Graffiti

These pictures were taken during my recent walk walk along sea seafront in Alexandria:







And the same closer:


The left graffiti depicts pyramids and oil derricks on fire. The right one reads "Free forever."



This graffiti reads: "Welcome to new Egypt" and "25 January" that is the day when the Egyptian revolution begun.

Cairo Flower festival in pictures

As I wrote few days ago, the annual plant and flower exhibition has been undehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr way in Orman gardens, Cairo. I heard about this event before but the reality exceeded my expectations. During the entire month of April many nurseries bring, exhibit and sell various plants and flowers. Each nursery orange its own landscape and flower display.


Some created something simple. Other invested in more sophisticated displays.














In addition to plant and flowers, you can buy various pots (plastic or clay), fertilizers, insecticides, seeds, decorations.

I was mainly looking for succulents – the easiest plants to grow in the Egyptian climate. They thrive under heat of sun in summer and easily survive windy winters on my open balcony.

Cacti:















Portulacarias:



Interestingly, many sellers do not know scientific names of their plants and call them by their "common name." For example, this succulent was introduced to me as “buttons” while it’s real name is Crassula conjuncta:




And this one was named “noodles” while it is Senecio herreianus:


Each of them went at price of 15 Egyptian pounds (that is $3).

Bonsai. There were been plenty of them on displays! The cheapest, regardless of the plant type, were for 200 Egyptian pounds (that is $40). Like these ones:







This was for 500 Egyptian pounds (that is $125):



This was for 2000 Egyptian pounds (that is $400):



I did not want to know the price of this one :)


By the way, I had been for special bonsai pots everywhere in Egypt. So this has been a great opportunity for me to ask where I can find them. As I expected I learned that nobody produces this kind of pots in Egypt. The bonsai growers order them from Holland. The also added that if I want then – mafish moshkele – they’ll order for me too.

There was a very big number of various fruit trees: mango, papaya, all types of citrus trees. Here is the bunch of kumquat small trees:




There were gorgeous bougainvilleas and pelargoniums in all imaginable colors. And much-much more...

Cairo flower festival

For anyone who is passionate about planting and flowers: in Orman gardens, annual flower festival has been underway for two weeks and will run until the end of April. You can find there a huge variety of plants, flower pots, fertilizers, insecticides and so on. They are open from 9 am.

I was there few days ago, spent couple hours wondering, asking gardeners and bought some new plants for my collection. I am mainly focusing on succulents.

My report in pictures is coming....