Small Delights from the Garden......

It actually takes very little to  feel happy. They say "Count  your Blessings",  if we do  that  we won't have time to do much of anything else....lol!  Happiness as they say is our choice.  I  would love to start the day off with a cup of  steaming coffee in my hands, walking amongst the plants growing in my mini garden enjoying  the small delights offered to me.......except the garden is really too small to have a nice leisurely walk.  More like exercising the eyes to scan from one end to the other!

In this neighbourhood, many senior folks love to take morning walks.....they  walk  in small groups or in pairs, chit chatting ..... one can often  hear joyous laughter erupts now and then.  I love to see these old folks  enjoying their twilight years in good company. Two days ago one of them stopped  by my place and examined those plants  on the other side of  the fence.  Finally she asked me if I would like to have a plant from her garden, the red  Ti plant. Since I already have  the plant (posted 28th August 2010), I invited her into my garden, and showed her the plant I have.  She seemed very pleased  that I have this plant in the garden. Then she spotted my Ylang-Ylang  plants ( posted 25th June 2010) and she  became visibly excited.  She exclaimed that she grew up in the kampong (village) and the Ylang Ylang  was a common sight those days in the village.  I plucked a flower for her.  A reminder for her childhood days.  I judged that she must be in her early eighties.

Cockle shells in the Garden?

See  what I found growing at the base of the gardenia shrub this morning ?  A baby Bird Nest Fern (posted 11th August 2010) !

Potted and ready to be "hang" ed !

Well can't have  the baby bird nest fern  competing with the gardenia, so I dug it out and put it in a plastic hanging container. This time I will hang  the pot, as  recommended by  Mr James of Garden Chronicles.  Maybe this pot is too small, but that is what I have at hand for now....





These couple of  months I have been enjoying the Bolivian Sunset (posted 11 th July 2010).  Due to the rain, they have been growing really well. With the hot weather coming round, I suspect they will do their disappearing act pretty soon.....that was what happened the last year  when the weather turned hot......! I love the cute little orange flowers.   They have been sprouting up here and there in patches, and I love the lush dark green leaves.

 

Finally  -  the kalanchoe (previous post) is starting to bloom !  The Blood Lily is holding on....not doing much, perhaps too much attention   ..   lol!

    

 

Anticipations with capital "A"s ...... !

The tiny pomegranate fruit

These few days  I feel very rewarded by my gardening  ventures  .... seeing the passion fruits and pomegranate (one flower converted to a small fruit...not sure if it will drop, but  there are more buds coming up.....), the miracle of the Sawtooth Coriander, the garlic vine blooming again unexpectedly, leucophyllum recovering .. etc, etc......,  all thanks to  the nice cool  weather ! 



Now  I have these capital 'A's  ....  First take a look at this photo.  Want to take a guess  ? 

 This is the Blood Lily (posted 21/11/2010) plant.  Remember I mentioned that this plant can be without leaves but with a bloom ?  When I first saw it  happended some years back, I thought this was so  unusual.   About a month or more back, I decided to relocate this plant to a container, as it did not seem to be doing well on the ground,  being shaded by the passion fruit vine.   For some reason  unknown, the leaves just  continue to wilt away.   I thought  perhaps it was getting too much water from the rain, so I moved the container under shelter, but exposed to sunlight. I was so worried this bulb plant will totally rot away!  So I kept  monitoring it just to make sure it was doing okay.  At first it puzzled me to see this strange thing appearing  where the bulb is.  It does not look like a new leaf coming up. Now that it is slightly bigger,  it  suddenly dawns on me that is is a bud coming  up !  I  hope I am not wrong - I hope I will get a bloom pretty soon to share.

Another anticipation is from the Kalanchoe plants.....they are  budding.  Take a look...
  

These kalanchoe plants are  succulents, thick leafy leaves . It loves a bit of shade, noticed the leaves gets bigger than compared to exposure  to direct sunlight.   It is a non fuss easy to care for plant.  I planted them on the ground as I think they make excellent ground covers.  I noticed they will rot away if watered with too much water.  When I see that happening I moved them to another spot where there is no water logged whenever I watered the plants. They grow back easily.  The flowers actually last for a couple of weeks or more. My kalanchoe plant had flowered once before, the blooms are red but single petal.  Very attractive and appealing.  However they are not prolific bloomers.  Around Chinese New Year, many vendors sell these plants at the market, all blooming prettily. I was always tempted to buy other colors as well, but just can't make up my mind which color to select....maybe the purple, but then the orange and yellow are just as nice....oh well  until I make up my mind I am sticking with these red ones that I have ....haha  !