Valentine’s Day
Of course, I would say that SeeHow is the perfect Valentine’s Day gift! But really, it is more than just a ‘gift of flowers’ – it is a promise of year-round garden colour. SeeHow works visually, showing the whole lives of 140 plants – January through to December. Anyone can use it – from complete beginners to gardening professionals. A picture really is worth 1,000 words! For easy searching, the plants are arranged in a colour library - white, pink, red, purple, blue, green, yellow and orange. But the user can re-arranged them any way they like. And there is a Plant Index too!
Roses – flowering from mid-spring to late autumn (even early winter in some locations). They are the UK’s favourite plant. Red roses symbolise Valentine’s Day and eternal love. Valentine’s Day is early in the year so the plants do need a bit of a push to bloom, but it is worth the effort. And who does not like to give or receive them! But why settle for flowers in a vase, when you can plant roses in your garden and have blooms every year for months on end. In SeeHow there are 6 roses of different colours – white, purple, red, yellow, orange, pink.
Tulips, slender and full of grace – another national favourite. In SeeHow, 5 tulips are included for this very reason. The colours are white, yellow, red, purple and orange. There are different flower-forms too. Tulips tend to be mid-height and grow well in drifts or in mixed borders. They also look great in pots, which can be located (and relocated) wherever an extra splash of colour is wanted. They perfectly compliment daffodils, following on nicely as the daffodils begin to fade.
Poppies – the red flowers of Papaver rhoeas are a familiar sight for 6 or more months from early summer to late autumn, dotting roadside verges. Sometimes uncultivated fields are covered in them – a wonderful sight. But this genus contains other very colourful plants too that will also self-seed and return year-after-year. In SeeHow we have included a range of options. Californian poppies – white and pink; the blue Mecanopsis ‘Lingholm’, which is always a show-stopper but does need the right conditions to flower; the Welsh poppy, Mecanopsis cambrica, which is much hardier than its blue Himalayan cousin. It will provide wonderful yellow and orange pops of colour in the border for months on end.
Each SeeHow plantstick shows how and when a typical plant grows and flowers, as the illustration of the Persicaria above, shows. While SeeHow contains a range of bulbous plants and woody shrubs, the majority of plants are popular perennials, offering a range of colours and a varieties of heights too. The plant list is long, providing choices that will look equally well in mixed borders or perhaps planted in containers to edge footpaths or brighten up terraces and balconies.
For the majority of theirs lives, most plants are largely green, that is why SeeHow shows the entire garden-presence of each plant. But there are some plants that are grown more for their green foliage and structure and SeeHow has a number of these … Euphorbia, Helleborus, Artemisia and Alchemilla. For plants with big leaves and colourful flower spikes, there is an evergreen Bergenia and also two Hostas. Alchemilla mollis is a SeeHow favourite, with its frothy acid-yellow flowers above bright green bushy foliage. It looks superb beside plants with strong blue colours such as Eryngiums, which can also have blue stems.
Autumn tends to be synonymous with strong oranges and reds and there are many perennials in SeeHow that offer these colours. Dahlias, marigolds, Californian poppies and Geums all offer orange flowers at different heights, that will brighten any border. Kniphofias push bright erect burnt-orange flower-spikes up above their strap-like green leaves – strong colours that seem to go well with so many other flowers. Crocosmia has similar leaves but has long pendulous stems ending in bright orange or red flowers. They can last into late autumn and look a bit like exploding fireworks!
Not sure about which plants to choose for your garden? SeeHow is packed full of beautiful plants that can fill your garden with year-round colour. Use SeeHow to explore options and colour combinations. Give the gift of flowers on Valentine’s Day.
The above Text and all Photographs are copyright of Wincenty (Wicek) Sosna. Please contact SeeHow for permission to reproduce in any way, in part or as the complete text.