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Computerized Mary Garden Design

FLOWERscape Instructions

      - FLOWERscape 3.0, produced by:

          FLOWERscape
          Voudette
          Village Station Box 24935
          Los Angeles, CA 90024

          Fax: (310) 474-7516

          Web Site: http://www.fscape.com

               - Description

               - Step-by-step Procedures


Description

FLOWERscape, for Macintosh and Windows, introduced in 1993, and
in version 3.0 in 2001, has a library of miniature digitized
photos of some 300 commonly cultivated garden plants, which can be
placed in desired positions - and subsequently moved individually at
any time - on a computer screen garden bed layout display of up to
17" x 5", representing a maximum plot of 40 ft. wide by 14 ft. deep.
Some 70 of these plants are Flowers of Our Lady: documented to have
had common religious names in the medieval period, subsquently
recorded by botanists and folklorists.

As multiple images of a selected plant are accessed to form clumps
or sweeps on a garden plan, mirror images are alternatingly
generated for variety.  For plants with several colors of bloom,
there are photos of different plants for each color - in some cases
up to 7.  Also, for each plant accessed, an accompanying larger
individual bloom photo is displayed, with "pop-up" plant data table.
The program has an aggregate of over 2,000 photos - all taken and
digitized by its professional photographer-author.

The data table for each plant gives plant height; flower size; soil,
temperature, light and moisture requirements; suggested garden
spacing; bloom period, planting time (northern hemisphere), climatic
zone and other information for selecting it and locating it in the
garden site.  For use in plant selection for Mary Gardens the 120
Flowers of Our Lady in the GARDENscape library have been listed by
Mary's Gardens as a group, together with their descriptive and
horticultural data.

The miniature plant photos selected, singly or successively, from
the FLOWERscape library are discreet, separate computer screen
"objects" or "floaters" which can be moved with the computer
pointer to desired positions or clumps on a computer screen layout
of a grass plot with user-"dug" garden bed(s) and an optionally
chosen background wall or fence.

Each plant floater can subsequently be moved, added to or deleted to
adjust and perfect the overall virtual garden layout integrity,
proportion and clarity; and to incorporate in the layout changes
made in the actual garden plot through the months and years.

In FLOWERscape all plants can be displayed in bloom; or alternative
displays can be made showing their foliage, bloom or dormancy status
for any selected month(s) of the growing year in a given climate
zone (northern hemisphere).

The format is in a perspective view, using graphics of blooming
plants as they would be seen from a frontal elevation.  The
individual plant photos are proportioned to actual plant heights,
such that lower plants can be positioned in borders, medium plants
in central locations, and taller plants at the rear of the beds.  A
keyboard command produces a temporary positionable display of a
plant height ruler.

An extensive illustrated 1994 review of FLOWERscapeŞ by Karen
Fletcher, Garden Gatekeeper of The Garden Gate on Prairienet,
describing its many features is available at:

        http://www.prairienet.org/ag/garden/fscape1.htm


Garden layouts saved to computer disk in GARDENscape file format
(Grdn) retain the movable "floating" character of each plant graphic
for adjustment, relocation or deletion when the plan file is
re-opened at any time in the computer.

The layouts can also be saved (with all floaters irreversibly
"dropped" to the layout layer) in standard file format (PICT) for
subsequent augmentation with general graphics software such as
ClarisWorks, or professonal software such as Photoshop or Painter -
to add images of focal garden sculpture or of flowers not in the
GARDENscape library; to join several plans in a larger overall plan;
or to place the garden plan in a landscape setting.

Also available for print-out, in addition to the virtual garden
views, are companion matching diagrams showing each plant location
by sequential identifying number, keyed to an accompanying numbered
plant list; and a table by plant, alphabetically, giving the bloom
color(s), planting season and northern hemisphere planting time for
each plant.


FLOWERscape Step-by-Step Procedure

Task

To design a Mary Garden plot and to position plant images on it.
 
Steps

First examine our custom list of "120 Flowers of Our Lady in
FLOWERscape", on this web site, and make tentative selections of
those flowers to be considered for inclusion in your garden.  Then:


Execute the simple FLOWERscape menu commands to:

     - Enter your climate zone

     - Choose a plot background (Fence, Wall, etc.)

     - "Dig" the garden bed areas

     - Choose, Examine and "Plant" your desired plants

     - Select-adjust plants for overall garden composition

     - "Save" garden design to computer disk (in "Grdn" format).
       Then use "screen-save" ("screen-dump") computer key command
       to save in "PICT" format. (FLOWERscape menu "Save as Pict"
       files will not open properly in ClarisWorks or Painter.)

     - Print out Virtual garden Plant Location Diagram with keyed
       list; and Summary Table of plants showing color, planting
       season and flowering season for each plant
    
     - Re-open Grdn file in FLOWERscape at any time to make further
       adjustments.

     - (Open Screen-Dump PICT file of virtual garden in ClarisWorks
       or Painter for addition of images of statuary or of further
       custom images of plants not in FLOWERscape library.)
 

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