Rain Lilies in My Garden

Every Monsoon season, with the first few showers of rain, these small but beautiful flowers appear suddenly overnight as if bursting out from the earth. They are known as Rain lilies, Fairy Lilies, Rain Flowers, Magic lilies Zephyr Lilies or Atamasco lilies. 

Zephyranthes as they are known technically, are a species belonging to the Amaryllis family. The name is derived from Zephyrus- the Greek god of the west wind, and Anthos- meaning flower. As far as I have seen them, they are available in colours of white, yellow and pink- may be in different shades within the same colour. 

You can know about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zephyranthes 

These are perennial bulbs which can withstand very hot summers of our South India. They completely disappear during the summer months and with the first showers, spring back to life, filling the garden with beautiful small flowers, swaying gently on their slender stalks. 

They can be propagated easily from bulbs. But even seeds can also be used as I have seen.

I used to have all the three colours. But they spread so much that we kept on weeding them out. Now I am only left with yellow ones. I think I will plant the other colours too. Here is a glimpse of these flowers.

They spread like wild fire and it is difficult to dig out the bulbs from nooks and corners of the garden. Still, I love these flowers when grown in posts or beds as they make a very colourful display.

I am busy with my garden. It requires a lot of work as I have been neglecting it for long. Part by part I am reclaiming and redoing it. Mostly my trees and bushes have been pray to termites. So it is really sad to see the plants/trees die away after being in the garden for long time. We are not able to completely eradicate the termites. So i am again plating those lost plants. 

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Rangoli-301

Vara Lakshmi Vratam Special

Friends, I know you are all eagerly waiting for this Rangoli. This is for Vara Lakshmi Vratam going to be celebrated on Friday the 8th. 

This Rangoli can be drawn for this entire month of Sraavanam, specially for Tuesdays and  Fridays.

No Of Dots: 19 in the central row, straight dots, 17, 15, 13, 11, 11, 7, 5, 3, 1 on either side of the center row. You can see them in the pic above. You can also colour the center part too. I have kept this very simple as we do have many things to do on the Puja day.

I have used the Kalsh as the main theme, since we use Kalash during the Puja. Swastika and Lotuses and flowers are liked by Goddess Lakshmi and Gauri alike. The center is Ashta Dala Padma or 8 petaled Lilly or Lotus. I have used yellow(Turmeric), red(Kumkum) and green(leaves) colours denoting the sowbhyagya and auspiciousness. The pots are coloured terracotta colour since earthenware pots are considered best.

Hope you like it. Happy Celebrations and May Goddess Lakshmi bless all of us with health wealth, sowbhagya and abundance.

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My Craft Classes...1

This is the punch craft class I taught to beginners. I always keep a huge supply of the punched out shapes ready to use by the kids. Though the kids do try to punch out the shapes, after some time they get bored. Also some of the punches are difficult for them to punch as they may be hard. They just want to get on with their creative work. So they prefer to use the ready to use punched out shapes instead of punching them by themselves.

Here is one card made by my niece in one of my classes. 

My niece also doesn't waste time in punching out the shapes. She is interested in finishing off her creation fast like all other kids. But when she feels like, she punches out some shapes and refills my box for use next time.

The card used was baby pink textured card stock. She used paper rope or paper twine for stems and punched out flowers and butterflies. 

Here she used one of my templates-a circle in a square. I keep various shaped cards or other thick materials which I come across, for using them as templates. It is easier that way than making one. Before I realised, she had coloured and glued it to the card. So there was no way, I could take it back with out damaging the card. She glued some butterflies on it.

She did try to give shape to a few flowers using the tools, but instead she glued them to the rope in such a way that they looked as if shaped out by using tools.

I think, she had a clear idea what to do and how to do from the beginning and finished off her work very quickly. I liked her card. Very neat and simple. What do you say?

More in my next post.....

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