Spring is a season I thoroughly enjoy. For starters, I’ve got my birthday in Spring besides it’s also a time when my little home garden literally springs out in full bloom. Now, I may be allergic to pollen but when it comes to flowers, what’s life without a little risk? I realised I haven’t really blogged about my garden before so now, Imma take you through a Spring-Summer tour of my flowers.

Let’s get bloomin’!

Roses are always a great place to begin! Here, we’ve got red, pink and white roses in full bloom. These are my favourite flowers, especially white roses. When I was little I used to think that if you put a red rose in a bell jar, it will actually float and glow like in Beauty and the Beast and even went as far as to try it. The disappointment was crushing but the flower forever has a special place in my heart.

Up next is the Rangoon Creeper also called ‘Madhumalati’ in India. This is like a honeysuckle which grows in bunches and has a strong fragrance. I love the angle of sunlight in this picture and the way it shines on the petals.

This baby here is a ‘Mayflower’. It’s round bunches of flowers resemble Red sea urchins. When I look at these flowers, I always get the feeling that the bunch will come off as an actual ball of flowers and one can actually play with it like a ball.:)

This is a very interesting flower. In Hindi, this is called ‘Brahma Kamal’ and it blooms only at night and that too for a few hours before closing again. This cycle repeats itself in roughly fourteen years so seeing this flower bloom is actually a bright stroke of luck. We’ve had the plant in the garden for quite some time but we’ve only witnessed the bloom twice. The flower is said to be auspicious and has its roots in a lot of stories in Indian Mythology.

Here we’ve got lilies and a purple plant! Ok, the purple plant is a type of an Oxalis and the mauve flowers really bring out the monochrome well. And as for lilies, well, who doesn’t admire a fine specimen of the Family Liliaceae? Fun fact for anyone studying botany: Lilies are the easiest examples to remember for monocot plants. Hehe….

Wildflower, coming through! Sometimes, it’s amazing how pretty wildflowers can be. I mean just look at these. The blooming flowers look like dancing girls in dresses and the buds remind me of any matchsticks. This reminds me a lot of the talking flowers in cartoons. Talk of Alice in Wonderland:)

I’m sure this was taken on a Wednesday cause ‘On Wednesdays, we wear PINK.’

Presenting, a pink Dahlia with baby pink bougainvillea. Dahlias are flowers that come in an astonishing range of colours. I’ve seen a purple one splashed with white, yellow ones, and this pink one and I feel that the flowers have an entire palette at their disposal.

Did you know that the coloured structures in a bougainvillea are bracts concealing a tiny white flower and not petals? This is a piece of information that every botany teacher loves to impress upon you every time they get the chance. Remember, bracts, not petals.

This specimen of flora is called a ‘Powderpuff’ owing to its soft bristles that look like puffballs. This is a plant that’s been in my terrace garden ever since I can remember and it is one of my favourite flowers. I always used to get ‘Powerpuff Girls’ confused with the flower and there have been times when I’ve referred to the cartoon as ‘Powderpuff Girls.’ Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Finally, here’s a row of seasonal flowers in full bloom. The red flowers on the left are called ‘American Life Flowers’ or ‘Bryophyllum flowers.’  The pink flower plant beside it is a type of impatiens also called ‘Busy Lizzie’ and the last one is a type of Dianthus. Now that’s a botany blowout!

Hehe.

And that is a wrap!

Until next time!

Paka!