These stones are drilled through the center and stacked with rebar running through the center. Though this picture is not what I saw at the banks of River Ganga, near Shivpuri (15 km from Rishikesh in Uttarakhand) as our raft turned a bend in the river, the stone pillars built like the ones in this picture were amazing, as they stood out against the mountainside and wild flora, with a temporary camping site by its side at a height of 50 ft from the river level. 

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This flower is blooming in my garden, though I don’t know the name. I’ve seen it in shades of yellow, rust, orange, maroon, white and pink.

I call it the paper flower because of the crisp, papery texture of its petals. These make lovely dry flower arrangements. There is no need to dry the flowers. They last forever in an arrangement, minus the water.

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This ornamental garden tree/shrub is a common sight in India. Winter is the time the fruit show up and ripen. Around Christmas, a Kumquat or Chinese orange tree, as it is better known is the gardener’s pride.

For those who don’t have open gardens any more, this shrub does just as well as a bonsai.

The fruit makes great marmalade, and tastes great even when squeezed into a glass of water with sugar, rock salt and a pinch of roasted cumin powder :-) Ayurvedically it is a good digestive and cleanser for digestive system, much like neembu-pani (lemon juice replaces kumquat in the above recipe).

The fruit though hardly seen in a fruit market is appreciated by garden owners and their friends, who get them as gifts at times.

It is a no fuss tree. It grows with minimal care. Just water and a few handfuls of organic manure is all it asks.

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A walk in Richmond Park this summer was more than refreshing. Flowers that we generally find blooming in winter in North India, were all too happily blooming here right now: dahlia, salvia, nasturtium, calendula… Bangalore weather and flora doesn’t stop surprising me!

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Zinnias make sturdy plants in a North Indian garden. Despite the hot summer, these flowers do well in beds. And rich colours, chrome, ochre, mauve, pink, violet, carmine, vermillion, you name it…

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They grow everywhere: highway dividers, landscaped gardens, household pots, as a climber against the boundary wall…

And alongside railway tracks :) The train ride between Agra and Mathura is a colourful splash because of these. Well, yes, the green fields and shady groves on the way also provide interesting colour, but bougainvilleas absolutely find me rushing to the window to catch that racing patch of fuchsia pink or chrome yellow as the case may be. More...

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A clump of Petunia flowers in summer, Nishat Gardens, Kashmir, India.

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