- Landscape Design - Botanical Wiki - Annuals
MAK Landscape and Irrigation is a Corvallis based company. Landscape Designs include an extensive variety of annual flowers to be used. Our Landscape designs include landscape construction, landscape maintenance, irrigation services and much more. Our Botanical wiki is met to give our Commercial and Home Property owners a visual of flowers that can be included in their landscape design. They can be added to borders, containers, hanging baskets and in creative arrangements.
Ageratum
Ageratum houstonianum (flossflower, bluemink, blueweed, pussy foot, Mexican paintbrush) is a cool-season annual plant often grown as bedding in gardens. The plant grows to 0.3–1 m high, with ovate to triangular leaves 2–7 cm long, and blue flowerheads (sometimes white, pink, or purple). The flower heads are borne in dense corymbs. The ray flowers are threadlike, leading to the common name.
The plant is native to Central America and adjacent parts of Mexico, but has become an invasive weed in other areas.
Ageratum has evolved an ingenious method of protecting itself from insects; it produces a methoprene-like compound which interferes with the normal function of the corpus allatum, the organ responsible for secreting juvenile hormone. This chemical triggers the next molting cycle to prematurely develop adult structures, and can render most insects sterile if ingested in large enough quantities.