Choices for a gardener

So what's new in your garden this year?
Is that a bit late in the day to ask, actually? Well, never mind. I've always gone by the start of Spring as the real new year, so mid-Feb is not too late in my opinion.

This past one year saw me travel a LOT! Then we decided to jump headlong into yet one more new adventure (more about that soon!) which took me away from my blogging, though I had sworn that that was the year I would catch up with my 50+ posts a year.
There's still hope for 2018!

Which made me think this pic of the Striped Tiger butterfly on the Lantana would be the perfect one to lead into this post. Can you think of anything else as garden-y which travels all over the place? (I could think of several vines ... the Thunbergia grandiflora, for one ... which do that too. But I'm sticking with this).

And I love to think of how this much reviled weed has the birds and the butterflies and several more beneficial insects, in love with it! I wouldnt mind letting it take over large spaces just so long as it can get some butterflies to sit still on it.
That's a choice I would make, knowing full well that most of my farmer friends in our neighbourhood think I'm crazy!

Like these Red Pierrots! I have a Kalanchoe planted here and that probably attracted them here. Did you know that the Kalanchoe is one of their host plants? So if you see something weird going on under the surface of a Kalanchoe leaf, dont dump your plant yet. It's probably a Red Pierrot larva busy at work, eating healthy to grow strong beautiful wings.

I know! it's a tough decision. Your lovely plant or these oh-so-pretty butterflies? I very often choose the butterflies. Because a garden without butterflies is just not worth the name, don't you think? But then, the Kalanchoe in bloom is so pretty too!
Choices, choices ...

Some choices are forced on us. Up until a couple of years ago we didn't have a single squirrel in my garden. And this was amazing considering how many fruit trees we grow. The dogs always worked hard at chasing them away and the Black Kites did their bit too. Then, when our old dog, Salsa, died that was the end of the squirrel-chasing. The other dogs just weren't interested. The squirrels have taken over the garden now and I keep finding half-eaten passionfruit and chewed coconuts and other fruit littering the ground.

I always thought that I grew enough for both us and the animals but these squirrels have forced me to reconsider that! Again, not an easy choice because I grew up in a house where we would regularly find baby squirrels that fell out of their nests on the trees and promptly started taking care of them.
Tough choice then, to start thinking up ways to drive them away.

And there are some times when you can just sit back and enjoy the moment. Such as those serendipitous moments when a gorgeous scarlet-clad dragonfly, with the sunlight glinting off its wings, chooses to perch on a twig (in this case, a root from my Pink Cassia that toppled over last monsoon in the super-heavy rainy days) right in front of you.

Simple, pure enjoyment.
That is part of gardening too!

And, even better, the Pink Cassia that I love has started sprouting leaves again and is currently growing sideways, part of its roots in the ground and the rest sticking straight up in the air. It's too heavy to lift up so I've chosen to let it grow and bloom where it has fallen.
A funny choice to many, but I'm happy with it if my Pink Cassia is.

Happiness. Serendipity.
Sometimes great things happen when we just step back and allow them to. That's a part of gardening too.

Travel: More floral artistry in Zurich

So did you get an eyeful of the glorious flowers that Zurich's florists dish out in my last post?
I do have one more florist whose work demands to be featured too. I was overwhelmed by the gorgeous plant and floral art created by Regula Guhl and her team at ' Blumenbinder ' on Oberdorfstrasse, Zurich.

It was just down the road from my hotel  and within strolling distance from the other florists that I had blogged about in my last post (which makes me believe that perhaps Zurich has no idea how much of floral riches it has, waiting to be discovered!).

I was walking off a particularly satisfying lunch when I saw a couple of very fashionably dressed ladies leaning in and ooh-aahing over something.

Then I moved in closer and discovered that it was oooh! ... simply drool-some !
"Pelargonium," one of them was whispering to the other.
Was it? I have no idea, I had never seen this plant before. But I do know that if I had been living in Zurich longer I would have grabbed this large pot of pink happiness for myself.

Here's a closer look so you'll know just what I mean. (And if you know its name, do tell me)

Then I got a clearer look at the space which had been hidden from view till then and found a whole profusion of potted plants and bunches of flowers ... hydrangeas and morning glories and geraniums and poppies and even an exuberantly blooming hibiscus.
It was so beautifully arranged and displayed!
If you don't believe me, check out the first photo in this post and then tell me that you aren't drawn to all those little plants, full of blooms and each in its own little bark pot.
That is so clever! I love the look of bark around a pot. So infinitely more attractive than ugly plastic pots. I really must try that with some of my own plants at home.

