Growing in pots? you have to see this!!!!!

Now this is something very encouraging for those who have no space like me and are restricted to pot culture. Folks, this railway creeper is at least 15 feet and the plastic container is only 4 inches deep. and i have placed it on a concrete shade which is further 8 feet high from the ground. Now don't ask me how did i manage to put this clay filled container on this shade!!!. The pic is taken from roof top.
















Allamanda in same container, almost 10 feet high.
Acutally there is another vine in the middle, morning glory. But i think she is over taken by these two and hardly nourishing. But she will bloom too, for sure, just wait a while. This pic taken at 4x optical zoom of canon powershot.

















Who says you cannot attract butterflies and bees with container gardening? well i surely think otherwise. now i am not good at bees and i think this is a carpenter bee. sorry for not capturing this bee closer, actually i am afraid of their sting!!!!!


























































I captured this butterfly when thick black clouds had taken over and rain was just coming by. This cutie took shelter on my jasmine nitidum leaf. It was very low light and you can see some grains in the picture
















Isn't it strange that this mushroom sprouted, oops i think we can use this word sprout with fungi as well, right? in this D shaped pot instead of my soil bed. They grow almost every year during monsoon rains.

The giggling morning glories

The affair was going on for several weeks but not disclosed until today morning. Rain drops hugging the gorgeous blooms of morning glory. MG blooms were looking so happy and went on blooming and blooming with pleasure. Even those stubborn blooms which had no intention to open up and always showed as they were spent but actually not, also participated in the carnival. They did not stop as i caught them in the "act", in fact they cheered and giggled.
















Now these vines are covering my front wall of about 15 feet at least. As they reached the top of wall, you can see they sort of had a get together, a junction. i am trying to cover my first floor terrace with these. now they have reached the top, i am guiding them to upper top, makes total of 35 feet.
















Now this is interesting. She is trying to elbow her neighbour, C'mon sleepy head, wake up. but she is sort of dozing. Maybe trying to gather the energy to open up and join the party. i hope you enjoyed the show as well. cheers.

Angelwing jasmine,barleria,railway creeper in my garden

This is jasmine nitidum - one of my favorite jasmines because it blooms nonstop from April till november. divine fragrance. i am growing it in a 16 inches clay pot.
















Gomphrena - bachelor's button, pink color - seems out of focus pic.
















Can someone help me Id this butterfly bush?. it has fragrant white blossoms and flowers in late summer from August-October here. its leaves are broad as compared to buddleia davidii.
















some dragon fly on star jasmine stem
















Barleria. not one of my favorite but color is good
















Water hyacinth, the official flower of province sindh in pakistan. gorwing in a round clay pot of 10 inches diameter. it is found abundant and wild not only in sindh but in our province punjab as well. considered a weed here.

































what a shot, isnt' it? both my tropical water lilies in one shot. and both are blooming non stop. they will go dormant in winter. the upper pot is bigger than the other. i just love them. note that the the first one is fully opened but panama pacific below is just starting to open. first one is also viviparous and you can see the viviparous leaf in the picture.
















close up of waterlily in smaller pot
















Tradescantia blooming

































And last but not least, the railway creeper. i am growing this vine in a plastic square container in which i am also growing allamanda and morning glory. and that container is placed 12 feet high on a concrete shade. just parallel to my terrace. now this is what i call urban/small space gardening.

Attracting wild life to your garden

It is not easy to establish a garden which would attract butterflies, bees, sun birds if you are living in an over populated urban city with lots of pollution around. Situation gets worse if you have as little space as i have got. Sure plants can be grown in containers and they will flourish but nothing compared to those which are nourished by sweet mother earth. After all, plants get to know they are in containers, nah? what about a patch full of self seeding bright wild flowers!!!

Although butterflies do visit my garden many times a day but this lemon tree just next to my home is something all the butterflies and bees just adore. Sometimes i think that they come all the way to sip nectar from this tree instead and in the way they also visit my garden. well i don't mind it either. My dwarf murraya tree does compete hard and tries to allure those butterflies back through its intense sweet fragrance. The competition goes on.
















This bee also visited my murraya tree just before coming here but i could not capture it there.
















This butterfly was wandering around these phlox flowers and they were hundreds in a row. something i wish i could ever grow.
















