Flowers of PC Bhurban - Roses, lavender and Cotoneaster

This is the last post in the "Flowers of PC Bhurban" Series. The first two posts you can find here and here. This post took me a while to identify some flowers in the garden of PC bhurban. For those who do not know, PC bhurban is actually Pearl Continental hotel in the Bhurban area in murree hills of Pakistan. So here are the remaining flowers.
There were many roses in the PC bhurban garden and some i had never seen before. This one is identified as a rose. Very beautiful petals. Here is the closer look at this beauty. Talking of roses, here is another rose, so different from the common red rose we have that i had to ask about the identity of this plant, A rose!!!!
This one is some Hypericum species, most probably St John's wort. This is Cotoneaster salicifolius, Willow-leaved Cotoneaster. A drought tolerant shrub blooming happily in the garden of the hotel.
This one is probably some achillea most probably Achillea filipendulina but it is just a guess. This is Red Valerian, Centranthus ruber. And last but not least is English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia. Butterflies were attracted to lavender flowers like crazy. In our plains, lavandula stoechas or french lavender is more successful than this one. Beauty and fragrance al there with the additional benefit of attracting some wild life. There is still one post remaining regarding the flowers of murree hills and nathia gali and that i will cover in the next post. Till then stay tuned.

For more beautiful flower posts from all around the world, visit Today's Flowers.
For more macro monday posts, visit Lisa's Chaos 

Butterflies of Lahore - Plain tiger butterfly

Starting from this post, i am initiating a series of posts on butterflies of my city Lahore. There is already a post on butterflies of Islamabad here. I have few butterfly posts on butterflies of himalayas as well but right now i am starting with those of my own city lahore. All the shots are taken by me. The first one is Plain tiger butterfly Danaus chrysippus.


Plain tiger is probably the most common butterfly in urban cities like lahore. And it is also one of the easiest to capture because it is a slow mover. Not very fast so camera captures easily. You will find this one on roads, in gardens, everywhere. It is not fond of a specific plant, you will find it mostly on foliage. Here is the side shot of this butterfly. Remember there is not much of difference between the male and the female at least not to naked eye.


This butterfly is common in India, Pakistan and many other countries. One habit of this butterfly is that it spreads its wing so that full sun is at the back absorbing the heat of sun through its fully open wings and that is the time to capture it closely.


The next butterfly post would be on Common lime butterfly, another common butterfly of Lahore - Pakistan. This post is included in Macro Monday by Lisa's Chaos. So visit her blog for more macro shots.

Snail vine, vigna caracalla flowering in my terrace garden

Welcome to another edition of Macro monday. This is what is blooming right now in my garden.
 Snail vine finally in bloom. Very sweet fragrance.

You will find all 3 colors on this vine. White, then purple and last one yellow. Very heat tolerant vine.


I captured this gram blue butterfly on the flower of hyacinth bean vine. Very fast growing vine and a relative of snail vine.


For Macro monday, visit Lisa's Chaos

Flowers of PC Bhurban - Lobelia, hosta, fuchsia, gazania and daylily

This is the second post in the series of garden flowers of PC Bhurban, Murree hills Pakistan. You can see the previous post covering delphiniums and roses here. As always, feel free to click on the image for full view.

The first one in this post is gazania. Now this is almost a perennial in lahore which is lot hotter than bhurban. It is a very drought tolerant plant and very suitable for hottest of the places in your garden.


Then comes the fuchsia. These are not suitable for hot climates of karachi and lahore. They prefer a cooler weather or at least a temperate one. They can be grown as spring blooming annuals in our southern plains but they do not tolerate the summer heat.


Here is another view from the balcony of PC Burban.


Lobelia, another spring blooming annual in lahore but not a common sight due to the small flowers. It blooms in summer in hilly areas of bhurban and murree hills. Planted in masses, all blue color looks just exquisite. Here is the macro view

Another view of lobelia flowers.


Hosta or plantain lily, grown rarely in plains at least in lahore. It is a bulbous plant famous for growing in shade. Its foliage is perhaps more pretty than its flowers and the is the main attraction.


There are some species which can be grown in lahore and other subtropical climates. But it is a plant not well explored here in plains. Does not come true from seed and does not flower early from seed, best propagated through division and not easily available as well.


Last in this post is the daylily. There are many cultivars of this beautiful and east to grow plant. If there is one bulbous plant which can well endure the heat of lahore then it is no other than daylily. In Pearl continental hotel Bhurban there are many varieties of daylily are planted. This was my personal favorite.


The last post on the flowers of PC bhurban will take some time because there are lot of un-identified flowers in the post and i am trying hard to get their names. Meanwhile there will be a series of butterflies of Pakistan and that includes a few species i captured in murree hills and one special butterfly i saw in the garden of PC Bhurban. So the butterfly lovers, stay tuned for next few posts!!!

This post is included in Today's flowers  so do visit there to see flowers from around the world.
For macro monday, visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic monday, visit Mosaic monday