Sunday, It’s Sunday

Happy Sunday all!

Caught the earliest mass schedule at 5 am. There is a certain advantage in attending an early morning mass.  For one, the church is not full, you can choose a seat. Another thing, you can watch the sunrise filter through the stained glass windows of the church.  By the time the mass is finished, the  early morning sun is full on your face. And the little morning breeze is just right, not too cold, not yet hot. Along the way, I bought a big box of hopia from my favorite vendor.

The ternatea I planted from seeds have shown at least three inches of stem with leaves. Wonderful. The flowers could be used as tea or decorations in a  dish. Looking forward to those blue lovely flowers. Ternatea is also called butterfly pea. It might be a good climbing shrubs for my newly stalled steel matting fence.

I am propagating my double-petaled pink Bougainvillea. Hoping it is a success.

Have you noticed? Why does WordPress no longer have that  Reblog buttons. I wonder why.

Here’s a lovely quote from Alfred Austin:

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.

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Life’s Little Pleasures

 

Wild flowers growing in the mountains of Tanay.  Finding simple joy in seeing the best of nature!

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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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Health And Garden Watch

It took me a week to see an ophthalmologist. Finally though yesterday, I was able to see one. The doctor suggested I go to the hospital so she could do the necessary tests for my myopic eyes and  matured cataract. It is my left eye which is affected and may need an operation later. She said it is an outpatient procedure and will only take an hour.  It is  quite expensive of course but I am praying my health insurance would cover it all.  I asked her if reading so often did that but she said we will all have cataract one way or another when we grow old.  Being hypertensive and diabetic may have contributed to it though. One thing that most of us openly ignore is our vision.  I don’t normally go to an optometrist or an eye specialist except when I change lenses for my eye-glass. I wear two pairs, one for long distance and one for reading. the ophthalmologist advised me not to have new lenses.

Last Sunday, I noticed some new shoots of the Vinca and Lantana that I planted from seeds last January. Even the eggplants are showing off and my bell peppers are now flowering.  The bottle gourds  have almost reached  the trellis.

Pink Vinca

A deep pink Vinca. It’s almost purple.

My orange Zinnia., a mini Zinnia actually.

The beauty of gardening – when you see flowers bloom and your veggies are all thriving.  I  picked  an unripe  green jackfruit today to be used as veggies. It is a yummy recipe either cooked in coconut cream or sautéed in ground pork and shrimps.

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Wednesday Thoughts

Finally, finally I’m done with my monthly ritual of trimming the carabao grass.  It’s a good thing that for the past two days,  the afternoons were breezy.  Just right for gardening.

The rocks behind and in front of  this very small Mayana stem used to be a design  of a long  rectangular flat  pot   for my Bonsai Juniper but after only about three years, it died on me.  I don’t know how to take care of Bonsai plants. Even the Bonsai Tamarind which the landscape gardener  put in a corner of the garden died too after one or two fruiting season.  Maybe they really need special care that I don’t know about.

Our compost pit is now ready for use. The lower part is just right to use for planting, the leaves and veggie peelings have turned into a rich soil.  Since I don’t   have extra pots for my remaining  eggplant seedlings, I  made use of two 5 gallon mineral water bottles.

Oh and our two jackfruit trees are bearing fruits again. I counted them, 15 in all in various sizes. Two more months and some would be ready for harvest.

Two days ago, I was surprised for a sudden increase in my stats. The usual 120 to 180 visits turned into 569 in one day. When I took a look at my dashboard, the numbers came mostly from the US. Whoever you are, thank you for visiting my blog and reading my older posts.

May you find moments that make you laugh and sing and dance and smile today. Have a lovely and blessed Wednesday.

 

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After The Rain (My Garden Blooms)

It’s the third day that the weather is quite erratic. We experienced the first rain in March two days ago.  Yesterday afternoon, there was a short downpour but enough to water the plants and clean the streets of  dust. We went back to a cold morning today with a drizzle. And here I thought it is already summer because the past days have been a little  humid and sultry.  Lucky me, I don’t have to water the plants at  least for two days or more if this weather holds.

I went out for a while to take a few shots of my garden blooms. As it is not yet summer, there are only  a few of them. I planted bleeding hearts yesterday and my amazon lily is  in bloom again.

My Pandakaki. I just trimmed some of them.

We call this kangkong.

I was quite surprised when I saw these lovely flowers in one of the pots where I planted  the water spinach. It is also called swamp cabbage in southeast Asia and kangkong in the vernacular.

Wandering Jew

Easy to propagate.  they  are called  wandering jew (Tradescantia pallid).   They need bright  but indirect light.

Adenium Obesum

The only pot I have of this. It is flowering again. Locally we call it dwarf kalachuci.

Shrimp plant

Shrimp plants are also easy to propagate. This variety though is more delicate than its sister, the golden shrimp plant in yellow blooms. Those  light pink to rusty-red bracts  hold tiny white flowers at the tip.

The garden always looks lovely after the rain.

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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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