Sunday Stills: Wild Flowers

Sunday Stills, the next challenge: Wildflowers and Flowers
April 17, 2011 by Ed

I know things are not blooming up north but I’m sure ya’ll can find a crokus or two. And don’t worry we will do another flower post this summer when round two of the flowers gets better. Till then lets see whats up in your neck of the woods..:-))

http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/

Dear Ed,

If you are here in Down Under, You will see flowers all year round. We have winter and summer flowers. May be that is why I am happy. Thanks for this theme. I love it. I like this so much that I also did another post with two songs.

My World Tuesday: Calla Lilies

Calla Lily plants in my garden.




Calla lilies grow both in the garden and in the wild. I like them for their simplicity.

http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/

Today is the first day of my term break. I went to see my abandoned and unruly garden. Only the Calla lily remains unscathed.

I love Callas. They grew wild in my grand father's garden in Borneo. So when I came to live in New Zealand, seeing them reminded me of my childhood. Today, as I edit my book, I wrote of my Grandpa grieving for the loss of my 4th Uncle. I look at my Calla Lily plant, it appears as if it is in mourning too. Gone are the beautiful flowers.

Callas have a special place in my heart. My oldest daughter D knows why. Together we made a floral arrangement for Andrew's funeral. We chose 4 pure white Calla lilies.

Friday shootout:Flora, Fauna and critters

In Australia, my brother in law found this lorikeet on the roadside and it was being attacked by other birds. He rescued it and brought it home. We think that it had been a pet as it is very tame. Thomas thinks he is a pirate now with a parrot sitting on his shoulder.

In New Zealand, where there is plenty of rain and the climate mild, our fauna is lush, and flora plentiful.





Snakes made news in New Zealand and Singapore today.





We are glad that here in New Zealand, we have no snakes. We do have some trying to sneak in. Yesterday a 80cm snake was discovered by port officials in a shipping container of plants which had come from Guatemala.

Over in Singapore, a resident found a 3 meter long snake (python) in his apartment on the 13th floor of Nanyang Heights this very morning.

"It was 3:30 am we first found in the living room and the pest control guys came at 5:30 and eventually caught it. In the mean time, the policemen and campus security also came and helped us.

We are trying to figure out how the snake was able to break into this high floor apartment unit. We always make sure that the screen doors are closed. In any case it is hard to believe that such a huge snake could crawl up the wall up to the 13th floor. Another possibility is the drain holes in the bathrooms. The caps of the drains can always pop-up open if something like snakes push out from inside the pipes. Then it can move from house to house.... Still, largely a big mystery....

Given that we have two toddlers in my family, it was truly scary to see that python lurking in front of our bedroom."

In Australia, a snake visited my nephew's garage.



http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/
http://mytownmrlinky.blogspot.com/

Our theme for Sept. 17th will be...Flora, Fauna and/or Pets. So show us your wonderful shots of wild critters and wild plants(flora and fauna)around your town!
Maybe from a trip out to the woods or park in your area! Or if you are lucky in your own backyard!!

Sunday Stills the next challenge: Flowers/Wildflowers

When I went to Rangitoto island, the youngest volcano in Auckland, I saw this plant.

I can't identify this. I don't even remember where I took this.

These looks like gorse, i can't be sure.

Wild Onion, the smell is pungent. Some people use them in their salads. Grow wild everywhere.

Cala grow everywhere, here on the slope of Mt Albert Volcano.

Locally known as rabbit grass, because rabbits like them, A kind of plantain,

This is a Native tree.

New Zealand Iris.

Jasmine grow as creepers.

Wild gorse through out New Zealand. They were brought in as a hedge.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwhL1UgrjixQ9p6G6M2BYQtOoGym7WdrIuE6ggXIBPyD9tuQDH7vz2Giy10eZYCrtHO4IoFh9BSKiBOSMoD2ADYRV-bCduvl_Tixpb1fJXZSarsaOh9bLfVZC4USDg6QnBjQZ09QkfRPBu/s1600/flower+forget+me+not.jpg">
Forget-me-not, growing wild on the slopes of Mt Albert

wild blue flowers in top of Mt Albert volcano.
Sunday Stills the next challenge: Flowers/Wildflowers
May 9, 2010 by Ed

This should prove to be a bit of fun, try for new shots but archives will be o.k for the folks where spring has’nt quite begun yet or has passed, these can be in the garden, in the wild, or in the house..Have fun and see ya’ll next week..:-
http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/

Thank you Ed, flowers are right up my alley. Once, I was even called the unpaid gardener. My genes go back to my forefathers who work with the land.

