My Floral Photo Clicks: Our Maiden Tulips this Spring

Tulips are one of the most beautiful flowers in the world. Netherlands boasts of the tulip crop each year and Amsterdam tulip festival and botanical gardens in Keukenhof is one of the main attraction of the tourists visiting Holland. The festival is open from the 21st March to 10th May in 2020.

Tulips need a certain type of temperature and can only survive in cold temperature. I live in Pakistan where spring comes early and the cold temperatures go away by mid February. However I dared planting this otherwise temperature sensitive flower, the seeds of which were brought by son from Germany. And the crop was marvelous.

Please join with me in enjoying these colourful flowers as grown by my wife, Shazia, an avid gardener, and I enjoyed taking the photos of these full blown flowers: 

  

   

I hope you would have enjoyed our Tulip crop this year. This year we also planted Bearded Iris, in addition to the Louisiana Iris. I will share their photos in my next post.

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Bokeh Sunday

The caption of my post my sound unfamiliar for bokeh cannot be a Sunday nor Sunday can be a bokeh for both are different things - but for me the last Sunday, that was yesterday, it made sense. For it was Sunday and I wanted to try the bokeh feature of my One Plus 5T cellphone my son gifted to me awhile ago. So it was a Bokeh Sunday or was it a Beautiful Sunday as was sung by Daniel Boon in 1972 when I was in my teens !!

And thanks to my wife who has maintained a beautiful garden loaded with flowers and trees. Though it is too early for our garden to bloom as spring is still a month away, some dying and blooming flowers and bushes gave me enough canvas to shoot my Bokeh Sunday !!

For those who are not familiar with the word Bokeh, the Wikipedia defines it as: In photography, bokeh (/ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay;[1] Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens.

So scroll down and see whether I really made good my Sunday in trying the bokeh feature of my smartphone - I am sure I will get a thumb up from you. And for me it is some achievement as I am just a novice in photography.

Let us start!!

 

 The remains of past glory

Now coming to the roses. Though the season is already ending for the full blown roses, some still remained for me to try on my bokeh Sunday!!

 Yellows

Varying hues

 Monochrome

 White beauty

Cineraria

One thing before I end. While looking for some close ups, I came across this delight - honey bees busy making a Honey Mall. Well that was some excitement for I will have pure bee honey in a short while. And when I shared this photo on Facebook, many friends started collecting bottles to drain out the honey in the making. For the time being I asked them to bring droppers for there would hardly be any honey. But I think in the end it will be looted away and I will left with nothing.

Do tell me my Bokeh photo shots - why don't you share yours?

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Pansy braving the February Cold

Spring is about a month a away but already beautiful pansy is braving the February cold and sprouting its beautiful colours in the flower beds of my house.

My wife, who is an avid gardener, takes pride in her hard work when springs blooms as flowers of many kind and hue blossom all around our house. I am sharing here some of the phot6os of pansy I took a couple of days ago and these are really pleasing to look at.

Here are some more.

 

This is the photo of the flower beds that I will again share next month when these will be filled with flowers of many colours, hues and kind:

How is your spring plantation going?

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Innovative flower pots

Gardening is one of the most loved and adopted hobbies around the world. My wife too is an avid Gardner and is always looking for novel, creative, artistic, aesthetic and innovative ways to make her garden look attractive and beautiful.

While she knows much more than I how to garden, I use my skills at computer to find new ways and methods to help her design her garden.  Recently I came across some very imaginative and creative flower 'pots' which I thought I must share for all my readers who love gardening to try some of these at their home to make their gardens adorable and attractive.

Here are some of the creative flower pots I found at Funzug and am sure you would like these to try:

These are just a few - for more see here

Photo credit: All photos have been shared with exclusive permission of Funzug.com

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Our maiden Tulip crop taking roots

Tulips are one of the most awesome, colourful and unique flowers of the world. Netherlands is famous for its tulip field that stretch in miles and fascinate the onlookers and flower lovers from across the globe.

