Green Hour challenge 12

After a few weeks without Green Hour Challenges we're back and started to focus on garden flowers. We have some flowers on our front yard and we'll take a closer look at those next week. We started off however by visiting two flower/garden shops nearby. The first one had wonderful roses by the entrance and Luana absolutely wanted her picture taken with them.

We talked to the extremely helpful owner of the shop and she allowed us in her garden where she keeps the plants (she only has a small shop in front of her house for attending people). Lucas was really happy to explore the garden that resembled more a mini jungle :)

We got to know lots of new flowers and learned the names of some. These are called amor eterno (eternal love). This is also a medicinal plant that helps with gastritis and some other stomach problems (the leaves are used for making tea).

This one is called flor da Amazônia (flower of the Amazon). It actually grows into a tree and the leaves surrounding the small flowers turn either white or pink so that it looks like there are huge flowers on the tree, a bit like poinsettia (euphorbia pulcherrima).

The names of these flowers are probably popular names as I couldn't find anything on the internet with these names.

And then there were obviously lots of gorgeous orchids. I didn't even start to take pictures of them as it would have been difficult to stop :)

Luana posing in front of some of the flowers in the second shop we visited.

Once at home we planted some flowers too. The only seeds I happened to have already were marigold seeds so that's what we planted. While we were at it we also planted some leeks, zucchini and basil just to see if they grow. Leeks are extremely difficult to get hold of in this part of Brazil as is fresh basil so I'm anxious to get them growing in our own garden :) The kids loved the way the seeds were so different. The ones in the picture are marigold seeds, zucchini had large white seeds and both basil and leek had small black seeds.

The kids have been taking good care of the pots with the seeds. Last time we planted things the dogs and some really heavy rain ended with our little project. This time the pots are safe from the dogs and from too much rain. And this is what Luana found this morning! The marigolds are already starting to grow!

This all was so exciting for the kids (and I really enjoyed myself too!) so we're looking forward to continuing with the garden flowers theme.