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We've been in my Hyderabad home for the last week or so, having the awesomest time. Some pictures I posted on Instagram since we got here:

We escorted my beautiful grandma from Chennai to Hyderabad.

We spent a little time in the old city, but not nearly enough:) Also, it's a little too hot for photowalks.

Way too much food. My diet and exercise plans go out the window when I come home.

And some more:

Before I go, I wanted to thank you for your kind comments
on my previous post - thanks for being so indulgent!

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In the morning...

I drink the tea Ashwin makes me, and stumble onto the terrace like a zombie. If I am up early enough, I sweep a part of the floor.  Even a zombie can see that garden waste is SO pretty.  And that bougainvilleas create litter :| I put most of the waste back into the pots because it is awesomely nutritious. 

Bougainvillea = Lots of sweeping to do.

I use the gaps when I'm waiting for water to fill in the bucket  to go around and see what the plants are up to. (Old-fashioned bucket+mug roxxx - almost no wastage and you can pour the water right onto the roots) Sometimes, there is a bit of pruning to do. Pay no attention to my pruning technique - I don't have one.

I bet I am holding it all wrong

I am very pleased to see that the rose bush whose leaves had been gobbled up by caterpillars is now sprouting new leaves. Poor Ashwin had to take them caterpillars off one by one. Gross. When we wish for butterflies to visit our flowers, we forget that caterpillars are gross.

Rose bush recovering from a caterpillar attack

I see the sun-loving plants doing well - as if to announce that summer is HERE.

Orange Portulacas

Telosma Cordata or Sampangee. I wish you could smell them from the picture! SO divine.

This is the awesomest thing that's happening right now - I had tossed some over-ripe Strawberries into a pot a few months ago just to see if they'll germinate, and forgotten about them. While sifting through the weeds in the pot last week, I found out that I HAZ STRAWBERRY PLANT!

Strawberry plant yay!

After googling all sorts of descriptions, I found that the weed obscuring the strawberry is called Roundleaf Bindweed. It is of medicinal value, and its tiny white flowers are very pretty. But I'll have to pull it out to save the strawberry plant. Luckily, it has spread to another pot too, so I can still have it.

"Roundleaf Bindweed"

A plant with a funky name (mother-in-law's tongue ) tells me not-so-subtly that it needs a bigger pot

Mother-in-law's Tongue with its pot split open.

This pretty plant with purple leaves and small purple flowers is called Purple Heart. It's resumed blooming now after a break.

Purple Heart

A weed I decided to keep many many months ago, has climbed up an ugly drainpipe and is now producing pretty little yellow flowers. They are too high up for me to reach with the lens I have on, so I decide to take better pictures later (left) It's getting uncomfortably hot now, so I stop lingering and get on with the watering.

Unknown creeper on the left. On the right, well, water.

I spot quite a few thirsty crows waiting for me to get the hell out of the terrace.

So I fill the bird bath and go inside.

In case you were wondering, the whole routine usually takes me just about 20 minutes - such a small investment for so much fun :)

{Sorry for the very long, self-indulgent post!  This will be the last plant-related post for a while, I promise!}

Five flowering plants that are (almost) impossible to kill

I wanted to make a list of flowering plants that I think are almost impossible to kill. And then I thought people would laugh at me because I am only an amateur gardener, and most of what I do is trial and error. But then I thought an amateur is the best sort of person to talk about plants that are easy to grow, because, if we can grow them, anybody can! And so I decided to make the list after all. Here it is :)

1. ADENIUM OR DESERT ROSE
Pure awesomeness. I have two hot pink varieties, and they also come in red and white. They don't need fertile soil and only need to be watered once in about 3 days.

2. LANTANA
This pretty plant with colorful clusters of flowers is so common in India that you'll find it growing happily everywhere - by the side of the road, in neighborhood parks, abandoned plots. It comes in many colors, and never catches infections - water everyday and occasionally add some compost or vegetable/fruit peels to the soil - HELLO, bright splashes of color all year round!

3. BOUGAINVILLEA

I am convinced that one day, bougainvilleas will take over the earth. They are ALL OVER THE PLACE. And obviously they don't all have dedicated gardeners working hard on them, so they are obviously super easy to grow. I keep the bougainvilleas next to the adeniums, because they need almost identical care.

4. PLUMBAGO

I am so in love with the blue variety. There are white and pinkish-red ones too, that I have only seen on the internet (if you know where I can get them, please do tell me!). Just water everyday. That is all you need to do to make it bloom like crazy.

5. MOSS ROSE AND PORTULACA

Ok, this might technically be cheating because I'm putting two here, but they are really really similar. They need to be watered every 2-3 days, and prefer not-so-rich soil. If the soil is too rich, you'll have lots of foliage but no flowers. Since they are extreeeeemely easy to grow from cuttings (stick it in soil and it will develop roots in no time) stealing collecting them in all colours is a lot of fun.

Now what little I know is limited to dry Hyderabad and humid Chennai, but all the plants I've listed like warm weather, so I think you should be able to grow them in most places in India. If you want to start a garden but are unsure of how green your thumb is, these plants are a very safe set to start with. I have mentioned the watering frequencies that I follow, but these will vary from place to place, so figure out what works for you with a little trial and error.

And a little disclaimer - no plant is truly impossible to kill (duh!) - you could kill adeniums or bougainvilleas if you water them too much; lantanas will go limp if you keep forgetting to water them; if you have pigeons where you live, they will eat your portulacas - BUT if you just give these plants the basic care they need and talk to them now and then (it WORKS!), I am pretty sure you'll do alright! Happy gardening!

Edited to add: All of these plants need plenty of sunlight. This makes them awesomely easy to manage during Indian summers, but if you don't receive good sunshine, I am not sure how they'll do! 

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Tiger Cave, Mahabalipuram

I love it when fun stuff happens when we haven't even planned it - On Saturday, Ashwin and I set off on an impromptu afternoon drive down Chennai's East Coast Road and soon found ourselves pulling into a clearing next to a signboard that said 'Tiger Cave'. 

Located in Saluvankuppam, about 5 kms before Mahabalipuram, the Tiger Cave is a rock cut temple dedicated to Goddess Durga. The cave is supposed to be shaped like a tiger, with a cluster of smaller tiger heads forming the head of the tiger, but to me, it looked more like lions :) Like the temples of Mahabalipuram, this one too was built by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I during the 7th century AD.

The head of the tiger

The cave is shaped like a tiger

The complex also has a cave temple dedicated to Lord Shiva:

Cave temple for Lord Shiva

A Shivaling outside the cave

Inscriptions on the walls of the Shiva Cave Temple

It wasn't a terribly hot afternoon, but it was blindingly bright and sunny, made worse by reflections off the sand and the sea - I could hardly open my eyes, leave alone take proper photos, so I've added an early morning visit to the Tiger Cave to my To-Do list :)

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Magic Seeds

I want to tell you about something amazing that happened in our garden.  

Hot pink Desert Rose

One of my pink Adenium Obesum (also called Desert Rose) plants developed seed pods a couple of months ago. I waited and waited for the pods to ripen, burst and release the seeds - it FINALLY happened last week! I hadn't expected the seeds to be SO pretty and magical! They have two bunches of soft, fuzzy hair to help them float with the wind for dispersal. (Read more here if you'd like to) I did not count, but I got more than 50 seeds from just 2 pods, not counting the ones that flew away :) 

I made Ashwin take this picture :)

As an experiment, I sowed 6 seeds. ALL of them germinated (yaaay) - most within 2-3 days, and the slowest one took 4 days. So I now have 6 new plants and more seeds than I know what to do with :) 

Hello World!

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