Now this wild flower garden is something i am talking about. Self seeding annuals in a natural way.
















Hope some day i will have a patch full of butterfly bushes with tons of butterflies around. Dreams never die actually.

Thunbergia,rudbeckia, senecio flowers in my garden

August is the month of monsoon. We root cuttings, transplant perennials, prepare beds for fall plantings this month. Those climbers and bushes which are late summer bloomer and those which did not bloom because of intense summer heat are coming back to life. see below the flowers blooming in my garden. Just a treat to see these blooming and blooming.

Rudbeckia - black eyed susan.This is a raised bed as i dont have much space. It is just 4 inches of soil and beneath that just concrete/cement. i will plant crocus bulbs here as soon as 15th september arrives. They flowered well here last year :P

















gomphrena in a small pot

















Senecio confusus (mexican flame vine)my all time favorite vine and butterflies just love it. blooms are fragrant too.

















Thunbergia grandiflora (bangal clock vine) at Lawrence garden Lahore

Rain lilies blooming in lahore

Rain lilies or zaphyr lilies are late summer bloomers specially after rainfall. they are available in many colors including pink, yellow and white. they self sow as well. they need to be pot bound to bloom. i am growing 4 bulbs in a 7 inches pot. botanical name of rain lily is zephyranthes lily. they are native to many other areas including india and pakistan.

strangely local gardeners or mali here call it nargis. although it is not nargis, nargis is botanically called narcissus and it normally treated as annual as compared to this zephyr lilies which are perennial here in lahore. note that these lilies like moist conditions and full sun to bloom. sadly, bulbs are not easily available here in lahore at modern seeds shops or even local nurseries. i got these bulbs as gift from a mali. i have got all the 3 above said colors and all are blooming except white one. note that these lilies need a dry period soon after rain spell. now you must be thinking that why not fool the plant with tap water thinking into rain....he he he.... try it... plants get to know you are trying fooling them :P


















an this is a bit smaller yellow one.

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A sight to behold - Water lily blooming

so it is the second waterlily blooming in my garden. it is first day of its bloom. wonderful sight. note that it is not deep blue as compared to the first one but light blue with shades of white and yellow center. i just love it. my brother says it reminded him of old movie scenes lolz.

pic from my cell phone. at 9am sharp














This one taken at 2pm.

Flowers blooming today - Gaillardia, Allamanda & Cosmos

Cosmos Sulph.


















Allamanda C.


















Gaillardia pulchella

5 tips for making your jasmine(motia) bloom more

Arabian jasmine or jasmine sambac is locally called motia. It blooms almost all year except in winter months. Here are some tips to make it bloom more and bigger.

1- Give it moisture and water. In summer heat of lahore, this plant will drink all the water you will give it. specially those plants which are in container. Keep it moist. this can be achieved through wet trays of pebbles or misting leaves in the evening. Water in the evening instead of morning.
2- Digging and hoeing: This is what we locally call 'godi'. Do this almost every weekend or atleast every month. Purpose is to move soil beneath the surface to come up and absorb sunlight while surface soil to go beneath.
3- Protect from afternoon sun - let it give full sunlight but protect from blazing afternoon sun
4- Give it acid-loving ferilizer high in phosphorus . you can also give it water soluble/liquid fertilizer for blooming. in monsoon when temperatures drop, you can give well rotted cow manure which will promote plant's health. i usually prefer leaf mold in hot summer months. then in late summer cow manure. Also try epsom salt, it works wonders for most shrubs specially jasmine.
5- Prune it in winter. growth will be vigorous and blooms will be bigger on new growth











one more important thing. Buy indian motia instead of pakistani motia. indian one has leaves more darker and roundish than pakistani motia. it is also called labenese motia. i will also post pics differentiating the two. Another form slightly variate is called bela.

My water lily blooming

Top Butterfly attracting flowers

Though i would submit a separate post on how to attract butterflies specially in lahore, right now i would focus on only which plants i have found attractive for butterflies.

