Pink and Purple Perfection

Every time I see this hot-pink Cosmos beaming at me, I can't help feeling a huge smile building up inside me. It's as simple a flower as can be; absolutely nothing complicated about it. And, it's perfect!
Brilliant colour, easy to grow, a snap to maintain ... what more could a gardener want?
Did someone say 'fragrance'? hmmm ...

I wonder if it's the colour which makes it especially attractive for me?
But no, I'm not that crazy about pinks usually, though I'll always make an exception for Hot Pinks. Or Rani Pink, as we call it in India. Bright colours always get me going!

And then I looked around my garden (and in the hard disk of my computer where all my garden photos are stored) and realised just how many pinks and purples-bordering-on-pink I have cheering up my bit of growing space.

Well, what do you know? Maybe I do have a thing for Pink after all!

Like this very small, very pink bloom. 

I had bought the plant along with a bunch of others but hadn't got around to planting it in the ground yet; it was still in a regular-sized pot. And before I knew it, I was dealing with happy blooms. 

Wow! This is one easy-to-please plant!

And when those pretty blooms grow into fruits, and that too on a plant which is just 1'-tall now if it really stretches, then you know you have a winner on your hands.
And when those fruits are such an unusually pretty shape, appealing to the eye as well as the taste-buds, you know it is Olympic medal-worthy.
Oh, how I love thee, Carambola!

Almost as much as I love the Pride of India. May Queen, Queen's Crepe Myrtle ... call it what you will but this is one spectacular bloom to have colouring up your garden. Or rather, drifts of blooms.

 Even if it isn't exactly pink. Actually, there is a pink-coloured variety too but it never ever bloomed for me.

Yes, it happens to all of us!

But why would I quibble over colour when I have these purply clusters of blooms around golden centres and tipped with silvery gray-green buds. What a palette of colours to tease the senses! 

Incidentally, the internet is no longer content with just good ol'-fashioned lilac, mauve, violet, purple, etc. It insists that this shade of purple is 'Orchid' (not the flower, but the shade) . 

Which Orchid?

This one?
 

Or this one?

Or... the mind boggles ... could it be this orchid that they've named it after?

 LOL!

Still, for some strange reason I've always been fascinated by the different names we give to shades, such as ' cherry red' or 'peacock blue' or 'vermilion'. I can't always differentiate the minute variances in shade and hue but I love scrolling through colour charts with evocative names like 'pink cloud' or 'plum pudding' or 'purple fish' (seriously? Purple FISH?). 

I feel like I'm reading a children's fantasy book! Or Dr. Seuss at the least.

Then there is this silvery-leaved begonia which blushes very prettily with  a touch of sun.

Ignore those passionfruits, okay? That was just a hijacker trying to take over all available space. And, also ignore that large hole in the begonia leaf. (I'm told that it is usually a sure sign that chemical pesticides are not used in this space. So, yeah... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

A few pale pinks do make a timid appearance in my garden. They're pretty in a way, I suppose, but in my opinion, pale pastels tend to blend into the background in the tropics. It's something to do with the way the sun glares at them. That super-bright light just bounces off those pale petals until it looks like the nuances are washed out and there is only an eye-scrunching blinding white to be seen. 

It's not so bad when they're indoors. Those pale, pale pinks do look much more attractive away from the sun. Or maybe it's just because it's on an orchid that does it. 

But as far as pinks go, I'm beginning to really love this Hot Pink 'n Sulfur Yellow combination. It's like a blast of steamy tropical colour that shocks you out of your soul . But, hey! I'm nothing if not Tropical with a capital T!

Monsoon vegetables in Mumbai

So I had gone Missing In Action. And that too after promising to post more regularly. Very irresponsible of me! But I've been so swamped with work from all sides. What's a gardener to do?

First of all, the Monsoons took over Mumbai.
You know me ... I get a little (okay, very!) giddy during the monsoons. Just the lightest hint of a drizzle is enough to get me into an ecstatic frame of mind. And then all I can do is to sit back and enjoy the moment.
I think I really must be turning into a plant myself!

And then, it's been 'monsoon veggie planting time'. One of our busiest times ever.
First there were veggie beds to prepare; dug up, manured and kept ready for the monsoons.
Then once it was here, there were seeds to sow, trellises made, seedlings to transplant, shelters made against the powerful gusts of wind that show up every once in a while.