On second look, the bark,  like the cane basket, was more like a cache-pot into which the original pot was inserted to make it look prettier. Guess what? It worked!

But there's something about the flowers here. They look ... happy! I cant think of a better description. Well-cared for, happy and displayed to their best advantage. I love places that lavish so much care over their plants.

So I had to meet the people who were responsible for this. I went in to find Regula and her team busy in prepping whole bunches of flowers which some of them were arranging in large buckets and placing some against the wall.

Of course, I had to tell them that I'm a plant addict and flower-junkie too. Just standing in that room with the fragrance of hundreds of flowers wafting from every side and seeing huge clouds of blooms smothering every available inch of space, was sheer heaven!
So Regula took a break from her work to listen to my excited gasps of how exquisite everything was and Angela, one of the lovely florists there, gave me a rose to sniff ... and laughed delightedly as my eyes grew wider.
I swear that rose smelled divine! I forgot the name of the rose (me and my non-existent memory!) but if you take a look at the photo above, you can see it, I think. The white roses in the bucket on the floor ... heavenly!

But I didn't want to distract Regula and her team much longer so I wandered back outside to gasp over the potted plant display all over again. Take a look...

When a display like this can take the attention of a little kid away from an ice-cream, you know it has to be simply awesome, right?
Love, love, LOVE these!!! Wish I could have brought all of them home.
Or better still, I guess I'll have to work on finding great reasons to return to Zurich and sinking myself in botanical ecstasy all over again.
Yep! That sounds like a great plan to me ...

Travels with The Urban Gardener : Meet the floral artists of Zurich

This is a post which is long overdue. Way, way over past overdue, actually.

Sometimes Life tends to gleefully over-ride each and every good intention (there goes my a-post-a-week plan!) and then cunningly dump so much work and other stuff on one that we don't even realise until too late that "hey! hold on ... this isn't what I had planned!".

So, I had a year-ful of work and then all of a sudden, it was time to travel! I tell you, no one can travel like a gardener can. Especially when it's a gardener who has her senses overloaded with plants and blooms that she'd kill to grow.

For all the tropical abundance in my own garden, I yearn to grow plants which are more suited to temperate climates. Which is why a walk in Zurich (or Munich... or Salzburg ... or ...)  can turn my face this way and that, trying to saturate my vision with all the gorgeous blooms on display. It was Spring when I reached there (peak of summer here in Mumbai, who would have guessed?!) and all the trees were bursting into bloom in delicate explosions of colour (but more about them later!). And, in the little and not-so-little florists shops all over the city, colours were running riot.
I loved it! And I went up to all the florists I could talk to and felt as if I had met a kindred soul in a foreign land. And we chatted about colours and textures and fragrances and all the delicious details that true flower-lovers and growers love to explore.
Ohhh, the sheer joy of it ...!

It was at Limmatquai in Zurich that I met Fritz Schneiter. Under the arches that shelter a host of trendy restaurants and shops, cutting a rainbow-swathe across the grey cobble-stones was a sea of colour; blooms of every hue possible. (So perfectly apt that this florist shop  is called 'Blueme under de Böge' ... Blooms under the Arches! )

And behind them, at his workstation was this very genial looking man quietly at work . He soon strolled over to see which blooms had caught my eye. And I told him, "all of them!". 

We got talking about my blogging and my garden in India and my tropical flowers and how much I'm in love with his flowers. And he handed me his card, smiled and told me, "mail me some pictures of your flowers".

I hope you will read this some day, Fritz. This one's for you!

And for you, my dear readers. I hope you enjoy the floral buffet  that I'm posting for you; tulips, roses, hydrangeas, irises, peonies, poppies ... don't you just love them all?!

Thank you, Fritz. I did enjoy our talk and the flowers . Here's to you!

There's something about the streets of Zurich that act as a catalyst. Those grey cobblestones and grey skies act as the perfect counterpoint for the floral displays pulling the eye from across the street, drawing one to go and take a closer look to see if those flowers are really as gorgeous as they look. And they invariably are!

I saw these plants displayed in a small lane across the road and I just had to go check them out. Such an interesting shop! I never did discover its name but I loved it for these gorgeous peonies. And the very aesthetic displays.

Can one sightsee a city through its shops? I know many who would quickly nod their heads in agreement. As for me, I loved discovering Zurich through its florists shops. Can't wait to go back and find all the others that I missed!

