A Rare Occurrence

Snow is so rare on the Côte d'Azur that today we're taking a break from our walk through Roquebrune village.

Snow on the mountains in normal, but I've never had it settle in my garden before. Here you see snow on the Prickly Pears this morning. The steep track up the road is solid ice and snow, so for the moment I'm snowed in but the sun is shining and hopefully most of it will have melted before nightfall. Earlier I had no water - presumably the water counter at the top of the track was frozen but now - 11 a.m. - it's running again.

All very boring to anyone used to snow, but so unusual here. The dogs are mystified...and having the best fun.

To see snow in Casino Square in Monaco please click on the link - great photos thanks to my friend Maggie Calkins.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

The oranges in the Jardin Bioves are ripening...streets everywhere are laden with fruit. Menton is once again the City of Lemons and Oranges.

**********************************

Around six months ago I was contacted by an English guy, Alex, who lives in Prague asking for permission to use several of my photographs for a new Monaco/Côte d'Azur website, at the time in preparation. This has led to my being part of the CITYOUT team of journalists. Two days ago, the new website went Live in Beta test. We hope to launch fully in the first quarter of 2010.

You'll find hundreds of fascinating articles on everything you can think of relating to life on the French Riviera and Monaco. I'm proud so many of my photographs and articles appear on this site alongside those of the talented journalists in the team. Please click on CITYOUT Côte d'Azur. You'll also find a link in the side bar of this blog. The website, by the way, is also in French and Russian and will eventually be launched in several other languages.

And that editor in Prague? Well some of you know him already...Alex has recently started his own City Daily Photo blog featuring his part of Prague, Vrsovice Daily Photo..

Walk to the Monastery of l'Annonciade - the Passion Flower

The Passion Flower, here covering a wire fence, is a most appropriate vine to pass on the way to or from the Monastery. There are around 500 varieties of passion flower but this known as the Common Passion Flower or Blue Passion Flower (Passiflora Caerulea).

The "Passion" in "passion flower" does not refer to sex and love, however, but to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion:

* The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.
* The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.
* The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (less St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).
* The flower's radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns.
* The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail
* The 3 stigmata represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).
* The blue and white colors of many species' flowers represent Heaven and Purity.

The photographs of this walk were taken at the end of May, by the way, in case you wonder why we see such a flower at this time of the year.

Walk to the Monastery of l'Annonciade - the Gum Trees

We're walking down to Menton from the Monastery. On the left is a wild area of land covered in eucalpts and pines. Whenever I see a ecalyptus tree I think of my years in Tasmania and Cairns - the gum trees of Australia are so beautiful.

We are about half way down the Chemin du Rosaire at this point and looking out over the centre of Menton.

Pink

A metre or so along from yesterday's lady on a bench is this tree - behind it, the sea. Looking at the flower I thought it must be an orchid tree - a Bauhinia - but the leaves are not Bauhinia leaves and the flower is more rigid. Does anyone know what it is?

P.S: Thanks so much to Semi who left a comment that this is Chorisia Speciosa.

Procession Votive - The Olive Garden

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

We're almost at the village. We pass this public garden of olive trees on the right and if we sit on one of those benches, the view we see is in the smaller photograph.

We are looking across to Menton - you can see the church steeples of Menton rising up out of the Old Town. And beyond we look towards Ventimiglia and Bordighera in Italy.

The procession will go from the church in the village and finish at a pretty little chapel that is opposite this olive garden, when it will be full of people - but we'll see that at the end of this little series.

To read the history of the Procession Votive please click on the link.

The Dreaded Cicadelle

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

There's a glut of figs at the moment but there's also a glut of the dreaded cicadelle and it's been here all summer.

The cicadelle pruineuse is a tiny grey moth that covers the wood, the leaves and the fruit - it also leaves a nasty white sticky fluff. However, it doesn't harm the fruit. I won't use a chemical pray and anyway if you spray cicadelle, it simply jumps off and lands on the next plant or tree.

Picking the fruit tho isn't the best fun - dislodge the moths and they fly into your face. Reach for a fig and your hair is covered in this sticky mess.

No matter - the figs are delicious. I'm lucky enough to have a 100-year old fig tree in the garden - it's loaded with fruit so each day I pick them, wash them, and eat them - and I give an awful lot away. And the figs that fall from the higher branches get scoffed by the dogs.

Midsummer in Menton: the Young Avocados

Copyright 2009 Menton Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

This avocado tree grows in a Gorbio garden. The fruit is coming along nicely but there's still a long way to go before it's mature. November to January seems to be the time here but I believe much depends on the variety.

