Paper flower - Bouganvilleas in bloom

Please click to enlarge.

This climbing vine is a native to Brazil, known as bouganvillea or paper flower, it was named after Louis Antoine de Bougainville, an admiral in the French Navy who discovered the plant here in 1768. The colorful bracts around the flowers can be pink, orange, red, purple, white, yellow... The white-cream flowers are very small and can go almost unnoticed.

You can grow bouganvilleas along a wall and you may consider pots too, but they prefer warm weather. They are blooming now where I live. In fact, they bloom almost year round!

You can see more flower photos from all over at Today's Flowers, please pay a visit and show your flowers too!

African violets are blooming around the house

My first African violet was a birthday present a long time ago and I remember it bloomed all the time. When I was in college I used to buy African violets of all colors and of course I did not take care of them, but I soon found out that they grow and bloom better if you do not water them often! That's the type of flower you want to have if you do not have time to water a plant on schedule or travel a lot. They do not miss water, but they love indirect sunlight.

My purple African violet bloomed with two different shades of purple this time as you can see on first picture, the second picture shows how it bloomed last year... maybe because now I added African violet food?

This is my entry for Today's Flowers, an event for flower lovers that runs every Sunday.

Olympic baloons to celebrate 08/08/08!!!

Have fun watching the Olympic games!

Celebrate the date 08/08/08!!!