Another Kind of Apple

Here's another kind of 'apple' which I have in my backyard, which is technically not an apple! Those people who name the plants just love to confuse us.  

This pineapple plant had produced the perfect pineapple two years ago. We harvested that large, heavy fruit and had a feast. I was planning to pull out the plant but noticed two small suckers growing from the sides of the parent plant, so I decided to leave the whole plant intact. After two whole years, now I have two more perfect pineapples to admire...and then to enjoy, of course. Who's complaining? Not me.


Linking to Haiku Heights for the prompt "Innocence"

Innocence is not all 

it appears to be

pure and  pristine but prickly 

Linking to Macro Monday and Mosaic Monday.

      

Rose Apples in Abundance

For Fertilizer Friday I'm flaunting my rose apples. They all look just darling, but not all of them were good enough to eat. I am so frustrated that 30% of the fruits fall to the ground, and 50% of those on the trees had worms in them. What went wrong? I had wrapped most of the bunches with paper wrappers to protect them from being infested by pests. Evidently that was a futile course of action. My apologies to those whom I had meant to distribute the rose apples. Is there anyone out there who can offer me a solution to this problem?

Half-ripe on the tree and full of promises.

Precious pink offerings for Pink Saturday at Beverly's.

Three baskets filled with pink hope.

Here's a macro for Laura's Macro Friday.

Rosy, juicy and a pleasure to see...

Well, not all my great expectations were dashed. The 20% left that were salvaged, were sweet and  juicy. Those who had a taste were most satisfied.

Steadfast and True

What's blooming  in my garden lately? Well even though my plants are suffering in silence from neglect as I've been gallivanting about quite a bit this month, the perennials are doing alright, and one of my older orchid plants decided to bloom to get my attention. Aren't they my steadfast and truly loyal friends?

Here's that old friend I was referring to ...my large cattleya, I'm ashamed to say I do not know what type of cattleya she is.







She may look a little unkempt, but look deeper and you see the beauty deep inside her:








Here's my waterlily...always there by my side, a cheerful presence that lifts my spirits; no wonder, she has a heart of gold:










Let's take a closer look at this flower from my climber. I do not know what it is, but it blooms all the time. She also has a heart of gold!












I should let them know I appreciate their companionship and that they light up my life! Can anyone teach me how to speak to my plants? I gather that they can hear us and respond to our tone voice...is that true?


For Fertilizer Friday, visit Tootsietime, for Macro Friday, visit Blogging from Bolivia.

A Bandung Garden Style

I have just got home from Bandung, Indonesia, where I was looking out for garden designs, and I found one that can be said to be typical of an Indonesian garden landscape.I was quite pleased to have found it.

Bandung is in West Java, Indonesia. It is on  a slightly elevated location, about 2,500 ft above sea level, and the cool temperature there produces luxuriant vegetation all year round!


Apart from the green plants, the Bandung garden design would often incorporate the stone art which is crafted in Indonesia. There are wall relief statues, stone statues, figure statues and animal statues which are displayed among the trees and borders. 

This is such a pleasant, calming statue to have in a Balinese garden.

Strange that the designer had added a Roman fusion (in the background) to the Balinese theme! 

For Macro Monday, here's a close up of the face of a stone figure statue:

A guardian spirit?

A popular feature is to incorporate epiphytes of all sorts onto huge trees.

A close up of the attractive red succulents and air plants (which look like roots ).

An orangutan and child 

This is for Mellow Yellow Monday:

Sprays of orchids like sparklers in the noon day sun.

See what I mean by luxuriant? Such well-fed foliage!

A variety of textures, patterns, shapes and shades of tropical greens and ferns.

This unusual flower is from a tall tree...unknown species (to me, that is).

And for Mosaic Monday, two animal statues:







Please visit Macro Monday, Mosaic Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday and Yard Art Thursday for more garden delights.

Let's Fall In Love

I have decided to share with you for GBBD a personal video I made for my friends when we were having the time of our lives enjoying the gardens of New Zealand. This is a departure from my usual format of presenting my posts on botanic gardens, but it was such fun making the video and we had such wonderful memories of those beautiful gardens that I think you might also like to view how we were falling in love...with the spectacular blooms and trees and garden features...have a giggle at our antics.

Let's fall in love

Why shouldn't we fall in love?

Our hearts are made of it

Let's take a chance

Why be afraid of it

Let's close our eyes and make our own paradise

Little we know of it 

Still we can try

to make a go of it

This song is dedicated to all garden lovers...to make our own paradise of our gardens!

Thank you Carol for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and thank you Anni for Thursday Theme Song. Do take a walk over there at Carol's and Anni's to see  what you're missing over there.