(p.s. This post had to be cut shorter than expected due to a malfunction in my good ol' trusty PC where I store all my photographs. I had intended to add one more  exquisite floral artist but that will now have to wait for another post. Until later ... :)  )

Grow vegetables for the flowers

When was the last time that you looked at a vegetable plant and sighed in delight over its blooms?
er ... did you ever notice the blooms?
If you didn't, don't worry, you're not alone. Not many people ever bother to really look at a vegetable plant, except when they are hunting for a veggie that they can harvest (or looking for a pest that has got to the prize before they could). But, next time, take a good long look and you will discover that quite a few of these blooms could get the plant into the ornamentals category, if not the edibles one.
For instance, this okra bloom. The way the okra (ladies fingers / bhendi) blooms pale golden and so prolifically, especially in the tropics, could easily make it a favourite.

And this bright yellow bloom of the cucumber is just as pretty. Dotted along long rambling vines, it makes a very pretty picture, doesn't it?



Here's a closer look. Now do you see what I mean?

This one is so very eye-catching, isn't it?! The bloom of the Ash gourd is just as bright golden as its fruit is pale silvery grey-green. Such a contrast, right? And compared to the other gourds, this bloom is really big. 

Did you know that like the blossoms of the pumpkin, gourd flowers are edible too? Imagine having hot batter-fried gourd blossom pakoras on a rainy, stormy evening!

(Do make sure that you select the male flowers for this and leave the female flowers to carry on with what they do best ... create little baby gourds, of course!)

And there's no doubt about it that the best part of the bitter-gourd is its flower. Seriously!
Okay, quite a few of you many not agree with me (my husband included. He loves this knobbly bitter vegetable with a passion! ) but just look at it. Now picture a canopy of these golden yellow little blooms scrambling over a trellis or screening an ugly view. Very ornamental, isn't it?

 Bok choy! You didn't think it would have such pretty flowers did you? Well, neither did I! In fact, my daughter was so taken in by these blooms that she insisted that I save them and dump the green leaves.

If you think that there is an overdose of yellow blooms in this post (there is!), it's time for a change.  Have you ever seen the flower of the Red Amaranth? Take a look at this up-close-and-personal view!
I know that one is expected to keep pinching off the flowers to prolong the harvest period but when I see this I'm forced to think twice about pinching it off.

But the veggie bloom that takes the cake and the cake-stand for sheer uniqueness has to be that of the snake-gourd (padval)! Have you ever seen anything else quite like it???
This one I most definitely would grow! What about you?

Summer in the garden

Sizzle and burn! Summer is crackling like a seething fire-cracker now, isn't it? Not my favourite time of the year. But then, I could make excuses for the spectacular blooms on almost every tree and in my garden.

It all started with the Red Silk Cotton bursting into bloom one day . Gangly, thorny, leafless branches sprouting massive red blooms almost as if by spontaneous combustion! And out sprang Spring! 

The nectar-loving birds were ecstatic! So was I. I could now feast my eyes on the blooms as well as the birds. Sometimes good things come in 2-for-1 packages!

From there to Summer was just a matter of days and my Pink Cassias decided to follow almost immediately. Spike upon spike of tender pink globes unfurling into zillions of blooms that turned my tree into a rosy cloud!

And the Yellow Copper Pod trees ...! All over Mumbai, every street is smothered with these golden blooms . Masses and clouds of them, billowing and spilling over from one tree to the next.

See their buds and you will immediately know how they earned the 'Rusty' part of their alias, Rusty Shield Bearer. The flower spikes do stick out straight like lances, don't they?

But they are not the only blooms billowing and spilling over. The bougainvillea is in its element now, thriving in the hot, sunny weather. This one here has been rambling all over my fence, linking together with a scarlet bougainvillea and a garlic vine too to make a dense forest of a fence which is almost impenetrable. Somewhere inside that tangle there is a jasmine vine too but I don't think I will ever find where one plant starts and the other stops!

In bloom now is also my Aromatic Turmeric (Curcuma aromatica) which is famed for its cosmetic use.  For centuries, Indian women have been applying a paste of its rhizomes to get glowing skin. I would rather enjoy its gorgeous blooms!

One of the few 'cool' looking flowers now, the Walking Iris stands out for its white-blue flowers. Such an oddity in the midst of all my other summer blooms which look almost volatile in comparison.

Almost as odd is its 'walking' habit. Plantlets grow near the tip of the flower stalk which then bends to the ground and take root there.With each successive generation the Walking Iris soon seems to travel all around the garden, one bending flower-stalk at a time.

This is also the time when my Phalaenopsis orchids are in full bloom. These may be called 'Moth Orchids' but when I look at my Phals, I see purple doves fanning the air with their wings and taking flight!

