Guateflora: Tumbergias
As you can tell if you have been following the daily updates of Antigua Daily Photo for the last 14 years, I …
Guateflora: Albahaca
Here’s your illustrated Spanish word of the day: Albahaca for basil. Believe it or not, basil is actually quite popular in the …
Guateflora: Fuchsia Bougainvillea
Here’s a close-up look at vibrant fuchsia bracts of the bougainvillea climber plant; definitely the most popular flower plant found in the …
Guateflora — Yellow shrimp flowers from Antigua Guatemala
We continue our close-up look at the flowers found in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala with camarón amarillo, as we know the …
Guateflora: Salvia Cordón de San Francisco
Here’s a close-up look of another popular flower found in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala: Salvia leucantha commonly known in Guatemala as …
Guateflora: Hortensias
We continue our close-up look at the most common flowers found in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala with Hortensias the common name …
Guateflora: Cinco negritos
This week we will take a closer look at some of the most popular flowers found in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala. …
Guateflora — White shrimp flowers from Antigua Guatemala
Two small updates from Antigua Guatemala. I can’t believe that I hadn’t shared with you the flowers known here as camarones blancos, …
Guateflora — Jade vine
Strongylodon Jade flowers are vines similar to the colorful and strange-looking flowers of a climber plant known locally as Tumbergias (tunbergia misurense …
Guateflora: Coqueta flower
Is it the remains of rain or the dew from sunrise, what do you think? If you any of you guys are …
Guateflora: Clavel de cerco
Half jokingly I stated that I wish I had some Google Goggles with me every time I go out to take photos …
Guateflora: Orejas de Elefante
These mammoth green leaves are known as Quequeshque or Orejas de Elefante, Elephant Ears, in Guatemala because of its gigantic size. The …
Guateflora: Jacarandas
Interesting enough, last year when I published the Guateflora series, I overlooked the jacaranda trees, which are omnipresent in and around Antigua …
Guateflora: Duranta Lila
A simple shot to commemorate the sunshine, the purple, the ever-present spring and to revive the Guateflora series. This photo was taken …
Guateflora: Llama del bosque
This kind of tree with its orange flowers is very popular around La Antigua Guatemala. According to the Guateflora book its name is Llama del bosque (flame of the forest) which brings me to an interesting fact between the English and Spanish languages. Forest in Spanish is bosque, but deforestation is deforestación. In English the root for the word bosque is still available as bosk for a thicket of bushes. Can you come up with other samples?
Guateflora: Chichicaste Hedge
Poison Ivy is without a doubt the most famous ivy in the family; especially after Drew Barrymore gave it human traits. I am not sure if we have poison ivy in Guatemala since I am not familiar with the plant. But, we have our own poisonous plant: Chichicaste. The scientific name is Chichicaste grandis and it belongs to the Loasaceae family, but here we just call it chichicaste. The chichicaste plant is used often in hedgerows and if you have followed this blog for a while, you will know that this is not the first time the chichicaste has entered the viewfinder. I know of two kinds of chichicaste, the regular kind and chichicaste de caballo (horse’s chichicaste), which has a leaf about three times the size of normal chichicaste.
Guateflora: Falsa Uva (False Grape)
The hoja de falsa uva (false grape) or Parthenocisus inserta as it is known scientifically is a trepadora (climbing) plant. In the trepadoras category the most often used are the hiedra (ivy), uña de gato (cat’s claw), falsa uva (false grape), collar de la reina (queen’s collar), and of course the ever-present bugambilea (bougainvillea). The trepadoras (climbing) category in the Guateflora book has 34 different plants, so I have homework to do. 😉
Guateflora: Falsa Manía (False Peanut)
Falsa manía or Maní forrajero (false peanut) as it is known in Guatemala the Arachis pintoi is a cubresuelos (ground-creeping) plant used often in the garden of La Antigua Guatemala. José, our gardener, told me that you can also use it a trepadora (climbing) plant if you guide it. I really like this evergreen plant which flowers all-year-round a tiny yellow flower. According to the Guateflora book, it can grow anywhere and handles well people walking over it.
Guateflora: Hiedras (Hedera/Ivies)
Hiedras (Ivies/Hederas helix & H. canariensis) are very popular as well as all kinds of trepadoras (climbing) or cubresuelos (ground-creeping) siempreverdes (evergreen) plants in La Antigua Guatemala. Hiedras and trepadoras are found in many antigüeño homes covering the gardens’ walls.
Guateflora: Cactus Pot
Believe it or not, the land around La Antigua Guatemala was a very ‘fertile’ arid zone before the introduction of the coffee bush as a crop in 1875. I know fertile and arid sound like two mutually exclusive words, but they were not in Guatemala before 18th century where the Nopal and Maguey cactuses were grown in plantations. I’ve even seen photographs of the nopal plantations around La Antigua Guatemala in the CIRMA Fototeca (The Photo Archives at The Center for Mesoamerican Research).
