The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, “Garden Thoughts”
We had the garden refurbished today. The landscape gardener came to redo a part of our fence by changing the buho with Thai bamboo. Last year, when we had it landscaped, a two-meter expanse of the rear wall was left with the original buho fence since the Thai bamboo that they brought was not enough to cover the long expanse of the wall. Anyway, it now has a uniform look. Hubby ordered several sacks of garden soil and some cut bamboo for his trellis.
I am glad that they brought with them several pots of white and light pink Ruellia and a few pots of Golden Duranta plants to highlight my recently bought Texas firecracker plant. 
Golden Duranta or golden dewdrop as it is commonly called has a bright lemon colored leaves. It should have at least a minimum of four hours of sunlight to retain its golden lemon color, otherwise, the leaves will remain a soft shade of green. I am looking forward to see the flowers of the Ruellia plants which they planted today. I only have the purple blooms and I can imagine the varied mix of white, pink and purple in a few days. Ruellia are quite similar to Petunia . They are heat-tolerant perennials that are used as ground covers.
Don Manuel is also known as scarlet bush, hummingbird bush and Texas firecracker plant. I don’t know how it got its name, guardian of the forest. It is a semi-woody plant that grows to a height of at least 3.5 meters. Flowers are a mass of tubular, reddish-orange. The plant could be shaped and is best planted in areas with enough sun to grow best.
I would have loved digging my hands at the rich soil, sadly though, I still have cough and severe cold so I just took shots of the garden. The landscape gardener taught us how to propagate Aglonaema. They are foliage plants and they have narrow oval leaves that are attractive and eye-catching. I didn’t know that the stem needs to be cut at a two-inch length and planted in several lines in a huge pot, facing down. The upper stem with the leaves could be planted in separate pots. Our bromeliads are now repotted too, so instead of just three pots, we now have eight, just great. I was afraid to repot them this early because they might die but the landscape gardener also taught us how to do it.
What a lovely afternoon being with nature again. My heart sings every time I am in the garden.
Dreams And Escapes 
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