Fiery red, brilliant yellow, a touch of green; have you ever seen another bloom that conjures up Summer like the Heliconia? Brilliantly hued, showy and attention-grabbers from the word 'go'.... Summer incarnate!

You  want more of Summer and its bounty? Take a look at some of the posts from summers gone by : 
Summer sherbet: Mumbai's flowering trees 
Red-hot summer days
A reluctant ode to Summer
An Indian summer
A summer-ful of fun
Springing into summer
Once upon a bird-bath 
Mumbai: a time for blooming

Wings and stings : the other side of the garden

The monsoon is still in full force in Mumbai; soaking the city, whipping the trees, thrumming a tattoo on car-tops, driving everyone indoors.
But the minute there is a lull, my garden is a-buzz. The passion-flowers are in full bloom and there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of very busy bees hard at work. I don't blame them. The fragrance of the passion-flowers is so sweet and seductive!
I have never tried to locate the hives of these bees to harvest their honey. That belongs to them; they work so hard for it.

All over the world, reports are pouring in of tragic colony collapses. (Why is it so important to us? Important enough for Einstein to state "If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would have only four years left to live"! He was referring to the fact that one-third of our crops depend on honey bees for pollination Take them out of the picture and that's famine you're staring at!
Take a look at this trailer of 'More than honey'. Very interesting! )

Here, in my garden, though, the bees seem to be thriving. And I love watching them going about their work.

I had never really noticed how a bee slurps up nectar! Did you see its tongue? In some of the other pictures I've clicked, the tongue is stuck out long before the bee has landed on the flower ... greedy! (Or just super-efficient?)
And the passionflower is so ingenious. I had never really noticed before how its oval anthers are curved just-so to perfectly fit the curve of a bee. All the better to dust you with pollen, my dear!
And our greedy bee is liberally smothered with this golden dust, little knowing (or caring, I'm sure) that she's a pampered, very well-compensated courier.

hmmm .... I wonder how passionflower-flavoured honey would taste?

If the passionflower is perfectly designed for visiting bees to sit and sip awhile, other blooms like this Safed musli ( Chlorophytum breviscapum ) are not so accommodating. But if the medicinal qualities of this very potent plant are going to be infused in the honey ... maybe I should be expecting an explosive growth in the bee population soon!

But, jokes aside, the bees have to be some of the most beneficial and valued creatures in the garden. Even if we gardeners do grouse about unexpected stings once in a while.
Painful, but such a small price to pay for help in the garden!

Wasps are some of my other favourite beneficials in the garden. Except, they won't hand out anything tasty and edible like honey. But they're skilled hunters and they do take care of pests!

Most wasps tuck in a snack for baby to munch on when it hatches. I've seen them scout around plants, locate a bug or caterpillar (sometimes much bigger than itself) and carry it off to its nest to be packed in.
Talk about an efficient tiffin service!

These Paper Wasps can be very aggressive if anyone goes near their nest. Just look at their body language ... they're ready to attack if I move my camera any closer. The things we do for a photo (foolish, foolish me!)!

Okay, I know this is really, really gruesome (believe me, it's a hundred times worse when you actually see it!) but I had to show you. I was walking home the other day when I saw this wasp land on a plant and scout around. It suddenly darted under a leaf and wrestled out this large, plump caterpillar (I think it's a Common Mormon ). Before I could react, it had subdued the poor caterpillar, stripped a long piece of skin and flesh off it, rolled it into a ball and flew off with it!

So shockingly gruesome! I guess if that had been the caterpillar of a Cabbage moth I wouldn't have mourned so much but I've always been partial to the Common Mormons and its cousins.

If this was a movie, it would've never got past the Censors. But then, that's Nature for you. It can be astoundingly beautiful and gentle, as well as mind-numbingly violent and matter-of-fact.
The wasps and other beneficial creatures are yet another weapon in Nature's arsenal to maintain the balance and keep pests under control (no, you don't really need man-made chemicals to do that!) .

And when I talk of wings, I just can't leave the king of my garden out of this post, can I ? Ever since the Pariah Kite (Black Kite) family moved into my garden, I don't need to really bother about keeping the rat population under control. Especially when there's a hungry chick in the nest demanding to be fed around the clock.

Except, every once in a while, I do find their housekeeping throws up some startling discoveries! I found this skeleton of a snake  near the coconut tree on which they nest.
Pity! I quite like snakes, especially when they're so good at getting rid of rats for me.

In my book, any creature that helps me in my garden and cuts down on my work there, is one to be treasured.
Especially if they're as colourful as this Blue Banded Bee.
Even if they come with stings attached.

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