Sunday, November 28, 2010

Butterflies mating on my terrace garden

I found these butterflies mating in the leaves of my wisteria vine on my terrace. They remained there for almost whole day.






For Macro Monday Visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic Monday Visit Mosaic Monday

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Runner up in Dave's garden photo contest 2010

It is of immense pleasure to me to announce that i got the runner up position in the annual photo contest 2010 at dave's garden, the largest online community of gardeners around the world. The category was "Macro" and this picture of water lily got 54 points. You can click on the picture for full view.



Thanks to all who voted for my photo. Although voting and photos were anonymous so nobody knew whose picture this was. It was my first time participating in the event and it was a wonderful experience. I would participate next year as well and encourage all the readers to do so.

I could not participate in Carol's GBBD this month due to EID holidays but i hope this post would qualify for bloom day as it does contain a wonderful bloom and there is nothing else blooming in my garden right now apart from this waterlily. Don't forget to see other bloom posts on Carol's website May Dreams Gardens

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Blooms of rain lily, hibiscus and night jasmine

Fall sowing is at peak right now. I am almost done with planting the bulbs except the hyacinths. Other spring flowering
annuals are sprouting as well. Only few flowers managed to continue their bloom in this month of november. The first is white
rain lily, zephyranthes candida.
 
The other flower in bloom is white ginger lily or butterfly ginger lily with botanic name Hedychium coronarium

Another plant which blooms in october and november with heavenly fragrance is  sad tree or night jasmine with botanic
name Nyctanthes arbortristis. Its flowers drop at night.

Here is the closer shot:

And last but not least this purple single flowered hibiscus.



For Macro Monday Visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic Monday Visit Mosaic Monday
For Flowers from today, visit http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/

Friday, October 15, 2010

Sweet almond verbena, gram blue butterfly and skipper butterfly

Welcome to another edition of garden bloggers bloom day. This is a monthly event hosted by Carol at May Dream Gardens. Visit her website for some intriguing flowers blooming all around the gardens.
This is my second year growing sweet almond verbena, botanic name aloysia virgata. This year i pruned it hard in the last december and the results showed in form of more blooms. I deadheaded every bloom and it kept blooming and blooming.
Every butterfly of the area and every bee visited these blooms having strong almond fragrance.

The first one is plain tiger butterfly with common name african monarch and biological name danaus chrysippus. A very common butterfly from asia and africa found abundant in lahore pakistan.


This is Small branded Swift Skipper with biological name Pelopidas mathias. No other insect is so fond of sweet almond verbena but this skipper butterfly. There were more than 15 beauties luring over the blooms at one time.


Another bee but i am not sure which one it is. She is the one which stays still in air for a long time.


This is gram blue butterfly with biological name (Euchrysops cnejus).She is mostly after pea related flowers but this time she could not resist the fragrance and nectar of these sweet blooms.


Another common bee of our area. She loves murraya and any sweet smelling plant. She is the last one to leave the flowers of this sweet almond bush.


And last but not least, this sweet smelling flowers are no other than cestrum diurnum also known as Din ka raja. Unlike its cousin cestrum nocturnum it releases its scent in daytime.


And this post is also included in the Blooming Friday hosted by Katarina at Roses
and Stuff
. Do visit her blog for some enchanting blooms.

For Fertilizer Friday visit Tootsie Time

Winner of best photo blogger