Posted in Nature on December 30, 2014| 7 Comments »
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,200 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Posted in Nature, tagged Christmas greetings, floral wreath, Prose on December 13, 2014| 12 Comments »
Dear Fellow Bloggers, Nature Lovers, Friends and Followers,
My best wishes to each of you, for a wonderful holiday season – celebrated with those near and dear. May the coming year of 2015 bring you all abundance and happiness.
I will take my summer break from this blog and will be offline until my next blog post appears on Wednesday, 28th January. See you again in 2015!
Posted in Nature, tagged art, beauty, flower garden, flowers, nature, nature photography, poetry on December 5, 2014| 12 Comments »
Posted in Nature, tagged art, beauty, begonias, Belgium, Brussel's floral carpet, essay, flowers, nature on December 2, 2014| 14 Comments »
Every year in August, the Grand-Place in Brussels is covered by a glorious carpet of living flowers. Since 1971, the floral carpet has become part of Belgium’s tradition and in this year, thousands of begonias were used to recreate the patterns found in a Turkish kilim (Persian carpet). The theme was chosen to pay tribute to 220,000 Turks who began arriving in Belgium under an immigration policy set up fifty years ago.
The beauty and diversity of each carpet is due to its major component, the bedding begonia – (Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum). As these flowers of choice are robust, resistant to bad weather and strong sunshine, they guarantee the freshness and long life of the carpet. Begonias have strong foliage leaves presenting from dark green to a bronze-like red. Their rich floral colours range from white, through deep pink, to orange, yellow and red. The petals are of a solid colour or are striped, and double begonias produce blooms similar to full blown roses. This ornamental plant has been used throughout history in pageants, or for floral corsages and bouquets. Everywhere in Belgium begonias still brighten window sills, balconies and flower beds.
The actual making of the carpet begins a year in advance to a plan worked out by the architect, E Stautmas. Once his design is complete, the number of flowers and colour combinations are drawn on the pavement. The next day, the spaces between the floral patterns are filled with rolled turf. Only then can the flowers be tightly packed together at 300 blooms per square meter, as 120 skilled gardeners assemble this giant floral jigsaw in just four hours.
Once completed, the celebrations begin as everyone arrives to enjoy its magnificence over the next four days. Stautmas has stated that, “Nowhere is the carpet more beautiful and distinguished than in the unique and ancient surroundings of Brussel’s Grand-Place.” Isn’t this project inspiring?
