Crinum, giant potato tree and spider lily

It is a pleasure to be part of Garden bloggers bloom day once again. Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting this wonderful event every month. These are all thumbnail images and you can click on each one to view full image.

The first bloom, and because fragrance is my first preference, is crinum lily. They are growing wild in the Lawrence gardens. They bloom in july-October here in lahore. wonderful fragrance.

With botanical name crinum latifolium and common name milk and wine lily they are easiest of perennial bulbs to grow. Two colors are common. The white one below and there is another one bicolor, pink and white crinum.

Another crinum having very interesting buds is Crinum asiaticum with common names spider lily, grand crinum lily. It has the largest bulbs i have ever seen. the fragrance is not very sweet and flowers not very showy but buds are worth capturing.

This is some unknown flower to me blooming profusely in lawrence gardens lahore. any help with the ID will be appreciated.

This is giant potato tree with botanical name Solanum macranthum . Like many other solanum plants, the color of flower changes and you will find many colors blooms on same plant at once. Flowers are very mildly fragrant. A close relative is Solanum seaforthianum with common name italian jasmine, more fragrant than this one, and which i intend to grow from seed very soon.

And last but not least, here comes murraya exotica orange jasmine. The fragrance is divine and unbeatable. Blooming on my terrace in a large clay pot. They bloom extensively in monsoon rains.

Geranium and har singhar flowers

Although It has been a while the fall plantings are done, still some late summer bloomers are going all the way into november. And that includes sweet almond vebena, moon flower, sad tree, murraya and rain lilies. Okay i admit the first winter/spring bloomer in my garden is geranium. Sadly pelargoniums are not common here although they suit better to our climate. so here they go. And dont forget to visit Lisa's Chaos for other macro picks

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.