Summer Inspirations

I am not a gardener, but I love flowers. These are from the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Garden, located at the Ballard Locks, is the result of a gardener hired in 1931 to transform a graveled area of the grounds, to an English estate style garden. An expert horticulturist and botanist, Carl S. English Jr. traveled and corresponded with botanists around the world, and with the aid of the captains of ships passing through the locks, amassed a significant collection of plants.

Impatiens is a beautiful annual that makes an excellent houseplant or summer bedding plant. It is also known as "Busy Lizzie" and its name is a Latin word that describes the way its seeds shoot out of its pods when ripe (the slightest touch can make a ripe impatiens seed pod burst open and scatter its seeds). Impatiens like shade and moisture. Begonia is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family

Begoniaceae. The genus contains about 1,400 different plant species. The Begonias are native to moist subtropical and tropical climates. Some species are commonly grown indoors as ornamental houseplants in cooler climates. In cooler climates some species are cultivated outside in summertime for their bright colourful flowers, which have sepals but no petals.

Rudbeckia hirta, commonly called black-eyed Susan, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Eastern and Central United States. It is one of a number of plants with the common name black-eyed Susan. The plant also is a traditional Native American medicinal herb in several tribal nations; believed in those cultures to be a remedy, among other things, for colds, flu, infection, swelling and (topically, by poultice) for snake bite (although not all parts of the plant are edible).