Purity and Elegance Combined...my white hibiscus

Dressed in a simple white ball gown and adorned with a simple yellow ornament, she steps out into the limelight...a radiant tropical bride.



She pirouettes and looks up coyly at her groom.



"Take my heart, but please don't break it", she whispers.




Linking to Fertilizer Friday and Macro Friday.

What brings me joy...a tranquil garden.

This is a repost from one of my earlier posts last year that I transferred 

from another blog to this one. 

Whilst  searching for what brings me joy for Travel-i-Tales' meme, 

MISSION QUITE POSSIBLE, I kept thinking of the time I was enthralled 

by one particular garden...a tranquil, joyful garden.

I found joy in this place we happened upon, in Ashburton, New Zealand. 

It is a privately owned country garden belonging to Alan & Catherine Trott. 

This award winning garden is open to the public. I can imagine it being a 

favourite venue for weddings. As we walked along the woodland garden, the 

birds were singing more joyfully than I've heard birds chirping elsewhere in 

the other gardens we've visited. You just cannot help but be happy there. I 

was telling Alan Trott as we were leaving that I could spend the whole day 

there just reading or dreaming. It has that kind of peaceful serenity you don't 

easily get to experience. Idyllic.

I love the woodland garden. Of course I couldn't identify all the plants there;

 so it was all the more exciting discovering strange " new" species.  Among 

those which are familiar to me are the rhododendrons and azaleas and maples. 

The colours were brilliant.

The formal garden is attractive in its own right. I would love to have that 

blue garden bench between two topiary plants in my own garden! Will be working 

on making that materialise one day. 

I wouldn't be able to have a knot garden like Trott's though. It is just too huge a 

 project!

My congratulations to the Trotts for producing a living, breathing 

masterpiece!

Linking to MISSION QUITE POSSIBLE, Mission # 2

Nutty Over Palm Nuts

These are the biggest palm nuts I've ever seen. They are not coconuts, but a certain kind of palm nut. This palm is very popular as landscape plants in tropical countries. I think it is commonly known as Silver Palm. I've seen them just about everywhere, in parks and botanic gardens, but had never seen the nuts before.


Here's the palm tree, I'm sure many of you know it.

 

                                                          








Linking to Macro Monday, Mosaic Monday and SOOC Sunday