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

Summer of '07

(Alright, so I have Bryan Adams and his 'Summer of 69' in my head as I type the title of the post. Let it stay that way.)

Since the time I went off to the US, I planned all my trips to India during Decembers or Julys, just to skip being here in the summers, not a huge fan of the heat or the humidity. Also, since we had to make a few trips to other places within India during our short India trips, I was keen to avoid the Indian summers. In fact, when we decided to R2I for good, the Indian summer was a concern for me! I hate humidity that much. Anyway, now that we have been through a summer here in Bangalore, I am glad to say that it wasn't too bad. Bangalore was hot and we did complain about the temperatures during the peak; in fact for about a month or so, it was pretty hot. But we were lucky to get some rains and the temps cooled off tremendously, especially since the rest of the country was struggling through heat waves. We were blessed to have some tolerable temps, sometimes making it quite pleasant too. We realised this more so when we traveled to other much hotter places.

Some near-perfect days

Flora: Only when I was actually here, did I realise the familiar summer floral sights that I was missing being away. Not that I missed them particularly when I was actually away, because California has beautiful flora too. Spring would be awash with various hues and some lovely colors. This summer, here in Bangalore, the Gulmohar, Queen's Flower, Copper Pod, etc were everywhere. The splash of colors was beautiful and the Gulmohar seemed redder than in the past; almost like organic coral sprinkled against the clear blue summer skies.

The resplendent Gulmohar lining the streets, making for some very pretty sights

Fruits: The summer fruits in India are a delight - mango, jackfruit, guava, musk melon, papaya, pineapple, chickoo, palmyra (kAti nongu) etc. Though mango is the king of fruits, and summer is the peak season for all its varieties, I have this weakness for jackfruits. And I hadn't eaten any in all the years that I was out of India. So, I made up for the loss this summer! The nice thing was both my kids took to jackfruits as well. So, I had some nice, crazy company to enjoy this (strange) fruit. Jackfruits always remind me of all my summer vacation spent in my ancestral native, Kerala! Just the thought of Kerala conjures up a splash of beautiful images that mean nothing but home - my beautiful exotic home! Though I am a Bangalorean at heart, Kerala will always be home for my soul. The absolute rustic scenes, the down-to-earth temples surrounded by mystique, and of course the food! Thankfully, the jackfruits were aplenty this season in Bangalore and I had a ball, to say the least!

Yummy Yum Yum!!

We enjoyed some kAti nongu too. Some of the vendors take the fruits out right in front of you like the vendor in this picture.

Summer Camp: Our (then) almost 4 year old daughter went to a summer camp for 3 weeks and within walking distance! I wanted something close by and there was one at the nearest Ramana Maharshi Center. What is unbelievable is the kind of positive influence just the 3 weeks there had on her. She used to take at least about 3 hours to relax and start interacting with non-family members. After the 3 weeks at their summer camp, she was quite comfortable talking to everybody and in a 'nice' way. I am thrilled with this development. At the end of the summer camp, all the children put up a nice show for the parents and family members at their auditorium. Splendid! Our daughter learnt a few of their shlokas, some small dance sequences, and some good social skills. I am thrilled! The summer camp was for 3 hours, 6 days a week for 3 weeks. I paid a whopping amount of Rs. 100/-!!! Unbelievable! (A lot of the commercial places and private schools hold summer camps for 2 weeks or so and charge more than Rs. 2000/-) Overall, she had a lot of fun and loved her summer camp!

Not being sure of how the summer would go, at the end of it, I am happy to say that it went off very well. Isn't that nice .... when you are not sure of how something is going to turn out and later realise that things actually went off well? Applies to all things in life, doesn't it? :)