From the International Garden Festival, Blois, France.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit the International Garden Festival which was held in Blois, France.



The festival was partitioned into various theme parks, whose colour changes for every season according to the choice of flowers. There were also beautiful theme colour parks based on natural materials, glass, bamboo, sand etc. which jell well with the flowers in the parks.




I have tons of photos, but I present may be one flower per day...And yes, I should thank my friends Sandrine Gicquel and Sebastien Rousseau for having taken me there driving all the way from Paris...



Have a nice day...!!

Vinca Rosea or Periwinkle

This is a medicinal plant. Its alkaloids are hypotensive, sedative and have tranquilising properties and are anti cancerous. It helps in relieving muscle pain, depression of central nervous system and wasps stings.




It is called as Nithyakalyani in Malayalam. The active ingredients of this plant are used for a variety of allopathic drugs and ayurvedic drugs especially for the treatment of hypertension and for neuro medicine. It comes with different colours and also sometimes as mix of two or three colours.

The innovative Rikshaw

This was another thing of interest that I noticed in Paris.

This is a manual/semi automatic (it also has a small motor attached for taking uphills) cycle rickshaw, but with a roof so that you are protected from the sun and the rain. The roof is aero-dyanamic and was easy to ride than a typical Indian Cycle Rickshaw. The pedaling was comfortable too.



We asked the person who was operating this service whether he was a paid employee. He said that the vehicle was given to him by the company, but he is all by himself as the company is not paying any salary to him.





Isn't it time we also have some of theseeco-friendly vehicles?

Coquelicot Flowers

This is the Coquelicot Flower which I happen to fall in love while in Paris in the last week of June 2009. The French pronounce it as Ko-kli-ko. It looks like a poppy flower with red and a tinge of orange and is seen growing wild all over the railway tracks and country side. The lighting was not good and I could manage only this photo.