Spring Has Gone

On reading the title if you think that summer is here, then you are so very wrong :-). Rather winter is back with night temperature dropping to about 35 degree Fahrenheit (about 1.7 degree Centigrade) and day temperature hovering up to, very lethargically as if it is very tired after all the hard work of summer in the southern hemisphere, about 55 degree Fahrenheit (about 13 degree Centigrade). I have to be honest, though, and declare that last week temperature was a balmy 77 degree. I was too busy, then, to write. Why is it that I become busy whenever I have so many things to write about!! Anyway, seems like winter is back with all its might and force. Our pear-tree is shedding off its leaves!! Since harvest of any true summer vegetables like zucchini, squash, tomato, pepper, etc, will be of distant dream  this year, I am keeping myself busy, gardening-wise, by buying perennial flowering plants and beautifying a small corner in the front yard.

The first image is that of foxglove-plants. They are short-lived perennial. They bloom profusely if they are regularly deadheaded. I want them to multiply and spread. So, I will not be deadheading as I want the seeds to mature and drop off in the soil to produce the next generation. The second image is that of yarrow plant. It has not started flowering yet. The third picture that of lupine (purple) and erysimum (yellow; also known as perennial wallflower)

Thus far, this year, I got the above along with dianthus, saxifrages, gaillardia and viola. These are all apparently perennial. So, next year that small corner should be full of flowers from the early spring onwards as I have also planted some daffodil, cardinal blue, cardinal lobelia, monarda and crocus.

It is amazing that within just two years of gardening I have learned so much about plants, garden and flower. Can you believe that I only knew names of two flowers (in English; I knew some more in my mother tongue) -- rose and sunflower!! But what do you expect from someone who grew in the middle of one of the world's largest metropolis -- Calcutta -- with 20 million inhabitants. I literally grew up in the jungle of concrete and cars. As I would look out of the windows, in my childhood, all I would see are tall houses, cars and buses either standing tail-to-tail or trying to navigate the roads along with humans, stray-dogs and cows, TV antennae jutting out of roof-tops at askew angles trying to get the best reception and TV, telephone and electric wires and cables creating a maze overhead. Standing on the verandah of the city-apartment, that little girl kept on dreaming about nature, hiking, trekking, adventures and exploration. At the first opportunity she left all her friends, families, relatives behind, as a teenager, to explore the big world. Her exploration is still going on, and she jumped in to navigate the world of bees and butterflies, compost and mulch, vegetable, fruits and flowering plants, native and invasive plants, weeds and fertilizers as soon as she and her partner bought their first house three years back.

So, this blog and all the pictures are part of journals of my discovery and journey into the gardening-world :-).