1- First, butterflies are cold blooded insects so they love sunshine. They tend to prefer area which receives maximum sunshine.
2- Choose flowers rich in nectar. Have you wondered why there is not a lot of butterflies seen on Roses? nectar!!!!! Nectar rich flowers are usually single petal flowers having large seeds visible in the center. See the example of Dahlia below:

Good for butterflies, Nectar Rich










Not butterfly friendly, no nectar









Daisy is another common example. Others good flowers include following:

• scabiosa (pincushion flower)
• Lantana(specially blue flowered)
• buddleia (butterfly bush, white color variety survives in plains while purple one in hills)
• Asclepias curassavica(tropical milkweed)
• lemon/orange/tangerine
• Kniphofia(red hot pocker)
• Allium
• Cosmos
• Single petal dahlia
• Hibiscus
  

And last but not least Senecio confusus vine. In this march i had more than 200 blooms on this vine and every single day it was surrounded by butterflies.






Butterfly on my senecio vine





3-Choose flowers with sweet fragrance. One example is Murraya (Marwa, marwi), i have seen hundreds of butterflies on one single murraya tree near my home.

Note that butterflies usually appear in lahore from February-October. Also, Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Moon flower blooming in real time

Swallotail butterfly on cosmos flower

I love butterflies and i cannot resist capturing them sipping from flowers. This is why i like butterfly attracting flowers. During my visit to Punjab University trip to Khanaspur trip, i captured these butterflies sipping from flowers in small botanical garden of Punjab University Khanaspur, NWFP.

Khizra Nursery - Haripur

This plants nursery http://www.khizranursery.com/ is situated in main G.T road haripur. I bought so sought after Brugmansias from them. OMG, the flowers were so huge, almost more than my hand's length and fragrant i was just amazed. I tried but could not find anu brugmansia from lahore. May be because its a toxic plant which usually all daturas do. I also bought Some pelargoniums from them. If any one is after burgmansias, they are definitelty worth trying.

I also plan to get seeds for Datura metel bellarina from UK for their dwarf nature and fragrant flowers all summer long. Their seeds, toxic though, are easy to germinate in lahore and it flowers first year from seed. Mine's not starting to bloom yet but i have my fingers crossed, let see.

Best of Pattoki plant nurseries

I went to pattoki few times and found following nurseries the best in terms of flowering plants specially vines/climbers. Although you will find tons of nurseries but these have got the maximum variety of flowering plants as to my experience. Please note that this extinction does not apply to foliage plants - only flowering plants.

Changa Nursery - 03004580763 - I think the guy name is tariq over there. They had got huge variety of climbers, i bought one wisteria from him and one white buddleia and few aloe veras.

Madina Nursery - 03008483501 - They have got one of the best plant nurseries over there. They had got yellow buddleia(which could not survive because roots of plant went into soil from pot) , Various varieties of Cassia, tangerines, and other climber varieties. I forgot the guy's name who is over there.

Rehman Nursery - Waqar Rehman - 03454743518 - They are specialist of Palm varieties. They also have got some good variety of flowering plants.

Delicious grapes

This grape vine is around 4 years old. And when i picked few grapes from it they tasted really delicious. It was surrounded by bees and wasps. Photo taken in mid june this year.

Floriculture in india - courtesy of google books

This is a great book which describes in detail about gardening in india and the indopak region. Must read!!

http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=2H4-39ZufiEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=floriculture+in+india

Where to get plant seeds and garden accessories in lahore?

I have prepared a list seeds shop which sell seasonal/permanent flowers seeds. Currently this is for lahore.These shops also sell gardening tools and fertilizers and various gardening accessories.

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Sunny View Seed Store Old Club Lahore Mian Muhammad Farooq 04236301925 0321-9401925 They are probably oldest and have got some seeds not available anywhere else including moon flowers.

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Pride Seed Store, Hussain Chowk Lahore Muhammad Ashfaq 04235763069, 0300-8436799 They also sell cactus and other succulents. This is their website http://prideseedstore.com/

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Chanan Din Seeds, Gulberg Lahore Mian Usman 04235763898, 0300-4231410 I think they have got largest bulbs collection in the season i.e in fall and summer bulbs.

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Arain Seeds , Sabzi mandi, Multan chungi Lahore 04235422358 They also sell seedlings for veggies and seasonal flower seedlings. This is their website http://www.arain-seeds.com/

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More Green seeds, Liberty market Lahore 04235875547

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You can also get garden accessories from Metro and Hyper-star but they are a bit expensive.