And then there was constant checks to be made, climbers to be trained up the trellis, neem to be sprayed (see what I mean? I dont know how they do it but the first leaves also showed up along with the first bugs)
.... oooffff! This is one hyper-busy gardener.
Actually, this is also one dead-tired gardener! But I'm not complaining (... too much).

Especially when what started off like this, soon becomes ...

... THIS!

Cucumbers have to be the most vigorously growing plants ever. After putting up trellises for the snake-gourds I was forced to take some time off because I was travelling. And by the time I got back and before I knew it, the little seedlings from the earlier photo (third in this post) had grown and leaped and galloped into the jungle you see here. Can you believe it?

Luckily, not having a trellis to climb up does not affect cucumbers much. In fact, in many parts of Maharashtra they are normally grown without a trellis.
The only problem pops up when it is harvest time. How do you find them under all that greenery?

Oh, and that's the start of a trellis that you can see in this pic. No, not the completed one in the background. I mean those little fragile sticks poking out from the cucumber plant swamp.
We really under-estimated how fast and how big these plants grow!
And they're growing on just good ol' traditional growth promoters ... well-composted cow-manure and neem. That's all! (Oh, and of course, on rain)
Doesn't it make you feel good when you can avoid all those chemicals?

So what are we growing now? Well, there's some bitter-gourd (not my favourite vegetable, which is why I thought I'd mention it first and get it out of the way)...

... and a whole lot of snake-gourds. This is the smaller variety which doesn't get really long like the regular ones. But the flavour is the same and demands that you cook it while it is still tender.

And these extra-long beans hijacked the snake-gourd trellis too.
I like growing these beans. There's something so very simple and easy about growing them. Perfect for those who'd rather enjoy their gardens more and sweat over it a little less.

And then there's the okra (ladies fingers) and the red amaranth.
All the bugs seem to love okra. They're usually the first vegetable plant under attack each season. Okra grows really well in my veggie patch because of all that sunshine.
So does the Red Amaranth.

The pumpkins aren't ready yet. They're still busy blooming. And I do love those flowers!
So do many foodies who love to batter-fry them. Have you tried it? To my mind there's something so decadently exciting about eating a flower!

This is just part of one of our first harvests. I had just gone out to check on them but when I saw so many vegetables ready for harvest, I just couldn't resist.
No secateurs or knife to cut them, no basket to collect them but I just couldn't wait!

Hey dont forget the fruits! This papaya is so full of fruits that I'll have to harvest some green ones to make room for the others to grow to their full potential. But that's okay because I love shredded green papaya lightly sauteed with a hint of coconut.
And green papaya (cooked) is so good for you!

No, I haven't forgotten the passionfruit. I built a few more trellises for them and now they're all over the place with their green globes of fruit.
Does it take longer for them to ripen if I look at it too often? I have a nasty suspicion that it does. But the glorious scent of their flowers makes the waiting so much easier. Seriously!

While the Sense of Taste and Scent are taken care of, the monsoon wildflowers take care of the Sense of Sight.
These wild balsams have sprung up all over the place, even among the vegetables. I hesitate to pull them out even if it means that I'll get a couple of baskets fewer vegetables. They are so beautiful that they qualify as food too.
Soul food, that is!

Red-hot Summer days

Have you heard Summer shout?
"Red!", she hollers as she paints Mumbai and my garden in every hue of that colour .
A fiery, incandescent, scorching, tropical red. Blazing hot, in-your-face loud. Bristling, boiling, vibrant, thrumming, oh-so-sensuous red.

Starry days are made of this. Fiery ixoras blaze their way to the spotlight in the summer garden. Burning, searing, fulminating.
"Hey, the Sun is a star too", they tease.

Summer's own mascot, the Gul mohur, holds sway now. Gaunt, barren canopy-tops are now an explosion of molten hues igniting the clear Summer sky.

A hint of green feathers its way but Gul mohur leaves in Summer are at best a walk-on role. Late to appear and hardly noticed. They'll have to wait their turn till the scarlet and crimson explosions burns itself out.

Hardly noticed, like this poor butterfly. Who would dare the glare of the sun to follow her antics now? Not me. My verandah is my sanctuary now.

The Jatropha is in its element now, though. The glaring, exploding, melting summer day is no dampener to its ever-cheery disposition.

