Lantana and the lawn, originally uploaded by malyousif.
I love these shrubs. They say that the south americans use its crushed leaves as ointments against snake bites!
Apart from that, the bulbuls love them and their berries and their minty smell is quite nice too.
Have a wonderful Friday my friends…
Comments
Mahmood, what are bulbuls?
Are they some kind of dicky birds that we don’t get in Northern Europe?
I’m sure I have seen Lantana in the UK seed catalogues, but don’t know how hardy it is. But I could do with something orange flowered to set-off the purple of the Irises.
Meggie
Lantana grows wild here. You have a nice lawn and suddenly out of no where Lantana pops up.
billT
They are virulant aren’t they? I have to really chop them down into manageable sizes quite often, but the birds and the bees love them.
Meggie, the White Cheeked Bulbul is the national bird of Bahrain. It is currently endangered due to a big influx of crows which kill their young and destroy their nests. It is also under pressure from the Black headed bulbul which has become even more indiginous than the white cheeded variety, although I don’t know from where it actually came as I don’t remember seeing them except for the last 3 or so years. Mind you, my interest in wild birds only really started when I started gardening!
oooh, i love your lantana. i can’t get it to grow here for nothing. it was so healthy in the states, but it doesn’t do well in our yard. i’m going to try it one more time this year and, hopefully, it’ll do something. yours looks really healthy…. i think your soil is mixed much better than ours. i want to try and get it redone this year to get some nice things to grow. i’m going to plant some wild flowers that i brought back from the states. i’m hoping they grow and look as beautiful as they do in the states. we shall see. 🙂
Someone told me that an ex-minister, now advisor to pacman, loved
crows and brought them from one of his trips abroad. I think they
were released as the murder of crows grew.
Sad really. I wonder how many similar situations have impacted the
island.
We need an eco – police.
btw, nice lawn.
I hesitate to ask who the ex-minister is, and who you refer to as “pacman”!
The story I heard from the curator of birds and reptiles at Al-Areen Wildlife Park that they might have migrated from India following ships etc until they arrived here. They still do have a price on their heads, literally!
Another lore I’ve heard and there is no way for me to confirm it is that the king loved red-breasted wood pigeons so he brought and released 1,000 birds in Bahrain, now they’re everywhere. As a don’t remember these kind of wood-pigeons from my younger days, and in the absence of a clear explanation, rumours run amok.
Wasn’t it only a couple of days ago that the GDN ran an almost full page “article” about some Bahraini guy who keeps crocodiles, deer and other weird and wonderful animals in his stables in Shakhoora? With a complete absence of any laws protecting the indigenous species and the environment, we can expect more of these things happening in Bahrain.
I think Lantana is quite pretty but in my birth home of Australia it is considered a nuisance weed! You should see the film Lantana too if you have not already. It is very interesting.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259393/
Anons, thanks, I’ve added the movie to my wishlist.
Tooners, I have no idea why the system thought that both of your comments were spam! I’ve deleted the earlier one and resurrected the latter. Hope that’s okay.
From my brief experience, Lantanas are virulent plants which should be managed and pruned from time to time otherwise they go all over the place. In my “tear drop” at the front of the house I’ve been chopping it back quite appreciably and in no time at all I see it flowering, and also suddenly starting somewhere else in the tear-drop!
Get a good seedling if you want to start one and look around until you find what you want. I think that most garden shops have them all the time.
I am sure various animals, reptiles and insects and migrated by means
of ships, planes, cars etc.
People have also smuggled them in for their own pleasure – i.e. the Shakhoora guy who maintains a few and apparently sells them. I usually go for my walk near his place. Should actually drop in and see what he has.
I wonder what one does when he has an overgrown crocodile or a python. Some people have kept monkeys and baboons as pets. A couple of years back, I saw a baboon on top of car, near the American Embassy. He was hanging on the roof – with the sunroof open, the owner and family kept an eye on him. Interesting sight for all of us driving by.
Recently, I heard that there is a gentleman who has Moose.
How does one top that – a bear, an elephant, a rhino.
Moose in Bahrain? I hope they are taking extra care that they dont escape and take over your vast boreal forests. Or , heaven forbid, besmirch the honour of some unsuspecting camel.
I suppose a penquin would be slightly more bizarre.
The EPA at least should have a say in this and ban alien species like these from being allowed to enter Bahrain. Having a moose here, if true, is the height of stupidity and is criminal. Just like having a Hyena which was beaten to death recently, alligators, crocodiles, huskies and other weird and wonderful animals.
Yes Mahmood it’s a good idea to prune the lantana right back to a few cms every year otherwise it gets very stalky. The pale orangey one is a noxious weed in Australia and plants can smother vegetation to 15m: also some varieties have leaves and seeds that are toxic to stock.It infests millions of hectares of pasture, and open woodland and forest here.Keep an eye on your lantana spreading! There’s a lovely mauve one that seems to be more controllable in the garden. Do mango trees grow in Bahrain?
Louise.
Thanks Louise!
Yes mangoes do grow here, and they grow best if the tree has been grafted on locally grown stalk. I know of one tree which provides a plentifull crop, the guy grafted a Pakistani mangoe on one side, and an Indian one on the other. The tree is quite established and it produces the two types of mangoes in delicious numbers every year!
Howard_coward sez… I think lantanas are really pretty.
Lantana isn’t a weed here in Monterey, but they do grow fast and can overtake a plot of land if they are happy. I have several, and some are more vigorous than others. I have one variety which has pink flowers which fade to yellow that took off, and I hardly care for it (we have a Mediterranean climate here). It didn’t get hit by frost as hard as one just feet away, and that one is strugging. I’ve got another one across the garden from the pink and yellow variety, and it’s going at a sort of slow boil… growing fast, but not nearly as quick. It’s my favorite type though, the flowers go from a fiery pinkish red to yellow.
I cut the most vigorous one back months ago and the plant is almost half the size of the original plant. They do need renewal every so often though, and cutting them back is a good way to keep them from getting leggy.
One which I like a lot is Lantana montevidensis, which is much more mat forming and has pretty lavender flowers with yellow throats. I thought I lost it last winter, but it has formed a nice foot wide mad of leaves and flowers.