Friday, July 27, 2007

If you are into flowers or plants,

then Bangalore is a lovely place for you.

A splash of carnations

Bangalore has been big on cut-flowers and traditional flowers for many years now. The market for flowers is huge here and florist kiosks abound the city. You see beautiful, colorful, fresh flowers just about anywhere - Gladioli, roses, chrysanthemums, orchids, lilies, carnations, asters, and dahlias are a sight to behold.

There are many nurseries too in the city. In fact, every locality has at least a few of them. Right in this neighborhood, there are 3 nurseries that I know of. I am sure there are many more that I am not aware of. My mom used to be big on gardening, not so much anymore. It was fun to visit the nurseries with her, carry back plants, and grow them at home. These days, there are many workers available to work on your gardens. You don't even have to soil your hands! The gardeners do a fantastic job of maintaining your plants/gardens for you and offer their services regularly by planting, pruning, and maintaining your plants for you!

When in the US, my hub and I managed to have a decent number of plants. But of course, we did the entire thing ourselves from bringing home the plants, to potting them, watering them, taking care of them etc. We loved buying plants at garage/estate sales. It was fun meeting the owners of the plants; some of them would gush about their plants before selling them. We hated buying plants at stores, it seemed too commercial! Also, with experience, we realised that the plants from homes survived much better than plants from the stores. Some of our weekends were planned around getting home plants and working on them. It has been 9 months since our return and all that already seems so far away. Sigh! Beautiful memories.

Like the vegetable vendors in Bangalore, you have plant vendors too. They carry potted plants on push-carts and bring them right to your door-step! Similarly, the flower vendors bring the traditional flowers like the jasmine, chrysanthemum, crossandra, etc right to your door step as well.

It is a pleasure to visit the local florist and the local nursery. The colors and the smells are enjoyable, espeically if you are a flower lover like myself.

PS: The much awaited Lalbagh's flower show is right around the corner. It is around the time of India's independence day, Aug 15th. We plan to head out early one weekend morning to avoid the crowds.


Some pics of flowers for your visual delight straight from the local florist/nursery. Each flower pic is clickable and can be viewed large.

Have a great weekend, my friends!
You are welcome to let me know the pics you liked! :D


Gerbera


Orchid


Yellow Daisies


Baby pink carnations


Red rose


White gladioli


Dahlia

Orange Gladioli

Double shaded carnation


Strawflower


Goldenrod

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very nice pictures, flowers.

Anonymous said...

Chitra.. great pictures. Wish I was half as enthusiastic as you and your hubs are.. my mom's an avid gardener... me.. well... I like my garden... as long as I get to "see" and not "work".. the wife is the one who likes to see variety in plants and puts in the effort :-)

Pradeep Nair said...

Fantastic pix! Bangalore is still a Garden City, even though it is fast turning into a concrete jungle. Did you check out the nursery at the Lal Bagh? You will love it.

Unknown said...

Awe struck at the pix

mouna said...

nice pics indeed. afterall horticulture is booming in the city.

Anonymous said...

Wow..awesome pictures..Did you take them yourself..I always check you blogs periodically as we are planning to return to india in an year or 2. Love the pictures.. Which camera did you use ?

DuDo said...

well lovely pix indeed.... But its very rare to find one of those dese days.

Slogan Murugan said...

Lovely set!

Chitra said...

Nags, thanks!

Vijay, thanks! The next time your wife works on the plants, do join her. You will love it! :)

Pradeep, thanks! I will check the nursery out. I must to take pics at least.

Smitha, thanks!

Thanks Mouna! Welcome to my blog.

Anon, welcome to my blog and thanks! Yes, I did with a Canon DSLR.

Guru, ewlcome to my blog and thanks!

SloganMurugan, thanks!

Anonymous said...

hey me too! plan to go early one weekend to lalbagh - one year when my daughter was just over a year old (she's 4 now) i happened to wake up earlier than usual and went outside the house for a breath of the fresh morning air. my neighbours were just getting into the car to go to the flower show and asked if i wanted to join them - in 5 minutes flat (yes, truly, i am not exagerating!) i changed into decent clothes, got the baby into decent clothes and hopped into their car! i have the most gorgeous pics of her there! so i want to do a repeat - this time with the second daughter too...
d

Anonymous said...

oh man! why on earth could i not have gotten organsied enough into going early? why? why? why?

we landed at lalbagh at 12 noon on sunday afternoon! knowing full well how that would turn out!

suffice to say it was bangalore at its best - but bangloreans at their worst! (and i love my country and love my city - just not most of its inmates, i guess!)

lalbagh that until last weekend when a friend went for a picnic was a clean, green, plastic free and litter free zone was filthier than anythign else i have seen in the recent past.

we beat a hasty retreat - could not have gotten into the glass house even if we were brave enough to try.

i promised my children a picnic another day (when we were done celebrating independence and freedom!)

d

Chitra said...

D, welcome to my blog. You are right. We went really early on Sunday morning and managed to enjoy the show. The crowds were getting heavier though. Here's a post from our experience. http://bangalore.metblogs.com/archives/2007/08/lalbagh_flower_show_our_experi.phtml

Swati said...

Absolutely GREAT PICTURES !! True Visual delight.

Ronnie said...

Hello Chitra,

Found your pics on Flickr, and then followed on to your blog... Enjoyed them both...

Thanks.

Ronnie

Chitra said...

Swati, welcome to my blog. Thanks!

Ronnie Jacob, welcome to my blog. Thanks for your kind words.

Kutty Kumaran said...

Your pictures look all great. I liked all of them.

If you are a flower lover,maybe, you should try this ...

i am not sure if U would like watching the flowers in the market place.

IF u get a chance, take an early morning trip between 5-30 to 7 am(max) to good old K R Market.

I know it is a filthy place with dirt n waste all around(people from US esp. would hate this idea)

But, jus give it a try...get on to K R Market flyover from the mysore road circle, stop right in front of the market on top of the flyover itself ( i know its not allowed, but a few minutes should be OK).

What you will see is an OCEAN of FLOWERS being sold by the vendors.
The early morning rays, the fragrance n the colors (if lucky, a MS's suprabatham from the temple nearby)

I used to do it whenever i had a chance in BLR.

I felt like it was Poetry in motion...LOL

Thiruppathy Raja said...

Thank you for posting such a useful, impressive and a wicked article./Wow.. looking good!

Potted Plants"

Rajib said...

I need cut flowers like rose carnation lilies orchids at wholesale rate for Kolkata.

Florist said...

I would like to thank for creating this interesting blog and i got good knowledge to read this article...