Home and Garden

I was already thinking some months ago to include posting in this blog images of the royal gardens that I visited here in Europe. It also means that I will be posting images of castles and palaces where these royal gardens are located. Not only you will see here the beauty of nature, but you will also experience visiting some scenic parts of the world starting today. How would you like to spend your vacation in a castle with a beautiful garden? Birkhill Castle is a luxury Scottish castle located in the historic St Andrew’s, Fife, Scotland. It is available for private groups, corporate events, sporting breaks, weddings and other activities.

Spending any of your Scotland breaks and holidays can be a very memorable and interesting experience. At Birkhill castle, you will easily feel at home because of its friendly atmosphere. Their facilities include a heated 40 feet swimming pool, tennis court, play equipment, billiard room and a lot more. There are some activities that are also located nearby like spending a day at st andrews golf break. Fishing, sailing, horse riding are only few activities in the area. What I loved most at Birkhill Castle is the 2.5 acres walled garden which has a traditional Scottish Victorian style. Don’t also forget that Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital is almost an hour drive from this castle. What a lovely place to spend a holiday here!

photo courtesy of birkhillcastle.org.uk

I got here some lilies or lilium from our garden. Some are still flowering now but some are mostly gone. Here are some information about these flowers.

Lilies are leafy stemmed herbs. They form naked or tunic-less scaly underground bulbs which are their overwintering organs. In some North American species the base of the bulb develops into rhizomes, on which numerous small bulbs are found. Some species develop stolons. Most bulbs are deeply buried, but a few species form bulbs near the soil surface. Many species form stem-roots. With these, the bulb grows naturally at some depth in the soil, and each year the new stem puts out adventitious roots above the bulb as it emerges from the soil. These roots are in addition to the basal roots that develop at the base of the bulb.

Most cool temperate species are dormant in winter, while some are dormant in dry summer and sprout with the autumn rain and are bolting after the chilling of winter in the spring.

The genus Lilium are herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs. Most species are native to the temperate northern hemisphere. They comprise a genus of about 110 species in the lily family (Liliaceae).

They are important as large showy flowering garden plants. Additionally, they are important culturally and in literature in much of the world. Some species are sometimes grown or harvested for the edible bulbs.

The species in this genus are the true lilies. Many other plants exist with “lily” in the common English name, some of which are quite unrelated to the true lilies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium

I don’t know if I shared these kind of tulips from our garden before. but here they are again, the lovely tulips from our garden taken last April 2010.

the yellow and orange tulips looking at the sky!

A lot of tulips from our garden is still blooming. Some are gone now but some are still in full bloom. Others are still on the process of blooming. I hope I am not quite complicated here. I am just happy since few weeks ago after seeing a lot of tulips blooming in our garden. If I could only wish that they will bloom the whole year but I guess only a miracle could do it. We have more varieties and colors this year than the past years. We planted more last year during Fall time and now they are here spreading beauty to our garden. It is a nice feeling seeing them again. Our hearts are dancing everytime we take a look at them.

Here are some kinds of tulips fresh from our garden!

the tulips above are the same ones you see in our header template here. They always come back every year. We simply love nature and we love flowers too!

ORIGIN OF THE NAME

Although tulips are associated with Holland, commercial cultivation of the flower began in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip, or lale (from Persian لاله, lâleh) as it is also called in Iran and Turkey, is a flower indigenous to a vast area encompassing parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The word tulip, which earlier appeared in English in forms such as tulipa or tulipant, entered the language by way of French tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend (“muslin” or “gauze”), and is ultimately derived from the Persian language dulband (“turban”). (The English word turban, first recorded in English in the 16th century, is a cognate.)

the last two images here are the new varieties we planted from last year’s Fall season. We love it!

I just happened to know that Narcissus or Daffodil as it is called in English belongs to the family of Amaryllis. It is very interesting that little by little I slowly learn more about plants and flowers especially its name. Here are the Narcissus I took as we happened to pass-by a parking lot near a train station. We got yellow ones in our garden but can’t find the pictures now. Lovely flowers indeed!

Scientific classification

Narcissus (pronounced /nɑrˈsɪsəs/) is the botanic name for a genus of mainly hardy, mostly spring-flowering, bulbs in the Amaryllis family native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia. There are also several Narcissus species that bloom in the autumn. Though Hortus Third cites 26 wild species, Daffodils for North American Gardens cites between 50 and 100 including species variants and wild hybrids. Through taxonomic and genetic research, it is speculated that over time this number will probably continue to be refined. Daffodil is a common English name, sometimes used now for all varieties, and is the chief common name of horticultural prevalence used by the American Daffodil Society. The range of forms in cultivation has been heavily modified and extended, with new variations available from specialists almost every year. more here

Here are more red tulips from our garden. What a beauty of nature it brings us! Simply beautiful!

some of the red tulips and orange colored ones from our garden

Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy. They do best in climates with long cool springs and early summers, but are often grown as spring blooming annual plantings in warmer areas of the world. The bulbs are typically planted in late summer and fall, normally from 10 to 20 cm (4 to 8 in.) deep, depending on the type planted, in well-drained soils. In parts of the world that do not have long cool springs and early summers, the bulbs are often planted up to 12 inches deep; this provides some protection from the heat of summer and tends to force the plants to regenerate one large bulb each year instead of many smaller non-blooming ones. This can extend the usefulness of the plants in warmer areas a few years but not stave off the degradation in bulb size and eventual death of the plants. more here

These are the first tulip flowers that are presently growing in our garden this spring time 2010. I can’t wait to see more tulips in a couple of weeks. I am feeling that I am also in Keukenhof garden in Holland.

A tulip is a bulbous plant in the genus Tulipa, comprising 109 species with showy flowers, in the family Liliaceae. The species native range includes southern Europe, north Africa, and Asia from Anatolia and Iran in the west to northeast of China. The centre of diversity of the genus is in the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains and the steppes of Kazakhstan. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, used as pot plants or as fresh cut flowers. Most cultivars of tulip are derived from Tulipa gesneriana. wikipedia.

These sweet smelling Hyacinths are also growing in our garden right now. We planted more colors last from year’s Autumn time. We are now having blue, yellow, pink, violet and red colored Hyacinths in our garden. Here is one photo of it.

Hyacinthus is a genus of bulbous flowering plants, formerly placed in the lily family Liliaceae but now regarded as the type genus of the separate family Hyacinthaceae. They are commonly called Hyacinths, and are native to the eastern Mediterranean region east to Iran and Turkmenistan.

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Asparagales
Family: Hyacinthaceae
Genus: Hyacinthus

picture taken in our garden this spring 2010

Myth associated with Hyacinth

Hyacinth was a beautiful youth loved by both the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr. Apollo and Hyacinth took turns at throwing the discus. Hyacinth ran to catch it to impress Apollo, but was struck by the discus as it fell to the ground, and died. A twist in the tale makes the wind god Zephyrus responsible for the death of Hyacinth. The youth’s beauty caused a feud between Zephyrus and Apollo. Jealous that Hyacinth preferred the radiant archery god Apollo, Zephyrus blew Apollo’s discus off course, so as to injure and kill Hyacinth. Apollo did not allow Hades to claim Hyacinth. Instead, Apollo made a flower, the hyacinth, from Hyacinth’s spilled blood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_%28plant%29

We would like to offer these lovely roses to all our friends, visitors, viewers and readers of this site. We hope that you will have a meaningful and memorable celebration of the Easter Season. The Lord Jesus is risen! Happy Easter to all!
Feel free to visit Mellow Yellow and Today’s Flowers to see more photos! Thanks to the Authors of this wonderful memes. Have a great one to all.