common cotton grass

Plants for destinctively sunny sites need and tolerate a lot of direct sun radiation (eg. roses, even more spurge (euphorbia myrsinites) , sea buckthorn, sedum, most of rock-garden plants, cactuses etc). Mostly, but not necessarily, these plants can also tolerate drought. Roses need more water and noursihments and rich, deep, fetile soil, while white stonecrop survives more weeks in dry soil without rain or watering and can grow normally in poor, sandy soil as well.

Herbaceous plants are not woody. Their stems are soft, usually remaining green. With some herabceous older stems may harden and look like woody stems (e. g. bamboo).

This group includes plants that cannot tolerate limestone (chalk) and need acidic soils to grow normally, this is soil, of which pH must lower tahn 6. According to pH value (acidity and alkalinity), soil can be either acidic, neutral or alkaline, with intermediate levels. Fertile, quality garden soils of most gardens and parks are  slightly acidic to neutral (pH 6-7) and suit most of plants. If soil contains a lot of calcium (limy soils), it is alkaline soil. Acidic soils contain much less calcium, they can be richer in humus. Some acidic soils are washed out and poor in plant nutrients. Plants like, for example most of the rhododendrons, heather, camelias and bluberries, grow normally only in distinctively acidic soils, so such soil must be attained when planting. Most of other plants do grow well in slightly acidic soils, but grow as well also in neutral soils with a bit higher calcium content.

Leaves or needles remain on the plant for several consecutive years, usually 2 to 5 years. Our descriptions contain the word evergreen.

Plant can in otherwise appropriate environment survive cold down to - 23 °C.

Wet soils are normally heavier, loamy or even clay, also peat soil and soil rich in humus, soil by watercourses and on swampy terrain. These are mostly less airy or even not airy enoguh for most plants, they are always wet or even saturated with water; water stagnates, only slowly flows away. Plants of such undergrowth do not tolerate drought, in neccessary need of permanent moisture, tolerate inundation, some can grow in shallow water (up to 5 cm in depth) or in garden bed, when watered regularly.

Herbaceous, not woody plant. Stems and leaves may be evergreen or deciduous - thus regrowing every spring. Perennials may blossom consecutively for several years. Some perennials develop special underground organs - bulbs, corms or rootstocks and these species are treated separetelly, not with geophyte and tuberous plants.