Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my blogging friends and visitors to my blog! May you have a fruitful 2010.

Christmas Butterflies

Butterflies are making their appearance again in the gardens.

This moth was sitting so still that I thought it was a dried leaf.

A pair of Common Jays courting.

Another Common Jay.

A merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you!

Pink Trumpet Tree

The Pink Trumpet Tabebuia rosea is in full bloom all over the city now. This tree is in the Forest department's nursery near my home.

A natve of tropical America, the Pink Trumpet was introduced more than a century ago. The flowers are delightful mauve colour and they attract lots of bees.

This post is dedicated to my brother-in-law MRK who passed away last Sunday. A great gardener and a wonderful person, he was loved by all who knew him.

Blooming Friday : Flowers for Christmas

The purple Barleria cristata never fails to bloom during Christmas time. It is called 'December flower' locally. There are other colours too, ranging from white and pink to deep purple.

The Shrimp plant is also called Pachystachys lutea now. I don't know why the scientists suddenly change the scientific name.

The maroon shrimp plant is also full of flowers now.

The pale yellow Poinsettia has started blooming now. I hope by Christmas, the bush will be covered in flowers and the pale bracts.

To view more flowers of Blooming Friday, please visit Katarina at Roses and Stuff.

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day-Some Flowers in my Garden

The hibiscus is blooming tirelessly.

The zinnias have started blooming now.You can see the impatiens in every corner.

The pale pink pentas is a newcomer to my garden.

The Barbados Bachelor's Buttons are a pretty lavender colour. They have a nice fruity scent too.

Flame of the Woods

The Flame of the Woods, Ixora coccinia flowers through the year. You can see it flowering all along the road when you travel in Goa. It has glossy green leaves and bright orange flowers.

The Ixora, being a native of India, has many medicinal uses. Its leaves are anti-inflammatory.

I love the needle shape of its buds. You can get Ixora in many colours- pink, yellow, red and white. It is a flower bush you see often in South India.

The Lime Butterfly

Butterflies have suddenly become less now. I was thrilled to see the lime butterfly on the lemon grass.

With the fall in temperatures, even the flowers of the Blue Sage have become less.

The 'cold weather' of 15 degreeC will only last for a few days. Then there will be more flowers.

Blooming Friday-Colours of Christmas

The geraniums are flowerinng now, reminding one that Christmas is not far.

The Cricifix Orchid is putting out more flowers. Tou can see the 'crucifix' clearly if you click on the flower.

The Crown of Thorns, Euphorbia milii is also putting out lots of flowers.

The Poinsettia, Euphorbia pulchrima, is of course, the flower which is associated with Christmas.

Many more flowers which are associated with Christmas in this part of the world are blooming now. Please visit Katarina at Roses and Stuff for more Blooming Friday pictures.

Not in Season

There are some flowers blooming now which should have waited for a month. The pink frangipani in one of the neighbourhood gardens is one of them. The pretty flowers are fragrant too.

A solitary rain lily put out its head in a corner of my garden. I wonder why it thought it was spring.

Blooming Friday Bromeliad flowers

My Guzmania has flowered three years after I bought it! I hope it will become deep red as the nurseryman said.

This bromeliad, which we call Nail-polish plant has also started flowering.

The Pyramid bromeliad has no season, it follows its inclination.

The Matchstick plant is a bromeliad with curious flowers.

This Billbergia nutans has pretty pink bracts. The flowers are blue and green.

For more posts of Blooming Friday, please visit Katarina at Roses and Stuff.

Bamboo

One of the favourite questions of teachers of level 3 is,'Which is the tallest grass in the world?'The Children are quite surprised to know that it is the Bamboo because they think of Bamboo as a tree.

Bamboo has been used by humans since pre history. The Chinese used it to write on as far back as 2500B.C. In India, Bamboo is used to make baskets, build houses , as a scaffolding during constructions, and to make paper. A delicious pickle is made from tender bamboo shoots.

Bamboo has a great surviving capacity. After the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, a stand of bamboo at Ground Zero survived the atomic blast and started putting forth new shoots within days of the catastrophe.

There are legends about the bamboo all over the world. An ancient Malaysian legend is about a man who dreams of a beautiful woman when he is asleep under a bamboo thicket. He wakes up and cuts the bamboo and finds the woman.

For the Chinese, gifting of a living bamboo means good luck.

The topmost picture is of the Golden Bamboo, Bambusa nutans which has been planted by my absent neighbour.

White Flowers

This flower is called Gokarna jasmine locally.Now that real jasmine is hard to come by, village women wear this in their hair.

This Scilla gives out pretty white flowers. The leaves of the plant have an interesting blotched pattern.

The Amazon lily obviously has no flowering season. It flowered all through the summer, and now , in mid winter (for the tropics) , it is giving out more flowers.

The Bridal Bouquet, a local clematis is also blooming profusely in a neighbourhood garden.

I saw these pretty flowers of the Pseeuderanthemum variegatum in the park. The flowers look like the flowers in the topmost picture since both the plants belong to the same family- acanthacae.

Tomato

The volunteer tomato plants in my vegetable patch have given me a good harvest. There are tomatoes of all sizes and hues in it, including some golden ones.

The tomato, Solanum lycopersicum, is another fruit of the Americas which has become popular throughout the world. But it was long thought to be a poisonous fruit. The second part of its name means "wolf peach", showing what people thought of it. When Cortez found it growing in Emperor Montezuma's garden, he took some seeds and introduced the tomato to the Spanish court. It remained a curiosity for a long time.

Tomato became suddenly popular after Joseph Campbell made the tomato soup in 1897, which he introduced to his contemporaries. Now tomato soup is by far the most popular soup in the world.