A Windy Afternoon

The sun is shining bright but the weather is windy, those moments that you enjoy the breeze touching your face and making your hair dance. Perfect time for gardening. Since our house is fronting northeast, the sun shines on the southwest. I uprooted stubborn weeds and pruned and removed the dried leaves of our ferns. The six doggies were busy gallivanting around in the garden. Sadie who is so close to me, watched me while gardening.

My Calatheas are blooming nicely together with my ferns and Crossandra plants.

Tonight will be the second night of Simbang Gabi, nine nights novena before Christmas day. Since I could not hear the mass clearly while inside the church, I opted to watch online mass last night. My sense of hearing is clearer when there are no noise obstructions. One can choose which church to visit online because most of them simultaneously start at 7 :30 pm. Dawn masses are held at 4:30am.

Amazing, my left ear hadn’t hurt since I left my ENT’S clinic yesterday, thank God. I hope this would be the start of the healing of my left ear.

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New Post

Just updated my gardening blog, Gardens and Empty Spaces located in my blog links here.

Evergreen. It’s been so long that this book was in my shelf. It was published in 1978, first book of Belva Plain. I wonder why I ignored reading it for so long. It is my first book of the author, a wonderful saga of an American-Jew family. A richly written and finely detailed story about the family’s struggle in American soil. This is the second time I am giving ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to a novel. Have you read it?

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Gardening

I recently updated my gardening blog at GARDENS AND EMPTY SPACES (arlene1027.wordpress.com). I posted some garden blooms and my new finds there. You may want to visit it. Thanks.

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Relaxing Wednesday

Finally, I could relax. We were done trimming the carabao grass yesterday afternoon. Gardening is hard of course but it is a fulfilling job. So lovely to see a clean garden from weeds and unwanted growth of grass. Now I can concentrate on replanting and sowing some seeds I bought earlier.

It seems I’ll be able to finish my Goodreads’ reading challenge for this year afterall. I was not able to read when we had Covid last May. It was almost two months before I started again. I’ve said before that I committed myself to read a hundred books this year. I am on my 86th book now. I found this lovely book online entitled No Promises In The Wind by Irene Hunt.

Here’s a brief summary of the book culled from Goodreads:

It’s a tale of a brave young man’s struggle to find his own strength during the Clutch Plague. In 1932, American’s dreams were simple: a job, food to eat, a place to sleep, and shoes without holes. But for millions of people these simple needs were nothing more than dreams. When he was just fifteen years old, Josh had to make his own way through a country of angry and frightened people. This is the story of his struggle to find a life for himself during those turbulent times.

It is actually a short novel which you could probably finish in one day. I slept late last night just to finish half of it. I am beginning to discover some unknown authors whose works are equally absorbing.

Today is the Feast Day of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of Catholic priests. St. John Mary Vianney, pray for us as we continue to beg God for more priests who shine with holy and human virtues. HAPPY FEAST DAY👏🙏⛪

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Welcome August

Took this shot yesterday of my Ruellia plant. I have three colors in the garden.

My gosh, time flies as always and before we know it, the BER months are here.

July has been too quiet except the time I had my second dose of Pfizer vaccine middle of the month and two trips to the grocery store across our village gate.

How often do I hear these words, follow your road. Life has been a little too quiet the past one and a half year since this Covid pandemic began. I learned that appreciating silence is so much better than going around town to see every one. Aside from being afraid of this Covid (I should know, coping with it was hard enough), I got lazy the past days so I usually read. Almost done with my Goodreads’ 2021 reading challenge with thirteen more books to go.

Gardening is another thing that I am focusing on. Except for trimming the carabao grass, I’m done pruning and weeding too. I enjoy shopping online, looking at cheaper items that I could buy. Delivery fees are cheaper at Lazada than going out. Fares have doubled since March last year.

Yesterday, I bought these button flowers which are commonly called Globe Amarant, nice mix with my other purple flowers.

I hope I will be able to propagate the seeds when this plant matures.

Follow your road. It maybe hard with all these problems our country is facing at the moment. Sometimes, it is also hard to just stay at home being quiet. This is the life we hve right now.

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Growing Things

I need potting bags or seedling bags.

My youngest brother and I had a nice talk last night.  We talked about gardening and he showed me his garden, his vegetable plot and some plants that Lanette, his wife is nurturing inside the house.  Some had LED lights focused on them so frost would not let them die.

I showed him several photos I took  of the garden. He was so impressed and suggested to have some  replanted so I could sell them too. Anyway, gardening is the “in” thing here now because most people stay in their homes with not much to do because of this pandemic. Why not indeed?

This morning, I transferred some Fish Eye  in five pots. Since I don’t have extra pots, I decided to order seedling bags at Lazada and  I plan to grow some cuttings of our  plants here.  I haven’t seen any Arius tree around except the one in our garden. Crossandras are self-propagating like crazy at the back of the house. Maybe I need to separate my Bichetti grass too into several pots. I need soil, looking for sellers on the net. My Shrimp plants and Syngonium need to be trimmed so I am thinking of propagating those too.  Bleeding Hearts are aplenty, so with my Fukien Tea plants.

My brother said, “start now so you would have something by December”.  He talked to  Alden, my brother who resides in the province and the latter told him about the plants they have sold lately there. Our garden in the province is quite big and my sis-in-law is an avid gardener too.

