Have you ever been to the Keukenhof In Holland, the famous flower parK? I must admit that I never went there, although I was living very close. The flower fields I know, I used to bike a lot through the area. And when I was a child every year the whole family went to see the flower parade in Hillegom.
Here there is no Keukenhof. That does not matter, because the entire island looks like one big Keukenhof which from week to week seems to wander from one place to another. Here you have fields full of yellow flowers, changed to fields of red or purple flowers. In the region of Agiasos the flowers are overdoing it.
It is already weeks ago that around Molyvos the purple, violet, blue and pink anemones made way for the red anemones which are nearly finished flowering as well. When last week we went to Agiasos we were welcomed by fields of many coloured anemones, daisies and yellow- green euforbias. The higher you go, the later the anemones flower.
We saw fields full of pink, rose and purple anemones close to Plomari some weeks ago. Funny thing was that there they seem to grow in groups of colour, each group had their own. Here as well as in Agiasos, all colours are mixed. But it seemed that Agiasios had opened some pots of paint. I know they used to paint flowers in France. Bright pink and bright purple. Well, those were also the colours of the anemones near Agiasos. I never saw such colours that bright and hard and they nearly hurt your eyes, that bright they were glowing. We just could not believe our eyes...
These past weeks we saw a lot of coloured flower fields on the island, but the fields around Agiasos were the best. Thanks to their crazy colours and their stylish mix with the white daisies and the soft coloured euforbia's. For the moment they get the First Prize.
When so many flowers try to grab your attention, you should also look for the small ones. I already wrote about mini-mini flowers. At the moment it is also the season for the orchids. The island counts over 70 species.
Speaking about orchids I always think at those beautiful scaped flowers which are often used as a corsage at weddings or during a romantic rendezvous. Here on the island they are mostly somewhat smaller and when you do not pay any attention you easily miss them. Only when you're nose to nose with them you see their beauty, or better, their waywardness. The names are wonderful as well. Last week we found a 'naked-men-orchid'. In the field it looks like a ball of flowers, but if you look more closely you see that each flower has a naked man on its 'lip'! And believe me, you do not need too much imagination to see that.
We found a 'mirror-orchid', but here I do not quite understand why they give it that name. Sunday we ran into a 'bumblebee orchid' and those who love orchids do not jump up thinking that we found a new species (actually there exists a bee orchid), I gave it the name because this 'spider orchid' really looks like some bumblebees hanging on to a stalk. By this masquerade they seduce a bee to bring some pollen. And I must admit, this works very well, because we found several huge colonies of them.
Looking for all the orchids on the island is like an Odysee. Try to find them between all those magnificent flower fields. So, no, we do not need a Keukenhof here. We've got the Lesvian Flower Fields, made by nature itself. And when you want to visit them you do not risk landing in a traffic jam, nor do you have to pay any entry. It is probably due to bad PR that the Japanese have not yet discovered Lesvos and invaded the island with hundreds of planes.
Well, it is true that we have no tulip fields here on the island, but somewhere there must be some tulips hiding. I do love tulips and therefore we planted some Tulips from Amsterdam under the olive trees. Their fancy flowers just peek out of the tall growing grass and the field looks like a colourful Easter egg.
It is a little too early, we celebrate the orthodox Easter a week later than you do. Then probably the tulips will have lost their flowers. Though thanks to all those bright spring flowers we are already in the Easter mood. We wish you a very Happy Easter.
Copyright © Smitaki 2006
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