Complementing activites have been the implementation of housegardens, nurseries and the production of ornamental plants.

UNESCO: Background

These walls were a testing ground where Aalto experimented with different textures, materials and designs, playing with brick, stone and ceramic swatches and setting them against various finishes and ornamental plants.

BBC: An Alvar Aalto tour of Finland

While popular ornamental species continue to bloom in gardens, the flowering plants face a more precarious future in the wild as their native forest habitats are increasingly threatened by human activities, the authors warn.

CNN: Half of magnolias face extinction

The plants grow wild along highways and in other spots in the U.S. They are also considered ornamental by some gardeners and are cultivated for medicinal castor oil and other products.

WSJ: 'The perfect poison': Ricin used in 3 recent cases