2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
The Egyptian resort town of Hurghada is a small paradise on the hot desert sands. The purest waters of the Red Sea smoothly run onto the gentle coast, tightening the tracks, or scatter like brilliant splashes on concrete piers or rocky coast. And everywhere all kinds of shrubs, decorated with wonderful flowers, turn green
Of course, there are much more than three flowering shrubs in the city. But these three are found everywhere, adorning Hurghada with their bloom all year round.
Hibiscus
This plant has long lost its exotic halo and grows even where cold winds blow and snow envelops the plants, protecting them from frost. True, in such places, Hibiscus is more comfortable in greenhouses and rooms where it is warm and light. After all, a plant was born in warm regions.
But still in Hurghada, Hibiscus strikes the imagination with its thoroughbredness. Powerful branchy bushes frame the walkways with a dense wall, displaying their lush green carved petiole leaves, abundantly decorated with funnel-shaped flowers of all colors.
For many, Hibiscus flowers are associated with roses, and therefore the plant is even called that: Chinese rose, Sudanese rose, Rose of Sharon, Rose Altea. Although Roses are botanically assigned to the genus Rosehip of the Rose family, the Hibiscus represents the Malvaceae family.
Indeed, Hibiscus has much more in common with our dear and unpretentious Mallow than with Roses. But it is inferior to frost, in contrast to the Malva wintering under the snow.
Like Mallow, Hibiscus can decorate its branches with double flowers. But ordinary funnel-shaped bells with a perky protruding elegant stigma, in my opinion, look more spectacular.
Katarantus
A modest subshrub with glossy simple oval leaves, growing with caring owners who do not forget to give it moisture, pleases with abundant flowering of simple, but cute flowers of various colors all year round.
In shape, the flowers are very similar to our phlox with large flowers. Therefore, people who are not interested in botanical names of plants call the plant "Phlox". But the scent of Katarantus is inferior to Phlox.
Since the plant is short, it can be found everywhere: 15-centimeter bushes can decorate a small flower bed; serve as a flower border or frame a garden path; fill the near-stem space with a dense rug of Date palms, Acacia of all kinds; or grow as a single bush on a green lawn.
Like all unpretentious plants, in favorable conditions, Katarantus grows rapidly, turning into a weed that displaces other plants.
Katarantus is also a healer for many modern ailments, but it seems that in Hurghada no one knows about this yet, or all people are healthy. The latter is quite likely, because even the air is healing here. Tourists who come here with coughs, runny nose, allergies, after three or four days forget about such ailments.
Lantana
A fast-growing branchy shrub with beautiful leaves of a strict dark green color and inflorescences of miniature graceful flowers has firmly established itself on the streets of the city and the territories of hotels.
Its spicy-mint thick aroma whets the appetite, forcing cafes and restaurants to work almost around the clock. The fruits of the bush also look very appetizing, in structure similar to unripe raspberries at the beginning of life and to blackberries, as they ripen. Since the fruits are considered toxic, especially when they are green, in hotels, wilting flowers are promptly removed, not allowing them to bear fruit, in order to avoid curiosities with tourists.
In addition, Lantana easily propagates by self-sowing, turning into an annoying weed, which also forces gardeners to track the stages of plant development. Therefore, periodic trimming of bushes, which maintains the shape of the curbs, is not conducive to fruiting.
But the abundant flowering pleases those who walk, delighting with a rich color range. Here and white; and yellow, darker in full sun and paler in the shade; pink turning to purple or red; orange … The inflorescences, consisting of differently colored flowers that change colors as they grow, seem especially amazing.
Note
More details about the listed shrubs can be found here:
about hibiscus
about Katarantus
about Lantana
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