My garden this year ~

I grow flowers for many reasons:
To please my eye,
to please my soul,
to challenge the elements,
  to challenge my patience,
for novelty and nostalgia,
but mostly for the joy
of seeing them grow !
~ David Hobson.

Hello, hello ! It's been a while since I shared some garden news . It's that time again when my little patch of green goes through a complete transformation. The little saplings that I planted in the first week of November have finally started to bear buds and flowers . It's been a long wait and I have been spending much time looking at them closely, watering regularly, providing manure and the likes of it, checking for the first visible signs of colour and life and the fifty shades of green have slowly but surely started to add more colour to their palette . The weather has been brutal, the frost has killed many plants and the unexpected showers of rain have affected the plants adversely but then nature has it's own way of restoring equilibrium and soon enough thing fell back into place. The garden is still not in full bloom but the eager gardener in me is always keen to share the first signs of  Spring :)  So, what are you waiting for ?? Free your minds and let's get in the garden :D

            A garden is a friend you can visit anytime !!

Cosmos- In shades of pink and white ! Planted them for the very first time since they are tall plants and they don't do too well in containers but we drove all the way to the suburbs to get rectangular concrete  planters six feet deep. They look wonderful in them :)

Pansies or grumpy faces as my mom calls them :)

Dianthus- They are such lovely, fuss free plants and last year they survived the heat and humidity and are again in bloom this Winter :)

A pretty daisy unfurling it's petals at the half bloom stage :)

Lady's lace - I got at least 50 saplings but only 4-5 made it. They make excellent cut flowers and look equally pretty in any container  :)

Sweet alyssum - I have lots of these this year. They look lovely in hanging baskets too and have a lingering fragrance :)

Verbenas and daisy with a red phlox peeping from the center :)

Margarets- again , tall flowers and they too went inside the rectangular concrete planters. They are doing exceptionally well  and the husband is quite besotted by them ( ahem!) :)

Paper flowers - Don't know the botanical name of this one but the texture is just like paper and these used to be a favourite with us when we were kids :)

Impatiens - They do really well in hanging baskets and they don't require direct sunlight and when they bloom, they take up the entire circumference of the basket and even cascade over them :) Aren't they pretty ?? !!

Rose- I have them in many colours this year, even the miniature ones but this particular shade had me hooked. The brilliant yellow rimmed with specks of pink could compel you to gaze at it for several minutes  without batting an eyelid :)

Sweet alyssums again :)

A part of my entryway :)

Chrysanthemums - I had different varieties of them this year. Most of them were old plants that revived themselves this year and some were recent additions. I especially loved these white ones . They gave a spidery effect :)

These are from last year's plant. Clicked this one on a cold, foggy morning when it's petals were still coated with the fresh glittery- pearly dew drops to enhance it's beauty :)

Nargis or the narcissus - A member of the daffodil family with it's sunny side up, exquisite beauty and a lovely fragrance  made it's debut in my garden this year :)

Hyacinth - Again, a first timer in my garden and I am particularly proud of this one. This year, I have experimented with a lot of bulbs, not native to our part of the world. I remember tracking down an online store in Delhi selling exquisite bulbs . A trip to Delhi was on the cards so I thought of going personally and selecting a few of them for my garden. I made my father in law cover half the city to drive me to this store situated in a mall in Gurgaon. It took ages to locate that particular mall and store but once I did , I bought several packets of Ranunculus, Ixia, Sparaxis and some other species with complicated names. When I came back to Lucknow and visited my local nursery, I found him selling all of those bulbs at the same price. An 'oopsie' moment for me and so much for the wild goose chase. Not going to tell my father in law that :D
By the way, none of those bulbs are flowering yet. Though they have produced some blades of leaves, the flowers are yet to erupt. The hyacinth and daffodil up there were from my local nursery and have started flowering !!

And finally......some home grown veggies !! The first cauliflower to see the light of day was this one. It's always a pleasure to grow vegetables and this one, after much contemplation, went into the most delicious ' vegetable au gratin' :)

Isn't that the cutest cabbage ever and certainly the most handsome one I've seen :D

Spinach - Waiting to make a palak- paneer sort of dish with these :)

Tomatoes - They certainly are redder and healthier than most I've seen this season at the vegetable shop and then...they are from my precious vegetable patch :) No comparisons there !!!!

Broccoli - The first floret of a broccoli peeping from beneath the leaves. I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of this. It happens to be my favourite vegetable. I use it in soups, bakes and stir fry dishes and  this was a heartwarming sight, no doubt :)

So, this was the first part of the garden series. There are still many plants that are yet to bloom... some experiments, some recycling and reusing old stuff , transforming them into containers, some new plant species , some new blends of different kinds of plants , hanging baskets and lots more.One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. Will keep posting and sharing when they are ready to make you smile. After all, why should any flower blush unseen !!!