Recource for bushes and shrubs?

Hmmm, what type of area is this? Reality or fantasy. If it's reality, what country, state, region, province, etc??

Thistles are flowers. I've seen them as high as my shoulder. Never seen a forest of them.

Many "trees" are really bushes trained into tree form.

The reason I asked where is that resources for flora and fauna are often regional. You won't find the same plants growing in Texas and Maine, just for example. There are an enormous number of garden resources. Are you looking for lists of cultivated plants, ie. boxwood or arborvitae or holly hedges? Or uncultivated,, native plants, more a bramble than a hedge?


http://plants.usda.gov/

http://www.noble.org/webapps/plantimagegallery/

http://www.bcpl.net/~cadavis/cmapig/initialpage.html

http://utgardens.tennessee.edu/ohld220/

Here are some links to get you started. If these don't help you, let me know.

Forgive me for hijacking your thread, Ziljon. But I must take this opportunity to ask Soccer mom (who seems to be the expert in the field ) a question.

Soccer Mom, would you happen to know if Blue oak grows in California? Also does violet flower in winter (california)?

Thanks.

Eryl first - what's a blue oak? In the states we have red oaks and white oaks (both families) but blue oak?

Ziljon - Quite a few states have listings of flora subdivided by type through their natural resource department.

And - you can always do a google search through characteristics - such as - shrub deciduous "white flower" "red berry" - just be sure to enclose any two or more word descriptors in quotes.

There are also some books available, I have a couple. Shrub identification characteristics is one of them.

Good luck with finding what you're looking for. Puma

Puma said:

Eryl first - what's a blue oak? In the states we have red oaks and white oaks (both families) but blue oak?

Click to expand...

I forget why I chose Blue oak. But I google this up. Blue oak is also known as Californis Blue Oak (I guess the reason why I selected it; now that I'm editing I want to get everything right on spot) as well as Mountain White Oak. Scientific name is Quecus Douglasii. Below is a picture.

Eryl, I suspect the California bit gives it away for the blue oak, but this shows where they grow there: http://www.uark.edu/blueoak/

California has a diverse climate, so I suspect you need to be careful about location. Not all plants will grow in all areas of California.

Check here for hardiness zones: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-sw1.html Knowing the minimum temperature of your exact location will help to answer what does and doesn't flower in winter. However, varieties such as African Violets can be grown indoors, so you could probably force a flowering violet in winter if you need it.

Cath said:

Eryl, I suspect the California bit gives it away for the blue oak, but this shows where they grow there: http://www.uark.edu/blueoak/

California has a diverse climate, so I suspect you need to be careful about location. Not all plants will grow in all areas of California.

Check here for hardiness zones: http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-sw1.html Knowing the minimum temperature of your exact location will help to answer what does and doesn't flower in winter. However, varieties such as African Violets can be grown indoors, so you could probably force a flowering violet in winter if you need it.

Click to expand...

Awesome . This is just how I imagined the woodlands. I have a wild Violet flowering in winter (Massachusetts actually, not California) in my project; in the novel, it is supposed to be a rare occurrence. Thanks so much, Cath!

Just found my way back here!

You've got some good advice and violets are a cool weather flower, with the exception of African violets whichare best suited for indoor cultivation. They bloom in spring in colder climates and in winter in more temperate ones. Like Cath said, know your climate zone and it will make all answers easier.

For some reason this thread reminded me of Gorse- a plant that grows in nice little hedge rows in England/Europe (very handy as well) but went crazy in Au/NZ. Maybe it likes the water spinning the other way...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulex_europaeus

(and yeah, the water bit was a bad toilet joke... yep...)

Cheers,
Christina