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I like to start
off my training by holding up a plant and going what is this? Solenostemon scutellarioides.
They usually just say coleus. What's this? It's
a cactus. But how do you know that? And that's the point.
Plants have all these differences, but they also have a lot of things in common.
First, plants are stationary.
When the weather gets bad they can't go inside where it's nice.
They have to be very adaptable to the location they are in.
They need to be able to adapt the light and moisture,
the extremes of hot and cold, and tolerate the soil they've been planted
in.
This is why in gardening, finding the right plant for the right place is so
critical.
A plant has to be able to survive in its location. Plants absorb and store solar
energy
through the process of photosynthesis. This is a chemical reaction
occurring in the tissues of the plant. Light energy is used to convert carbon
dioxide and water into chemical energy,
sugars. These sugars are used by the plant to grow,
to battle insect pests, or drought stress, and to produce flowers and seeds for
reproduction.
Extra sugars can be put into storage organs for later use by the plant
or for animals to harvest and eat.
Plants lack a nervous system and brain as you'd find in animals.
Yet plants are able to respond to stimuli. Through interactions of internal
plant growth regulators
and external environmental conditions, plants know when to produce flowers and
fruits when days get to be a certain length.
They can turn and grow towards the light if the spot they are in is too dark.
They can raise and lower their leaves based on temperature and moisture.
And they know when to begin to germinate or go dormant
based on temperatures and day length, just to name a few things.
Finally, plants have regions of localized growth called meristems.
Though we commonly call them buds. These are regions of cell division and plant
growth.
There are buds you can easily see along the stem of this plant.
The terminal bud at the tip and the lateral buds along the sides.
In other plants the growing points may be at the bottom of the plant.
That's the case with grass where new growth keeps pushing the old-growth
upward to be cut off by the lawn mower.
Understanding the growing point is important to gardeners,
as it provides insight on how and why we prune trees and shrubs the way we do,
why pinching back plants can be important,
or why mowing your grass too short can be a problem.
Remember, in biology there's always exceptions to the rule.
But understanding the similarities between plants will help you make the
best decisions
when taking care of your own garden.