Flower growing, varieties and care, the flower trade and commercial flower farmers.
FlowersAfter the rose, the chrysanthemum is the most popular flower in Bangladeshi gardens. How to recognise powdery mildew, leaf spot, grey mould and aphids, and what to do at each stage, from spacing, mulching and careful watering to baking-soda and soap sprays and, when needed, fungicides.
FlowersSecond only to the rose in popularity and a first-rank flower in world trade, the chrysanthemum rewards careful growers. Climate and soil, raising plants from suckers and cuttings, planting time, the potting mix, disbudding for large blooms, and control of aphids and fungal disease.
FlowersSabdi, a village near Narayanganj city, is known for flower farming; as winter begins its fields fill with sunflowers, marigolds and roses, and it makes an easy day trip from Dhaka.
GalleryHemanta is still about 15 days away, yet chhatim trees across Sylhet are in flower, and after dusk their sweet scent drifts through the city's lanes.
FlowersThe shiuli, or night-flowering jasmine, with white petals and an orange stem, opens at night and drops before dawn; from September to November its fallen flowers and soft scent mark autumn, though cities are losing the big trees and open ground it needs.
GalleryAfter days of rain, drops cling to balsam, allamanda, crepe jasmine and periwinkle and to the flowers of lemon, bitter gourd and chilli in Rangamati: a photo story by Prothom Alo's Supriyo Chakma.
FlowersWeeks of rain have destroyed marigolds, roses, tuberoses and other flowers in the flower-growing villages of Bagnan and Uluberia in Howrah, West Bengal, while lotus grown in canals and fallow land has done well.
FlowersThalia geniculata, a purple-and-white flowering aquatic shrub a Samakal writer proposes calling jal kalaboti, has recently entered the country's plant lists and is now seen in Ramna Park.
FlowersLisa Nelson's Dahlia Valley Ranch in Arnold, Nebraska, now in its sixth season, grows more than 100 flower varieties in fields and high tunnels, supplying events, a farmers' market and U-pick visitors.
Crinum jagus, a bulbous plant from tropical Africa, flowers on Mymensingh's Bisweshwari Debi Road; each stalk carries four to twelve scented white blooms.
Scent and colour are both ways for flowers to attract pollinators; scientists say every flower has a scent, but people cannot smell some of them.
More than 300 bonsai priced from Tk 500 to Tk 6 lakh are on display at the Bangladesh Bonsai Society's 25th annual exhibition in Dhanmondi; organisers say the craft remains a hobby in Bangladesh and has yet to become a profession.
Yellow trumpet vine, a South American climber that reached Bangladesh sometime before the mid-twentieth century, survives as a single plant in the Ramna Park nursery; it is easy to propagate from cuttings and layering, yet has hardly spread.
