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Landscape Foundations: A Practical & Technical Guide To Landscape Maintenance, Marco Crosland

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Many homeowners struggle to maintain healthy landscapes. Often, they simply don’t understand basic principles that, if followed, would make a significant difference in the health and appearance of their landscape. The hope of Landscape Foundations is to help homeowners maintain healthy and excellent landscapes by teaching these “correct principles”.

What makes Landscape Foundations different than other landscape guides is that it brings in current research and explains it in a simple way. This guidebook provides pictures and additional resources to explain landscape maintenance principles. It teaches both the practical and technical sides.

Landscape Foundations is written for both beginners and …

Vegetational Response To Three Environmental Gradients In A Salt Playa Near Goshen, Utah County, Utah, Michael Grant Skougard

Theses and Dissertations

The plant communities and individual plant species in and around a salt playa near Goshen, Utah County, Utah were studied in relation to three environmental gradients. Forty-eight stands were sampled by means of meter square gradients. Frequency data for all participating plant species were taken. Soil samples were collected from each site and analyzed to establish the environmental gradients (i.e., total soluble salts, soil moisture and hydrogen ion concentration. Results indicate that community vegetation types respond differentially to the three gradients and can be segregated on the basis of one or more of the gradients. The total soluble salts gradient …

Correlations Between Plant Species Diversity And Flower Characteristics In The Wasatch Mountains Of Utah And Idaho, William Kent Ostler

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the relative abundance of the prevalent species in 25 major plant communities of the Wasatch Mountains demonstrates that variation in species diversity is significantly correlated with many floral characteristics. Wind pollinated flowers decrease in abundance while animal pollinated flowers increase along the diversity gradient. Both relationships are highly significant statistically. Color diversity and species diversity are significantly and positively correlated in open communities but are not correlated in forest communities. The percent sum frequency of yellow and pink-magenta flowers decreased with increasing species diversity while blue and whitish flowers increased. Also, zygomorphic flowers and flowers in which …

Some Aspects Of Vegetation Response To A Moisture Gradient On An Ephemeral Stream In Central Arizona, Deborah Ann Bloss

Theses and Dissertations

Ecological aspects of desert vegetation in relation to a moisture gradient of an ephemeral stream in central Arizona were investigated. The stream channel, flood plain and north, west, south, east facing slopes represent a moisture gradient going from most mesic to most xeric conditions. In parts of the system, vegetation from the stream channel intergraded into flood plain vegetation which in turn intergraded into slope vegetation types. In other areas there are sharp delineations between stream channel and flood plain, and between flood plain and slope. Trees and legumes preferred medium moisture habitats, while forbs, shrubs and succulents preferred the …

The Physiological Vitality Of Scarlet Globemallow, Sphaeralcea Grossulariaefolia (Hook. And Arn.) Rydberg, Under Drought, Sam Finley Brewster

Theses and Dissertations

Responses to drought were studied on greenhouse grown plants of Sphaeralcea grossulariaefolia (Hook. & Arn.) Rydberg. A pressure bomb was modified to measure leaf water potential (ψ). Leaf water potentials varied from -2 to -80 bars. Matric potential proved negligible. Low osmotic potentials indicated that turgor pressure remained positive. Photosynthesis decreased linearily with leaf water potential decreases. At about -32 bars ψ net photosynthesis became zero and around -45 bars ψ all photosynthesis ceased. Dark respiration decreased below about -18 bars proportionally to leaf water potential decrease until becoming minute at -60 bars. A very rapid rise in CO2 equilibrium …

A Study On The Effectiveness Of Precipitation In The Salt Desert Shrub Type, Sam Finley Brewster

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure quantitatively the effectiveness of precipitation by determining the amount and timing (i.e. distribution-in-time) of plant absorption of moisture during the summers of 1965 and 1966. In addition the effectiveness of precipitation was related to some causal factors, especially those factors which help provide a procedure for calculation of this effectiveness.

Summer Soil And Air Temperatures In Four Plant Communities, Paul W. Conrad

Theses and Dissertations

Temperature, one of the most influential factors controlling the growth and distribution of plants, was measured during a three month summer period within several stands of vegetation. The stands represented four distinct plant communities: sagebrush-grass, mountain brush, aspen, and conifer. Measurements were obtained by a sucrose inversion method which gave exponential average or effective mean temperature (eT) values. Registerants, small glass vials filled with a sucrose-buffer solution, were placed in the air 10 decimeters above the ground level and in the soil 1, 5, and 10 decimeters below the ground level. The sites were carefully described with respect to plant …