I love Auckland, the weather is good most of the times, and we have flowers throughout the year. If you haven't been to Auckland, when I first arrive here in 1978, I thought it was very much like San Francisco.

None of these flowers are from the florist, some are wild, some are from some one's garden. I am sorry I don't know most of their names.

For a heart warming story of my childhood, please go on this link. I just posted a beautiful orchid. It used to be wild.

Please enjoy.

FSO trees (2) Gingko trees

This is not my original post for FSO. This is a supplement to the http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2010/04/friday-shootout-honoring-trees.html
http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/

http://mytownmrlinky.blogspot.com/

Thanks for some of your comments on the Gingko tree. This afternoon, I dropped Sam off to karate and found there is a gingko fruit in the Wesley School. I have much fun writing about Gingko, and I am writing for many of you who have heard about Gingko and that it is good for our memory. For the Chinese, Gingko is valued for the seeds. The seeds are made into desserts and is very expensive.

The gingko fruit is similar to a plum, except the smell is so vile that apart from the Chinese, no body would want to handle it because it really smells like shit.

Last year, my friend M came with a big bag of semi precessed seeds, her husband had kindly removed the smelliest yukkiest pulp. I brought them home, and had to keep them outside to dry. The water engineer refused to let me take them in. He kept saying. YUK! YUK!

When I thought they were dried, I kept them in glass jars and kept them in the fridge. I was lazy to use them, because preparing them involved more troublesome work of cracking the shell and them peeling the membrane. Maybe I was subscious about the awful smell.

Months later, I opened the jars, the seeds had gone mouldy and there was still a smell. I threw them out.

On Good Friday, I snapped these two photos of the Chinese picking the gingko fruits at the Mt Albert War Memorial Park. One man had a long pole, presumeably with a hook to shake the fruits.

My friend C says it was too early to get the fruits, and made a date to go to M's house to pick here. I didn't go, it would be History repeating, YUK! YUK!.

According to Ethnobotanist James Wong , you crush some gingko leaves, and steep with in hot water. Daily consumption will improve your memory. The tea is quite pleasant, I have tried them many times.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/growyourowndrugs/episode3.shtml

I did the following two posts last year. They are more informative and entertaining.
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/11/gingko-biloba-pak-gou-tea.html

http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/04/gingko-biloba-pak-gou.html

Friday shootout: Honoring Trees

This flowering cherry tree in my garden. The little fruits are not edible. What a waste.

Lining our main street, Queen street are these beautiful trees.





Sakura, Japanese Cherry Trees

Flowers that bloom in winter


The Gingko tree, the leaves are good for your memory.

The Neem tree which is regarded as a medicine for many cures. I grew this from a cutting. I left two legacies when I departed NTU, in Singapore. People come for the trees to treat ailment.

This week lets get back to our TOWNs and show off the beauty of our trees. Whether it be tropical palm trees or stately old oaks, whether the trees of our town are just beginning to bud, baby green leaves or flowering blooms, whether they are just starting to loose their leaves in preparation for the coming winter, they define our community, improve our environment, make our worlds, our towns beautiful.
April 23 Topic - Honoring Trees

(spring/Fall) Earth Day 2010 - by gingerv

Thank you gingerv. Trees are among my favourite things. I grew up in tropical Borneo, where our hard wood, the belian tree are highly demanded, and so much of the trees are fell that our endangered orang utans are threatened.

I am glad in my adopted country New Zealand, there are giant kauri and totara trees. Visitors exclaim how green Auckland is. There is a council ruling that you can't chop off a tree if it is 10 feet tall. I have posted many photos of trees in this site and my other site. http://ann-mythoughtsandphotos.blogspot.com/2009/09/cherry-blossom-sakura.html




http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/
http://mytownmrlinky.blogspot.com/

Save the world, Green thursday: Edible flowers

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/
http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html

Be adventurous with your food. Some parts of the plants you think inedible and are wasted are very delicious.

Take the pumpkin for example, you can eat the pumpkin, and the seeds. To many, the young shoots of the pumpkin make a good stir fry. Surprisingly, the flower can be deep fried into tempura pumpkin flower, an Indian Chutney or an Italian stuffed pumpkin flower.

My Thai friends tell me that you can do the same with zucchini flowers and shoots.

I am being hypocritical about this. I don't eat pumpkins, due to a deeply ingrained indoctrination against eating pumpkins. You may wonder why, and do click on this post that I wrote explaining why.
http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/12/looks-like-sam-may-just-have-some-luck.html