A friend promised to send me one of his plants this week – a gold moss stonecrop.  I saw their  garden and some are growing in bottles with water.  A few months ago, I sent him some seeds of our Ternatea plant for his collection of dragons. Yes, they eat flowers. Maybe, he is just returning the favor and I appreciate it.

Wanna sell seedlings? Why not? Gonna try it one of these days.

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Fresh Pick From The Garden

I’m waiting for some pods to show their faces. The flowers are plenty though, just perfect for blue rice or tea.

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Waiting For Sunny Days

Busy,  busy  Thursday morning. Several loads of laundry and the sun is not even shining. It is again obscured by clouds.

I was thinking, today is August 23, eight days more to go before the BER months. Aren’t  you excited? Well, I am.  It only means December is getting near.

Gosh, how time flies. It may sound a bit redundant but it really does. Before you know it, 2018 would just be a leaf in the calendar.  And here we are, getting older  but still enjoying what life deals us every day. The little things, the seemingly insignificant things that sometimes we just take for granted really make life worthwhile.

The other day, I spent a little time in the garden pruning our fruiting kalamansi trees, I have to  prune the small trunks touching the steel matting fence. We have to give way  to my growing blue ternatea plants. They come now in blue and white flowers.  I am also excited to plant the mixed Portulaca and  variegated Four O’clock seeds I bought at the grocery store a few days ago.  Just waiting for sunny days so the seeds won’t rot in the so wet soil.

Portulaca or Purslane. Plant them today and they will give you lovely blooms tomorrow.

 

Portulaca is also called moss rose. Although I have them now in yellow and white colors, they only have single-petaled flowers. They are pretty little plants that need only a little moisture to grow and bloom.

I used to grow Four O’clock outside our perimeter wall at the front, but they died after a few years.  They are summer plants too and bloom in the late afternoon (yes, around four o’clock) and early evening. They could be grown in containers too.

Four O’clock. Image from Google.

I bought multi-colored seeds of the Four O’clock plant. I hope they would give me these similar blooms later on.

I am thinking of where to transfer the three seedlings of my Roselle plants. They are still in a pot but they need  a space where they  could also climb since they could grow about three to five meters.

It gives you that nice feeling touching the soil, seeing  the garden plants bloom before your eyes giving you that sense of accomplishment. Somehow, Nature is kind enough to share its blessings with you.

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Samut Sari

Trying to use Tagalog words lately for the titles of my post. And before you ask what samut  sari, it simply means miscellaneous. for me though it is a smorgasbord of thoughts that I’ve wanted to write about.

It’s been three days I think since my last post.

I’ve been bitten by the lazy bug. Every time I find a few minutes  in front of my PC, I don’t know what to write about. Honest, the truth is, I’ve been busy fixing the garden and going back and forth to the bank to have Mom’s ATM card changed to EMV. Bank of PI has so many clients that they overlooked some accounts of various depositors by not being  ready with the card change including my  social security pension account. “EMV chip technology is becoming the global standard for credit card and debit card payments. Named after its original developers (Europay, MasterCard® and Visa®), this technology features payment instruments (cards, mobile phones, etc.) with embedded microprocessor chips that store and protect cardholders’data.”

Finally we are due to get both next Tuesday. Mom has to be present at the bank to receive her card. She has no choice.

Been busy  gardening, but of course. I have to change some pots and plant more ornamental plants. I took photos of some blooms, the others are just starting to sprout.

My white Dendrobium orchid.

I also planted Wandering Jew and some creepers in hanging pots along the fence.

Dendrobium in a mixed color. I also have some in greens but they are just buds.

Our fruiting calamansi (Philippine lime)

 

I wish I could add more but I am saving on space. The big surprise was a gift I got yesterday from our neighbor and good friend Jomari. He gave me a cultivator and weeding hoe from Ace Hardware. I really appreciate this since it would be a big help for me when gardening.

I miss reading, I’ve set it aside for a while so I could fix the garden. Maybe this week, I’ll start reading again.

 

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Bloom Where You Are Planted

I miss the flowers in my garden.

Ever since we had it landscaped  eight years ago, some  flowering plants  were replaced  by greens – Fukien tea, gold dust plant, Tagaytay cherries (Bonsai when they were planted but now they have grown). Our lone Gardenia died on us last year. I didn’t think  of propagating it when it was alive.

Crossandra blooms and shrimp plants though are flowering all over the garden and my Amazon Lily gives its occasional bloom twice or thrice a year. My Shamrocks (oxalis) produce  tiny white flowers non-stop.  I have them in green and purple.

A portion of my carabao grass is dying.  I don’t know why, maybe the soil is no longer that conducive for the grass.  I am thinking of having it replaced  bu then the Thai bamboo which we put on top of our concrete fence needs replacement too.  It is quite expensive to replace them.

I water them now twice a day since it is already just like summer. The sun is so hot during the day while it is still cold at night.  Yes, the summer wind is blowing our way.

I am waiting for my Vinca to start blooming soon. Vincas are perennial plants  and they love the sun.  All that is left of my Bromeliad are two pots. Gone are those lovely foliage that I had before.

Gardening is hard and maintaining one is even harder but I just love it.

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