (Angelonia).
Is there a botanist or ecologist in the house to answer his question? |
RE: Cooler temps means cooler colors?
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| If you want some red in the cooler months I have found hot lips salvia to be the best of all salvia's. It's strange how it is red and white in the cooler months then turning red in the heat of summer. It get's huge......and I love mine, right now it's been putting on a big show for weeks. |
RE: Cooler temps means cooler colors?
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| I'm gonna take a blind, completely uneducated, unsubstantiated guess and say that it may have something to do with the varieties of insects (bees, butterflies) that are around at the time. In some instances anyway. Like, if a plant evolved to attract a particular butterfly, it may develop coloring like the other flowers that butterfly likes, thus leading to a greater prevalence of that color in that season. Make any sense? |
RE: Cooler temps means cooler colors?
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| I was thinking something along the lines of perhaps pollinators and some relationship to the light spectrum...Or maybe it's just the difference in temperatures? Right now my yard is full of blues and purples...blue mist ageratum, blue morning glories, blue cornflowers, swamp salvia, snake herb etc...Sure there are exceptions, especially if you include nursery stock plantings, and its not that I'm missing the reds and oranges, I just wonder why the burst of blues in the fall? |
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