If you enlarge the main photo you can very fine lines, probably spider mite.

A gardener friend who grows many different varieties of avocado in Menton told me that the village of Gorbio is too high and therefore too cold in winter for avocados to grow. This tree proves him wrong. I live below the village, ignored his advice and planted two avocado trees three years ago. You need to have two different - and specific - varieties for pollination to take place. They are coming on well and this year blossomed for the first time - so far no avocados but fingers crossed for next year.

Rotten

Menton is famous for the Fête du Citron which takes place in February and many of Menton's streets are lined with orange trees.

Now the oranges are rotting on the trees, a few have fallen, but it always surprises me how long they hold on. These trees, which will be trimmed soon, line each side of the Jardins Biovès - alongside the plane tree we saw the other day.

I presume they are not harvested for consumption because they are such a bitter variety - also they'd be polluted by the cars that drive past them. And of course, they are such a beautiful symbol for Menton that the authorities probably like them to be visible for as long as possible.

Tomorrow, get your running shoes on, we've a 10 kilometres run along the beaches.

The Plane Trees of France

The plane trees of France. Apart from Paris, one of my first memories of la France was as a teenager, driving down to the French Riviera. It took two or three days as we drove through tiny villages, stopping for long lazy lunches in the sun. There were no autoroutes in those days.

Narrow country roads, lined with plane trees - I've never forgotten - the beginning of my love affair with France.

Here's one of those wonders in the Jardin Biovès in Menton.

Cascade

A cascade from a plant that appears to be a member of the banana family. I presume this is the fruit and wish I knew its name. There it was, swinging gently in the breeze, at the pretty Square Etats-Unis which is a small public garden surrounded by high buildings and used, in summer, for concerts.

Chuckeroon's Menton - Erigeron karvinskianus

A long name for this small daisy-like plant photographed by Chuckeroon. You see it everywhere in the south of France, tumbling out of walls and seeding very easily. It's a very useful plant to fill gaps in a garden but beware, it can take over.

May in Menton - Echium

Every year I show you this amazing plant so here is some of this year's growth for anyone who hasn't yet seen it. It grows wild in the south of France, seeds easily and is loved by bees and butterflies. It's called Echium 'Pride of Madeira.' It can get a bit leggy after a few years and sometimes gets so heavy it falls over. Time then to take cuttings for the next year.

May in Menton - Cistus

Cistus is such a good Mediterranean plant. Flowers like paper, petals falling, more flowers arrive.

Theme Day: Yellow

The first of the month and so once again it's Theme Day in the City Daily Photo community.

With the theme being 'yellow' the most obvious choice for Menton would be a lemon, after all, Menton is the citrus capital of France. So I give you a small photo of lemons but the main photo I couldn't resist - mimosa tumbling over the entrance to an old villa in a backstreet of Menton. Both photos were taken within a few metres and a few minutes of each other at the end of February.

Yellow is such a happy colour - the colour of sunshine. I hope it's shining for you today.

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun. "

Pablo Picasso 1881 - 1973

Over a hundred photographers will be posting their interpretation of today's Theme - you'll find so many different and imaginative responses to the word 'yellow.' Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Aloe! Aloe!

Plage des Sablettes and the aloes are in bloom. They line the edge of the beach and at this time of the year show us they are not just spikes and barbs.

Aloes are brilliant plants for our climate - there are many different varieties and like all succulents need little water. And some, like Aloe Vera, have medicinal uses.

Nude with Oranges

A naked lady in the Jardin Bioves in Menton.

The Blue Bench

A narrow street in the Old Town. A garden on the walls of this old house. A painted bench.

If you don't have a garden, create one.

Autumn - Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea in a Gorbio garden - an olive tree in the foreground - fallen olives on the steps.

The photograph was taken on the 11th October and it's still in flower today. Actually, the flowers you see are not flowers, but 'bracts.' The actual flower of the bougainvillea is small and generally white. Each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts in the bright colours associated with the plant - here a beautiful pinky/red.

The name comes from Louis Antoine de Bougainville, an admiral in the French Navy who discovered the plant in Brazil in 1768.

That's our horticultural lesson for today!

Summer's End - Russelia

A corner in Menton's Old Town brightened by a Russelia in a pot. Russelia Equisetiformis - also known as the Coral Plant - grows easily in the south of France although I don't have much luck in my garden. It originates from tropical America and Mexico and has a beautiful cascading form and colour that is so pleasing. I've also seen it in white and cream and bought both but neither survived.