Guateflora: Colas de Quetzal
You know you are in a Guatemalan home the moment you see the Colas de Quetzal (nephorlepsis spp.) or Quetzal’s tails (ferns) hanging in the corridors. The Colas de Quetzal bracken has to be one of the favorite ornamental plants used in the Guatemalan home. Some of these ferns or brackens are native to Guatemala, but they are considered cosmopolitan because they can grow anywhere. Colas de Quetzal can grown in hanging baskets, pots or in the ground, but they need some shadow to maintain the evergreen colors. The above photo of Colas de Quetzal was taken at Vivero La Escalonia (5a av. sur final), a very popular nursery in La Antigua Guatemala. Vivero La Escalonia is a great place to have breakfast or lunch.
Guateflora: Coffee Bushes used as Hedge
We continue our Guateflora series with the omnipresent coffee bush or tree, which has manage to leave the coffee plantation to become a hedge. The coffee bush is one the most often seen plants around La Antigua Guatemala, but not often I’ve seen it used as hedge. The above photograph was taken at the Compañía de Jesús building, with the ruins in the background.
Guateflora: Close-up View of Gerberas
Gerberas (gerbera jamesonii) are a very popular flowers in the gardens of La Antigua Guatemala. Gerberas are found in yellow, white, red (like the picture above), orange, purple and pink. Gerberas grow in temperate-cold climate and give their beautiful flowers throughout the year. This particular shot was taken at Vivero La Escalonia in the south part of La Antigua. (source for technical information: Guate Flora)
Hibiscus Flower and Dramaticly-lit Ruins
I decided to place the vibrant hibiscus flowers [rosa de jamaica] in the foreground and and dramaticly-lit ruins as backdrop. I made several shots switching for the focal point from the flowers to the ruins as well making horizontal and vertical orientation version… TAP to see the full size photos and post.
These Gorgeous Jacaranda Blossoms Herald Spring!
These jacaranda flowers also mark the Lent season with their vibrant purple flowers. Today I share these colorful vista of the purple …
Enjoy the Crimson Strongylodon Vines
Last year when I shared with you the torquoise Strongylodon vines I mentioned that there was an even more rare color for …
Antigua Gardens: Verdant Walls
Verdurous walls covered with lush wall creepers or bougainvillea plants are quite common in the gardens of Antigua Guatemala. Take a photographic …
Quotidian Vistas of Antigua Guatemala — Pour over walls plants and flowers
It’s been a while since our last post on the Guateflora series. Our daily life vista is framed by the plant called …
The Dry Season Is Coming To Guatemala
Welcome to the land of the eternal Spring where flowers are always in bloom even during the dry season that spans from …
Preparing a wall for climbing plants
Climber plants are very popular to cover walls around La Antigua Guatemala as shown in Guateflora: hiedras. As you can see in …
Jacaranda Tree at Central Park
There are several jacaranda trees in Parque Central which make a gorgeous display of purple or violet during February and March when …
Flowers for Día del Cariño
The price of flowers goes up exponentially around certain dates like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, just to name a few. A …
Inside Patio and Fountain
Here’s an interesting idea, cover the patio with transparent laminas plus a pergola framework where one can hang the Colas de Quetzal …
Earth Day Wallpaper From Antigua Guatemala
Today is Earth Day so I am sharing with you a wallpaper for your computer from a typical green vista of Colas …
Flowers Are Us
Believe it or not, in La Antigua Guatemala we have flowers in our gardens year around. We also are lucky to have …
Colorful Fiambre Chapín
Guatemala is such a colorful country; everything from flora to textiles, from architecture to food is saturated with the richest rainbow. If …
Jardín Antigüeño: Hortensias
Sometimes you live so fast that before you know it, life is over. Life is not a race that you want to …
Selling Heliconias on the Streets
It seems like this corner is good for the sale of exotic flowers, such as heliconias. Last time I reported on the sale …
Jardín Antigüeño: Nazareno
Throughout the archives of AntiguaDailyPhoto.com you can find many of the plants and flowers available in and around the Antigua Guatemala gardens. …
Jacarandas at Central Park
I don’t know how it happened, but I had lost this vista of the Jacaranda trees in bloom at La Antigua Guatemala’s …
The Remains of Holy Week
Well, it seems like the color purple will be with us for a while longer. The flowers above are known colloquially as …
Coffee Harvest Time in Guatemala
Yesterday’s photo was a close-up of the coffee bush in the lower left corner of today’s photo. If you click on the image above you can the coffee bushes (the small trees) being harvested under the shadows of the Gravilea trees in San Pedro Las Huertas, La Antigua Guatemala. Around La Antigua Guatemala you can find coffee bushes everywhere, including as part of the hedges of La Compañía de Jesús ruins.
The Library Tour: the reception desk
We will begin a mini tour of the library at the Compañía de Jesús building under the care of Cooperación Española NGO or Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional as it is called in Spanish.
But first the disclosure: I love libraries; even chicken bus libraries! 😉
The Roads Around Antigua Guatemala
From the Guateflora series we take a different road to show you the lush roads around La Antigua Guatemala. By the way, the roads that communicate La Antigua Guatemala with the rest of the ‘real’ Guatemala are some of the best in the country, if not the best; they are kept in better conditions than the rest of the roads around Guatemala.