Lobster claws or fire-sticks? I say blazing torch! Heliconias light up the furthest corners of my garden in a flash of impudent arrogance.
Burning their way to grab all attention from under a jungle of foliage.
Foliage? Does anyone actually notice any when the heliconia is fire-bright?

Glowing embers wrapped in a sheath of ice, the Bleeding Heart Vine masters the fine art of capturing a free-spirit. Have you ever seen a red more eye-catching?
But that's the name of the game. Summer's here to play, come who may.
And, until cooler days swing around, find a cool, shaded spot to watch the world go by.


(Did you notice I've changed the look of my blog a bit? Nothing drastic, just the typeface and colours. It looks fine on Internet Explorer but I found that it doesn't look so good in Google Chrome. How does it look on your screen? Is the text clear and easy to read? Please let me know, okay? )

Update : I've reverted back to the earlier Georgia typeface till I can figure out what is going wrong. If anyone has a clue, please let me know? I really liked the look of the Josefin Sans typeface (at least, how it looked on IE!)

The Weird and the Wonderful

This post is for all the weirdly wonderful ... and the wonderfully different. The ones who choose to walk a different path, a more unusual, interesting path which no one thought of before.
The ones who think different and ask all the "why not?" questions that make the Custodians of the Ordinary turn purple with frustration. Especially when they find their Madness is actually Genius.
The ones who make Life so much more interesting just by being themselves!  

The Canonball tree is in bloom in Mumbai now with its quirky, weirdly wonderful flowers. So very different from just about everything else we see here. Have you ever seen a flower like this? I'm so intrigued by the candy-hued wriggly-looking staminoides on the hooded extension. And the ring of whitish stamens are equally fascinating. One set of fertile stamens and another set of sterile staminoides on the 'hood' , both working together . One attracts the pollinators (usually the carpenter bee), the other deposits the pollen on them to be carried away to the next bloom and carry on with its work of ... well, pollinating, of course. But what an ingeniously effective and, yes, different way of doing it!

For a more detailed explanation, see here . And weird becomes doubly wonderful when it is disguised as commonplace ... as in the common everyday Pineapple. Or rather, the blooms of the pineapple!  
Have you ever seen it? And don't you just love those colours?

And curiouser and curiouser, the fruits of each individual flower merge together to create one single fruit.  Now who would've thought of that? Not me. And I've been growing pineapples for years! I never even noticed their blooms till now. Quite possibly because they're growing in a far corner of my garden and the April sun is too fierce for me to wish to linger out for long.

Now I wonder what else I might've missed...

Definitely not the Passionflower! No one could ever miss the rather bizarre beauty of this bloom. It looks like a layer of petals topped by a twirly tutu topped by a faucet designed by an artist on hallucinogens. 

Seriously! 

And yet, seen together, it all works ... beautifully. Like a true masterpiece.

And even better, it smells divine!

What??? You don't think the banana flower (or what should actually be called the 'banana inflorescence' ) deserves to be here? Come on... look again.  Doesn't it  it look like some alien creature in flight?

Layers upon layers of thick fleshy liver-red bracts tightly sheathing the actual flowers into a compact cone hanging like a pendant. Till they unfurl one by one, revealing their 'hands', so to speak.  

And that's not even taking into consideration that the whole banana plant is as different as you can get. That thick 'trunk' is just layer upon layer (yet again, I know!) of leaf stalks. And that each new leaf has to start its journey from the bottom up. As does the 'flower'.

 

And if you looked at your garden and saw a whole bevy of Dancing Girls? Anything non-weird about that?

Not about the dancing girls (we've got to be a bit blasé about such things in this day and age, right?). But the fact that they're dancing at the tip of the Oncidium orchid plants?

Hmmm... definitely worth comment!

And such beautiful dancing girls... oh yes!

And the 'weirdities' don't stop with the plants in my garden. Oh no! The creatures ... my beautifully diversely wonderfully weird garden creatures are never far behind. As you'll see in the posts in my Garden Creature Fest (pssst! look in the side-bar).
As for this Jewel Bug ... it's just plain beautiful! Even if it's differently so.

(Actually it's not laziness which is holding me back from posting more photos on this theme ... my blog has just switched over to the new interface at Blogger and I'm wrestling with it  and tying myself up in knots at the moment! Aaaargh!!! )

Mumbai : a time for blooming!

