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A garden enthusiast who loves to travel and capture the beauty of places and freeze the memories of her travels in photographs, as well as document her experiences in verse...thankful for the simple pleasures in life.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Agapanthus - the African Lily


For Haiku Heights
Prompt:Command


Lily white petals, pure
Softly bend in the breeze
A mother's command






For Macro Friday, click here.

For Macro Flowers, click here.
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For Haiku Heights, click here.


For Haiku my heart, click here.




For Today's Flower, click here.
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For Straight Out Of The Camera, click here.

To the hosts of the above memes, thank you for all the weeks of fun you give to me.

False Start

Some of you might remember how ecstatic I was back in December 2010 when I posted about my fruit trees rewarding me with a spurt of flowering activities. This was after I was away for more than 3 weeks in New Zealand, admiring the spring flowers there. Little did I imagine that my own backyard was having a season of mellow fruitfulness! 


I harvested lots of longans, lemons, limes, guava and even kaffir limes. But my rose apple tree which had lots of flowers at the start, began to shed most of their tiny fruit. It was probably because the strong winds that characterized the North East Monsoon in November and December were a trifle unkind to my rose apple tree. But the initial photographs I took of the flowers had filled me with dreams of a bountiful harvest.


This was the photograph I had posted last year.
       
  
But to my disappointment, all that materialized were these few fruit that could not fill up the plate, not to mention the fruit basket I had visualized would be filled to the brim with these rosy rose apples.




 


This year, in mid February, the tree began flowering in earnest. After that false start last year, I dared not hope for much, but from the look of the quantity of buds, flowers and young fruit on the tree, that basket I had in mind to fill with my rose apples would be filled to the brim more than once over! Just see for yourselves the abundance on the tree!



The view from under the canopy looking up, is inspiring and certainly thrilling:





Some close-ups of the buds, flowers and fruit:


Tootsie, you'll love these...



Let this not be another false start, but a fresh start. Keep your fingers crossed for me !!!

For Tootsie's Fertilizer Friday, click here, and for Blooming Friday,click here.

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Royally Yours

The first time I visited Sydney was in the middle of summer. There wouldn't be any spring flowers for me to enjoy, I knew that, so what I was looking forward to were to see the roses in bloom. My first encounter with Australian-grown roses years ago was in Brisbane, where I saw the largest specimen of a rose I had ever seen in 'Just Joey'. When we were at the Royal Botanic Garden, 
the Feature Garden where I spent more time exploring was the Palace Rose Garden. It was in full bloom, with a mixture of standard, bush and weeping roses.


















The Rose Garden here, I learned, is a popular venue for weddings. My daughter had been invited to her friend's wedding there that summer. How romantic, I thought.







 Summer also brought with her hosts of blue, indigo-purple and white agapanthus  or 
 African  Lily. The name agapanthus comes from the Greek agap (love) and anthos (flower). 
 It is most appropriate for a wedding to be held in the midst of these Flowers of Love, I would
 say.






Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Different Rose

My Desert Rose



Like the camel...






she defies the desert sun...



emerging triumphant....





after the drought....





only to be brought to her knees...



by torrential rains...




My Desert Rose



For Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, click on the link below:

http://www.maydreamsgardens.com

Monday, March 14, 2011

Red Rubies in Mygardenhaven

Ruby red heart of the dianthus...does that symbolize passion? Or could it be a burning fire of jealousy in one's heart?











Then there is the speckled ruby of my red vanda, wonder what this precious gem symbolizes...she is an awfully reliable bloomer and when one spray is spent another soon takes its place. Sometimes I get two new sprays! To me she represents constancy. 













For more Ruby Tuesday and Macro Monday, please click on the links below:

                 MM3            
                  http://lisaschaos.com/                            http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Blue

Four square pots
With blue plumbago
Share your thoughts
On how to make them grow




As you can see, my plumbago plants are still too little for their pots. They have not grown much since I planted them almost a year ago. Oh dear, what can the matter be?


For Blooming Friday and Mosaic Monday, click on the links below:


Blooming Friday    
                              http://rosorochris.blogspot.com/    http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com