Clancy Tucker's Blog: FLOWERS

Showing posts with label FLOWERS. Show all posts

31 December 2022 - CRYSTAL SPRINGS RHODODENDRON GARDENS, PORTLAND

CRYSTAL SPRINGS

RHODODENDRON GARDENS

- PORTLAND -

G'day folks,

Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden started as an idea of a rhododendron garden. Sam Jackson, a Portland local who owned the Oregon Journal, donated 27 acres for the garden on a site near Terwilliger Boulevard. But the land turned out to be too steep and rocky. The garden was moved to a site once known as Shakespearean Island, due to its history as an outdoor stage for Reed College students performing the works of the bard. Though less steep than the former site, Shakespearean Island was overgrown, dense with brush and blackberries that were cleaned up by volunteers. Crystal Springs held its first rhododendron show in 1956 and became an official garden in 1964.

Today, the garden is lush and sprawling, with more than 2,500 rhododendrons and other plants. Spurting fountains and meandering trails diversify the many ways to see the flowers. To some in Portland, the garden remains a secret—overshadowed by the city’s famous International Rose Test Garden, which was constructed during World War I to save and cultivate different kinds of European roses. Surrounded by the waters of Crystal Lake, the garden also serves as a waterfowl refuge. Ducks and geese frolic in the lake, and red-winged blackbirds and scrub jays perch in the trees.

Twice a year, the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden hosts free flower shows. At the Rhododendron & Daffodil Show in April and the Mother’s Day Show in May—peak blooming time for rhododendrons—local gardeners pit their flowers against each other in a showcase.

18 September 2022 - HIDDEN FLOWER TUNNEL IN HONG KONG

HIDDEN FLOWER

TUNNEL IN HONG KONG

G'day folks,

Every spring, a magical flower tunnel blossoms within an easily over-looked public housing complex. It’s a fleeting, hidden gem concealed among the crowded buildings of Hong Kong.

Like a secret garden, the tunnel is covered in vibrant Bougainvillea. Come Spring, the tunnel blooms with a ceiling of pink leaves and tiny white flowers growing along the vines that snake over the walkway. The effect is absolutely enchanting.

Walking through the tunnel is like entering a secluded, floral oasis worthy of a fairytale. It instantly makes you feel as though you’ve left the bustle of the city behind and entered a veritable wonderland of nature. The flowers only show up during the Spring, between March and April, adding an extra sense of ephemeral wonder to the experience.

The flower tunnel is part of the Housing Department’s plan to add more green spaces to public housing developments throughout Hong Kong. These fleeting springtime wonders, as well as the year-round pockets of greenery, are meant to provide relaxation and also help reduce heat and pollution in the city.

22 July 2022 - GORGEOUS WYSTERIA TUNNEL - JAPAN

GORGEOUS WYSTERIA

TUNNEL

- JAPAN -

G'day folks,

Welcome to an exquisite tunnel of cascading flowers.

It’s practically impossible to walk through the pastel-colored passageway of wisteria flowers at the Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu without imagining an elegant fairy princess and her one-horned white steed prancing alongside you.

A member of the pea family, wisteria is an ornamental vine, wildly popular in both Eastern and Western gardens for its graceful hanging flowers and its ornate, winding branches. Easily trained, the woody vines tend to reach maturity within a few years, at which point they bloom in cascades of long, lavender flowers of varying pastel shades. There are about 150 flowering wisteria plants of roughly 20 species that create this famous colorful flower tunnel.

Make sure to visit in late April or Early May, during the “Fuji Matsuri,” or “Wisteria Festival,” when the magical tunnel is in full bloom. Because many visitors come to the gardens during the blooming season, you need to book your time slot in advance.

Arrive at any other time of year, and its appearance will be a disheartening mass of lifeless, twisted branches.

3 May 2021 - AMAZING FLOWER PARADES - ZUNDERT, NETHERLANDS

AMAZING FLOWER PARADES

- ZUNDERT, NETHERLANDS -

G'day folks,

Flower parades are held all over the world, but the one that takes place in Zundert, the Netherlands, is extraordinarily artistic. It’s also the largest parade in the world. Huge floats are made of wire, cardboard and Papier-mâché', and entirely covered in dahlias in intricate designs. The dahlias for grown specifically for the parade, and thousands of them are required just to cover one float.

The huge floats are made by twenty different hamlets and each of them consists of hundreds of builders, aged 1 to 100, who are all equally crazy about the Bloemencorso. The older members of the hamlet are often responsible for planting and growing the dahlias, while the younger ones build the float in large temporary tents that are built exclusively for the event.

Building a float for the Bloemencorso is mainly a social event. Builders of all ages work side by side for over three months to get the float of their hamlet ready on time. It has to be as perfect as possible in order to win the competition. The parade itself takes place on the first Sunday of September, but the members of the hamlets work on their floats all summer. The tents are put up in May or June and from then on the volunteers put all their effort in creating the giant artworks. The last three days before the actual parade are the most stressful.

Because the flowers have to be fresh, the hamlets can only start applying the dahlias on the floats on the Thursday before the parade. If necessary, the builders will work day and night to have their float ready on Sunday.

Most people in Zundert will happily give up their days off to work on the float. The social cohesion that comes from building it is very important. A hamlet is like a family where everyone knows each other and everyone is welcome. After a long evening working on the float people drink a beer together and most hamlets organize all kinds of other activities like song contests and barbecues.

Clancy's comment: Beautiful. What an extraordinary amount of work involved.

I'm ...

12 February 2021 - THE BEAUTY OF TULIPS

THE BEAUTY

OF TULIPS

G'day folks,

There are many beautiful flowers in the world, but few have ever competed with the abundance and pure beauty that the tulip represents. This gorgeous and colorful flower has many festivals in its honor held around the world. Because it can be grown in so many bright colors, it makes for some beautiful celebrations.

Colorful fields of tulips as far as the eye can see. These were shot in British Columbia, Canada. Many places around the world celebrate tulip festivals. These fragrant and beautiful flowers used to be so popular that a phrase was coined: "Tulip Mania".

In 17th century Holland, tulips were so important that you could measure someone's social status by the exotic tulips they cultivated. At the peak of this 'tulip mania', individual exotic tulips would be sold for more than ten times the annual salary of a skilled worker.

Purple and red, green and pink. A celebration of colors. Not all tulips are fragrant, but all of them can be eaten, and indeed during WWII and the 1944 Dutch famine, people survived by eating tulips and sugar beets.

At one point, the tulip was the most expensive flower in the world. At one point during the height of Europe’s tulip mania, a single Viceroy tulip bulb was purchased for two lasts of wheat, four lasts of rye, four fat oxen, eight fat swine, 12 fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four casks of beer, two tons of butter, a complete bed, a suit of clothes and a silver drinking cup!

The Canadian Tulip Festival, which claims to be the world’s largest tulip festival, is a major event held annually each May in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. During World War II, the Dutch Royal Family took refuge in Canada. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born at Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943, and the Canadian government declared the land to be extraterritorial. This was done to ensure that the princess would have Dutch citizenship. Every year since, Queen Juliana and the royal family after her death have sent tulip bulbs for the festival.