It was Spring just yesterday in Mumbai. And now it already feels like ... Summer?
So soon?!
This looks-like-Spring-feels-like-Summer is a bit confusing. But, hey! it's the Blooming Season!

It's a mad, exuberant whirligig of colour, activity, more colour, blooms, new leaves, even more colour, birds... ooffff! It's like being on a roller coaster that's on hyper-drive.
And, the trees! Have you ever seen so many trees in bloom at the same time?

The Red Silk Cotton tree is dotted all over with vivid splotches of impossibly red blooms. There's not a leaf in sight, just the big flowers strung along the bare thorny branches. It's almost as if the tree wants to make sure we don't miss seeing even one. The birds are going crazy over this one!

Imagine turning a curve on a road and seeing this sight!
I know that this African Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata ) is blooming at certain places on my road home but no matter how many times I pass it, it still stops me in my tracks. Every single time.
There aren't too many of these trees around but anywhere that the outrageously flamboyant African Tulip Tree blooms, it manages to grab all the attention. Especially the ones blooming by the side of busy roads.

Can you see how the tree got its name? Incredible, isn't it?
These flowers were growing quite high up on the tree growing near my home. Still, they're so large that even my point-and-shoot was able to click them quite easily. The Tulip Tree is just a natural born star, I guess.
And guess what, the birds love these blooms too.

In contrast, the Pink Cassia is delicate and elegant. I can't think of a tree which looks more feminine.

For the last couple of weeks the tree had been shedding all its leaves and now masses of downy pink buds and a few fresh green leaves have made their appearance.
Then almost overnight, the buds have started blooming into billowing clouds of pink perfection. Heaven!

And just because I'm so much in love with it right now, I had to add this pic too. In about a week's time all those empty spaces you see will be a sea of pink.
In the meantime, the bees are going crazy. If you look closely you can see a couple of them buzzing around the tree ( see those black specks on the extreme right and left? they're bees ... carpenter bees, I think, they were buzzing so loud!)

How could I miss this bloom? They're one of the most overlooked flowers... simply because the fruit is so large and the nuts overtake almost everything else in flavour.

See what I mean? Once you see the Cashew-apple (yes, that's what the fruit is called) and the cashew-nut, the tiny little flowers are ignored.
Still, I must admit that on its own, it does look kind of sweet.

The paler blooms do make an appearance too. The Karonda (Carissa carandas) is a favourite among some of the local ladies who weave the white star-shaped blooms and the fruit into elaborate hair-dos.
One of the ladies who used to help me in my home used to take away big bunches of these from my garden. It was fascinating watching her hair-do the next day. Like a walking garden!

This is another of our most commonly seen, yet not closely observed tree-blossoms. Seen in a bunch the mango blossoms are a joyous herald of sweet days ahead. Yet I had rarely bothered to take a really close look at each individual bloom. Have you?
By now baby mangoes the size of a small lime have started growing on my trees but some of them are still blooming.

In the other parts of the city, mangoes are almost ready to ripen. My trees are one month behind if not more. If I always got excited about the cooler climate in my garden compared to the rest of the city, this could be the one drawback, I guess. Plus, all those tall trees all around really cut out the sunshine which the mango tree craves.

And mulberries! My little tree is filled with baby green mulberries. I can't wait for them to ripen juicy red!

If the other trees had either flowers or fruits going for them, this is one tree that has the most inconspicuous flowers. I saw it growing by the roadside the other day and on enquiring I was just told "woh jungli hai" ("it's a wild tree"). I think it could be a Belliric myrabolan but I'm not too sure about that. If it is, then all kinds of creatures are probably drawn to feast on its flowers.

I wish we had more of the native trees growing in our city. The imported ornamental ones are definitely beautiful, yes. But the native trees seem to offer food for a host of birds and butterflies and other creatures.
Still, I'm not complaining... too much.

And as the final flourish, I discovered this gorgeous bloom. I had probably walked past it hundreds of times in the last few years but this was the first time I had noticed this. How blind can I be? Isn't it gorgeous?!
Ladies and gentleman, may I present the incomparable, exotically beautiful flower of ...the common Pineapple!


If you'd like to feast on more Odes to Blooming Seasons Past in Mumbai, click on these links :
Springing into Summer
Summer Sherbet : Mumbai's flowering trees
Molten days of March