Shades of Grey: Pomegranate

Monday, January 3, 2011

Pomegranate

At a nursery almost two years back, I noticed these beautiful bright-orange flowers on this oriental looking plant. The leaves were small oval shaped, not dense, the stems were thin but hardy. The plant seemed to give an aura of grace and dignity. I did not recognize the plant immediately as I was so fascinated by the showy orange flowers on this plant hardly two feet tall. The nursery assistant confused me a bit by saying this plant is only grown for the flowers, and not for fruits. I thought it cannot be the pomegranate, perhaps a flowering version of it. At that time my exposure to plants was rather limited and I mistakenly believed pomegranate shrubs did not thrive well in our climate and the fruits were small, and hardly edible. At least the shrub that my mother used to have hardly bore fruits, and when there were fruits, they were normally small , hard and dried up pretty fast. I thought this plant was grown for ornamental reasons rather than for fruits. Lately however during my walks around the neighborhood, I noticed that some people grow shrubs with nice looking big pomegranate fruits so it must be the species rather than the environment.

Anyway, I decided to buy one plant from that nursery as I rather liked the flowers, and I thought the plant was nice looking. Initially I placed this plant in a container. It soon flowered and I liked the flowers very much indeed. As the man said, the flowers did not convert to fruits. It soon outgrew the container, the leaves tend to dry up and it did not look healthy. I decided to transfer the plant to the ground. Pretty soon it flowered again and subsequently bore me three fruits. I liked the buds and flowers as the colors really stand out against the foliage. I guess orange must be my favorite color for flowers..... here are some photos of my first pomegranate shrub taken sometime this year (oh no, I mean last year 2010).

When the flowers bloom

The Buds

The petals about to unfold...

Buds only

The small fruit..sweet!

The 2nd Pomegranate Shrub

About a year back I bought a second plant. The man at the nursery assured me that this plant will bear big juicy fruits. These couple of weeks I noticed buds on this second plant. Take a look at the photos I took over a few days. I am feeling very delighted and in much anticipation of nice fruits to taste.....lol! With fruits or no fruits, these pomegranate shrubs are nice looking and pleasing to the eye. I like them very much. In fact I propagated a couple more plants from the cuttings when I trimmed the plant. The cuttings take root easily actually but are slow growers until established.