With the rains come the flowers in Bangalore even if you have only a handkerchief garden. The city now has smaller homes and tinier gardens where flowers that bloomed in the large gardens Bangalore was famed for, still appear in the tiny ones. Come the rains and crocuses bloom in the gardens across the city. They come in a variety of colours - white, pink and a delightful yellow. The bulbs remain dormant in the earth if left alone, and come the rains, spiky leaves shoot up and along with it the accompanying flower.
Never pick a crocus as it is not a flower meant for the indoors or the vase. In the West, a large bunch of crocus flowers appear first before their leaves shoot out. These are hardy perennials and their bulbs can be left in the ground to flower every rainy season, year after year. In Kashmir a special variety is grown for the saffron which is the stigma of the flowers and is a highly prized spice. Pick up a few bulbs from a friend or from a nursery and plant them in the ground along the edge of your lawn or a flower bed.
They will pop up with the first rains and bring in a lot of colour to your garden without any effort on your part to nurture them. Another delightful flower in the rains which still bloom in gardens across the city are the wild orchids. They are all abloom at the moment especially the epiphytic or tree dweller orchids. These can be grown hanging in humid areas of your garden and have no connection with the tree they hang on. Therefore they are not parasites.
These flowers, say experts, do not have the luminosity of their wild counterparts in the forests but they do bloom in gay abandon if they are placed in a spot that they enjoy.
These orchids too are not like the commercial variety which can be clipped and kept in a vase. They are best left on the tree and the waxy flowers remain fresh for well over a month.