I was recently in Holland visiting a friend after 43 years and there my wife, whose hobbies besides balking and cooking also include gardening, asked my friend about tulips and their seasons. We were told that tulips bloom in Holland in April and May. This was some sad news for us as we were not to be there due to three months visit-visa restrictions.

But when we visited Amsterdam, we saw tulip bulbs on sale and we instantly bought half a dozen packets to plant these once we reach back home. And rightly so, the first thing that my wife did was to sow tulip bulbs in the beds and the pots.

And now that spring is already knocking at our doorstep, we are delighted to see our maiden crop of tulips straight from Holland taking roots and sprouting. Here in under are a few photos that I just shot and thought of sharing with my readers.

Hopefully, in a few weeks time, we shall have these tulips in full bloom and I shall then share the fully-bloomed maiden crop of tulips - straight from home of tulips.

Also read my post on the wonderful and colourful flower festival of Netherlands which takes place in September each year

[Photo Tulip fields courtesy: Pixabay]

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Gardening: Companion Plants

Those of us who love gardens and gardening are always in pursuit of finding ways and means to improve the look of our gardens and improve the health of the plants and flowers. Of many remedial measures to save the plants from insects and other harmful effects, planting of companion plants is one of the best remedial measures. I hadn't heard f this terminology or the technique before, until I sowed the bright coloured marigold flowers for this season.

Beside its majestic broad shaped flower spread, which comes in orange, gold and yellows, Marigolds are considered companion plants that keep insects away. So was I told by the wise man at the nursery, who confided that he gives this advice to everyone buying Marigolds from him to grow Marigolds amid a wide variety of flowers and vegetables. Marigolds not only ward off insects but its leaves and stems are also used in preparation of the organic insect sprays.

When I came home, I did a small search on the internet about the companion plants and came to know that besides marigold, garlic, basil, nasturtium, rosemary, sage, thyme, borage and mint are also some of the best companion plants. The concept of companion planting hinges at the establishment of two or more plant species in close proximity so that some cultural benefit (pest control, higher yield, etc.) is derived.

• Plant garlic in your rose beds – the mere smell of garlic would ward off aphids, insects and pests.
• Basil when planted with tomatoes, marigold and peppers, keep the mosquitoes and flies at bay.
• Plant nasturtium with squash, pumpkins and other vegetables to ward off cucumber beetles, aphids and squash bugs.
• To deter cabbage worms, plant thyme with cabbage.
• Mint and Rosemary are also best to keep the cabbage worms when planted with cabbage and broccoli.
• Sage helps the carrots by keeping the carrot flies away.
• Carrots are the best companion of English Pea, Lettuce, Rosemary, Onion Family, Sage, Tomato.
• Celery yields desired effects when planted with onion, cabbage, tomato, bush beans and nasturtium.

I could go on and on as there is much more to companion plants. But for home gardeners, the above information should suffice as normally the plants and vegetables listed above are generally sowed in home gardens. Try it – it would help. Happy gardening.

via The Fire Within
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Colourful Spring Signs

Gardening is one of the most creative hobbies of all. You plant saplings and seeds and then watch for the nature to sprout colourful flowers slowly changing the otherwise barren look of winters.

The Early Spring Signs

I being an avid gardening lover am also one of those who take pains all along the winter, starting November  preparing flower beds, buying seeds and saplings and planting these all along the winter. Protecting the fragile leaves from severe cold by shielding these with green cloth and cellophane sheets and tending these just like small kids.

What was just a few flowers two weeks ago are now bunch of colourful Nemesia and Musummary majestically shinning with their bright and multiple colours and freshness.

This is how the bed looked like about two weeks ago

And now that the spell of rains is seemingly over hopefully, the first signs of springs have started to show.

The remaining beds have blossomed with buds visible but flowers are still shy of the cold breeze whizzing past - may be they need a lot more warmth to come out of their buds and ornamate my little garden.

 Two weeks earlier

Today and still growing

Petunia in waiting

Hopefully soon enough I shall be able to write about my gardena dn my flowers when the entire carpet of these present these in a full turned out parade.

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