Black and white or in colour?

TOPIARY

This is my new "ballballconeballballcone flower bed" with Buxus that I planted last autumn.This picture is not a black and white photo, it's March... I thought that the winter was gone but oh no. I know ....it is pretty with snow but I'm so fed up with the winter and I want my garden to be in colour - lush and green! Come spring and make it green!Now and then, oh I really do prefere my garden in colour.

TYRA

GREEN

I just love the colour of green, don’t know why but I do. I think the love for the colour green grows with time; I mean I didn’t think about it when I started out with gardening a long time ago. Then the flowers and the colours were much more important. Today I think more of the foliage, the structure and the different shades of green. C’est très important n’est-ce pas ? Don’t you agree ? Grün, GRÖN, Green ....Vert - C'est formidable

Delicious green for the inside.

Green leaves in all kinds of hues, blueish, yellowish, greyish - GREEN

TYRA

Tips 'n' ideas - My "antidepressant" drug

Today I really need an antidepressant drug.

The weather is appalling, I had a bad day at work and I think I’m coming down with a cold.

I need something to cheer me up!
I found these “happy pills”

Tyra's Garden with artichokes from Potager du Roi.

The potager in July. Summertime how lovely!

A simple yet beautiful Dahlia mignon "Firebird"

Now I feel a little bit better, tonight I think I'll spend the evening in Tuscany. The DVD Under the Tuscan Sun will be perfect. Maybe a glass of Chianti and something nice to go with it.

Tyra

I have an itch to paint!

Flowers upon the wall?

That could be an idea!

Lily at Baby Taj

You know I love painting as well as gardening. I showed you one’s my “Topiary upon the wall” painting I have done in one of our rooms and after the trip to India I’m so inspired to do some more painting!... perhaps a “flowers upon the wall” room. This is one of the places in India that truly put some ideas into my head. Look at this.

Itmad-Ud-Daulah - It has the nickname BABY TAJ – much more easy to say.

Shoes are not allowed so you have to wear special slippers

Itmad-Ud-Daulah's Tomb is a Mughal mausoleum in the city of Agra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Often described as a 'jewel box'. the tomb of Itmad-Ud-Daulah is often regarded as a sketch of the Taj Mahal. I love this place it is so beautiful and the morning I was there we were alone there, so peaceful.
Along with the main building, the structure consists of numerous smaller buildings and beautiful gardens. The whole place has a most fascinating water system I can’t describe it now but it takes care of all the rainwater in a “canal system”. The tomb was built between 1622 and 1628. Commissioned by Nur Jahan for her father Mirza Ghiyas Beg who had been given the title Itmad-Ud-Daulah meaning “pillar of state”.

On this picture you can see some of the water canal that I mentioned above, though dry now.

Itmad-Ud-Daulah’s walls are made in white marble from Rajasthan, and the walls are covered with semi-precious stone decorations - Onyx, Cornelian, Jasper, Lapis Lazuli and Topaz in wonderful patterns and images of flowers, trees and other decors like fruit or vases containing flower arrangements. Light to the interior passes through delicate Jali screens of exquisitely carved in white marble. Like laces in marble it is so beautiful. I don’t know how they manage to do it. I think the jali is typical for Arabic architecture as well, I've seen similar jalis in Alhambra, Spain.

Almost 400 years old, semi-precious stone decorations.

What do you think, shall I have a go? Lilies and Papaver upon the wall, I dont know what the "tree" is but it's pretty.

TYRA

Are you potty?

My babies are all over the place!

Seeds, soil, seedlings and pots, pots, pots everywhere. Now is the time of the year that I occupy most of the windowsills in our house and the veranda I place an extra table for all my babies. This year I have promised my self to take it easy……and that promise is so dreadfully hard to keep. In this cold climate you simply have to start early indoors with vegetables like chillies, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, physalis etcetera. My favourite flowers in my vegetable garden are the Zinnia, Dahlia and Calendula and of those are the Zinnias the only ones I have to sow indoors. Sometimes I test out seeds from my own Dahlias and then I have to sow then indoors as well.

Calendula photo: Odla.nu

I found for me a new sort of Calendula Officinalis, ‘Triangle Flashback’ height 60 cm, pink and yellow, very exciting to see how that one will turn out.

Have I nice weekend.

Potty TYRA!

Flowers of India - The Lotus Flower

The biggest flower in India and probably in the world! I stumbled on this magnificent Lotus flower in New Delhi. It is The Bahá'í House of Worship. Isn't it fantastic?

Built in 1986, 40 meters tall and it is capable to hold 2,500 people. It's number of visitors per year 4,5 million or 13 000 everyday!

More about the Bahá'í religion below.

The central theme of Bahá'u'lláh's message is that humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society. God, Bahá'u'lláh said, has set in motion historical forces that are breaking down traditional barriers of race, class, creed, and nation and that will, in time, give birth to a universal civilization. The principal challenge facing the peoples of the earth is to accept the fact of their oneness and to assist the processes of unification.

TYRA

I'm back!

Fascinated, dead beat and 6 pounds less of me I’m back after a journey to India.
What a country! 1 billion people and it feels like I met at least half of them. This was my first time in India and I hope I will be able to go back, there is so much to discover.

Delhi India

Taj Mahal Agra India

Whenever I go abroad I always look up the botanical gardens, this time was an exception, the nearest I came to a botanical garden was at Taj Mahal, Agra. They had a Tree of India Garden. Not a lot of people there and a shady and cool place to walk through, very nice.

I really enjoy "world music" and India has so much interesting music, fascinating instruments songs and dancers. I had the benefit to go to a traditional music and dance performance in The Amber Palace in Jaipur, I also went to the Cinema in Jaipur and watch a movie in Hindi! In Jaipur I also had the pleasure to attend a Hindu wedding. Most fascinating, all those absolutely gorgeous women in their saris, young as old they were all stunning, I felt very pale!

I still feel pale and weak, trying to recover from whatever I brought with me from India, this is the first day by the computer.... and it's nice to be back!

TYRA