Flowers of all hues

Flowers of all hues
Thursday June 21 2007 09:21 IST

BANGALORE: Monsoon showers bestow plants with a fresh lease of life.

The entire landscape of the city seems to erupt in a riot of colour. At least for now the city truly lives up to its sobriquet of ‘Garden City.’

It’s also the time to add lustre to garden and home with a few common or exotic varieties.

Plenty of seasonal flowers in different hues grown and found in gardens are salvia, zinnia, marigold, annual chrysanthemum, aster, celosia, annual vervena erinoides, petunias, balsam and gaillardia.

The monsoon season stretches from June to September.

Seedlings sown from May- June onward are ready by July or August.

One of the most popular of our monsoon annual is impatiens balsamina or balsam.

The bloom comes in white, pink, rose, crimson, violet and purple. Seeds are sown any time after the monsoon showers have begun.

The plants are grown in open, sunny ambience.

For an excellent cut-flower, one can opt for Gaillardia known as blanket flower. These fine border plants have daisy-like flowers in yellow, copper and orange with bands of red or bronze.

Salvia is a good bedding and pot plant. The exciting scarlet flowers are popular for their colour, their silky texture like cockscomb capture fast the beholders’ gaze.

Salvia offers large flower clusters in yellow, red, gold, pink, orange and wine on top of green or reddish leaves.

Another favourite flower is zinnia that comes in mixed colours or in white, pink, yellow, orange, crimson and mauve colours. And for ground cover, verbena erinoides, sown from March to June, is a perfect choice that flourishes with minimum care bearing lavender or blue flowers.

Climbers Fill the home with tender climbers.

Climbers are important ornamental plants. Climber like heavenly blue also called ‘morning glory’ as it blooms in the cool of the morning, gives gorgeous flowers of sky blue hue.

This vine requires exposure to sun and covers fences and trellis or is grown as a groundcover. It looks great in hanging baskets. It is easy to grow it from seed.

Other climbers are clitoria ternatea, Black-eyed Susan, pseudo-jasmine and lavangalata. Black-eyed Susan comes in white, pale and deep yellow with and without the dark eye.

Indoor plants It can enliven your home and add aesthetic beauty to the interior ambience.

According to horticultural experts, almost all indoor plants can be grown in this season. One can grow anthurium, spathyphylum, diffenbachea, agleanema, phyladendron, maranta, begonia among others.

Vegetable and fruits For kitchen garden, one can grow plenty of vegetables.

Leafy vegetables are specially suitable in this season as it’s commonly said ‘throw seeds and it will grow like weeds’. One can also go for grafted fruit plants like mango, sapota, guava, pomegranate, jackfruit. Available at

-- If you are all set to brighten your garden, you can get seeds, saplings and grafted plants in the Nurserymen Cooperative Society Ltd at Lalbagh Botanical Garden, horticultural department at University of Agricultural Sciences and other nurseries.