| Blooming orchids
A whiff of vanilla is unmistakable, and it comes from an orchid. Orchids also smell of exotic spices, sweet florals, Mentholatum, new-mown hay and rotting carcasses.Clinging to trees, rocks, even caves, they need little or no soil but have the reputation of being difficult to grow.Not true, say orchid experts. If you can grow houseplants, you can grow orchids.Just don't make the mistake of choosing a variety solely on color or fragrance, ignoring temperature, lighting and humidity needs."Figure out who's going to bloom well for you and then you can choose colors and fragrance," said Bloomington horticulturist Christian Alieff, who'll teach a one-night class, "Orchids Made Easy," at Heartland Community College on March 28.One of his favorites gives off a vanilla clove scent when it blooms in the spring.
Asia’s Largest Tulip Garden Coming up in Srinagar
Srinagar, April 07 - Tulip garden at Siraj Bagh, spread over an area of 750 kanals and situated in the lap of Zabravan hills near Cheshma Shahi is a source of attraction for one and all these days. About 50 varieties of Tulip flowers (Guli-Lala) have been cultivated on 35 kanals of land this year. All these varieties have been imported from Holland and 3.50 lakh saplings of Guli Lala were imported this year. This was stated by Director Gardens and Parks Mr. Sharma and Director Tourism Mr. Farooq Shah to the pressmen who visited the garden to have on spot observation of the newly developed Tulip garden at Cheshma Shahi here today. It was given out that to develop this as the largest Tulip Garden in Asia, leveling and other development works are going on vigorously and time is not far away when the film producers would choose and adopt the Siraj Bagh for shooting of their films.
DVD Review: The Flower Kings - Instant Delivery
Sweden's neo-progressive rockers, The Flower Kings, have never really been content with just putting out your standard 50-something-minute album. Four of their nine studio albums, and both of their live albums, have been double-disc behemoths, averaging about 140 minutes in length. Hell, even their single disc releases have all approached double-disc length, eating up almost the entire 80-minute disc capacity every time. Whatever happened to the good old days of the 35-minute long album you used to get from your favorite band, once or twice a year, with little or no filler to have to wade through. Give me that over these bloated, filler-fuelled, albums most bands are churning out every two or three years. Every two or three years IF you are lucky.A prolific musical output is not necessarily a bad thing for a band, if they have the songwriting chops to back it up.
A Red Is a Red Is a Red
Think of Jordan Amige's chilled warehouse in Silver Spring as a bottleneck for roses. Between now and Valentine's Day on Wednesday, tens of thousands of wrapped bunches will pass through on their way from the farms of Ecuador to the streets, supermarkets and florists of greater Washington. And so his cooler within a cooler -- a large, bright, frigid cinder-block room -- becomes an ideal place to observe the changing world of flower-giving in this, the busiest time of year for florists, when a third of all cut-flower sales are made. It is a moment when men (by 3 to 1) are doing the buying and will shell out as much as $100 a dozen to impress their loved ones. What will they find this Valentine's Day? Peak prices, yes, but also roses that are more colorful and relaxed. If they don't see red.
This Desert Flower: Israel's Negev Desert
“The desert is in full bloom! You just have to go see it!" I've been hearing too much of this for a few weeks now, from my chronically infected wanderlust stricken neighbors, who are simply unable to spend even a single weekend here in our quaint, green suburban Ra'anana. “Sure", I thought, “You mean you think that I too should drive for hours and hours to the middle of a barren no-place just to see a couple of small bushes with three tiny wilted greenish white petals stuck to them. Yeah, right." But my wife, naive and easily convinced as she is, packed up our day pack, delicately but forcibly packed me into the driver's seat and made me drive about an hour and a half southwards, on one of Israel's most boring stretches of asphalt wastelands, to see for ourselves what all the fuss is about.
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