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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April Is About To End

I’ve missed so many comments which didn’t show on my tab the past days. That’s one of the things I don’t like about using my tab to check my posts. Unless I open my computer to check everything, I miss a lot. I told you, life has become lazy days too.

April is almost gone. Tomorrow we’ll start another month.

One thing that I am always reminded of every time the month of May sets in is the song by The Bee Gees, First of May. And I silently sing it in my head. Aside from December, May is one of my favorite months – the month of flowers and the month of Mama Mary.

♫♫♪when I was small, and Christmas trees were tall♫♪

April seemed to take a little too long, what with this pandemic, lockdown and all.  Sometimes all you think is what to have and what to cook in your next meal. There are lots of idle times and you have lots to do but you can’t start.  It’s like the days pass by and you just go with the flow. You think, when will this ends? When will we have normal lives again? When will this stop? And you feel helpless, do a lot of prayers and cling to your faith.

I talk to Nissa every day now asking how they are coping. Yesterday, her brother-in-law brought home the remains of their Papa in a sealed urn. It is supposed to stay in a columbarium but the lockdown hinders one to move normally. They take their temperature every day even if they know he didn’t die of Covid.  It’s been more than three weeks now since he got sick and died a week ago. His doctor siblings said it was bacterial and his kidneys were not functioning well. Such is life, surprises (even not good ones) are lurking nearby.

For the last three mornings, I woke up early to tend the garden. I am finally done trimming the carabao grass. The garden hose is new, we had to call the plumber who did the installation of the aircon three days ago to fix it.  My Pandakaki plants and Tagaytay cherry plants need pruning too. That has to wait until this afternoon when it is not too hot. Gardening is really a great way of  de-stressing, a therapeutic activity that does not need too much  expertise but just the love of the soil and all its environs.  It’s more of  experiments really because they say that there are no gardening mistakes, everything that you plant becomes a part of the garden.

I planted some squash seeds at the back garden and they have sprouted. What a joy to see new shoots.

Let’s just hope the month of May will flatten the curve worldwide.

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Pretty In Pink (Survivors Of The Storm)

Took a few photos this morning while the sun is up. They are the same plants but the flowers have survived the storm.

 
Our grotto which we had constructed after my treatment ten years ago. We used to have Koi fish here.

I was surprised by this lovely Adenium, the flowers are no longer split.

 

A cluster of pink Vinca. Sturdy blooms.

 

A single-petaled Zinnia.

I harvested Calamansi before the typhoon. The two trees shed off some of the ripe fruits during the storm. I need to transfer my Papaya seedling soon.

Have a lovely Wednesday all.

 

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Blog Update

I just posted more photos of my small garden early this morning. You can find them all here.

While I was browsing Memories at Facebook, I saw two more shots of Nissa taken eight years ago. Nostalgic…remembering those moments. These are not official shots though.

According to Facebook, this is my most-liked photo of 2011.

 

My caption at Facebook says: I just love this, the two people so dear to me captured in a frame together. Nissa in a seemingly dream-like walk towards the altar and Lovell at a distance, a loving older son who’ll have his moment when he’ll be ordained as a deacon soon.

Back then, Lovell was still a seminarian. He has just celebrated his 7th Presbyteral Ordination a week ago.

Time flies….making memories!

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The Joy Of Seeing New Blooms

I planted Zinnia seeds in different shades of pink a few months ago. They did flower and are still flowering at the moment.

This morning, I was surprised to find a lone bloom in the pretty shade of yellow. What a thrill. It was a nice surprise.

And my Shanghai Beauty is showing beautiful pink blooms again. I would just trim it when the flowers have dried up.

The joys of gardening, they give that nice bit of heaven when you least expect them.

I  have harvested almost a kilo of kalamansi (Philippine lime), divided them into three small plastic bags for our neighbors. One of them gave me seeds from her pink Four O’Clock blooms. In a few months, I expect to have those pretty pink blooms which usually appear at four o’clock in the afternoon.

Don’t you just love gardening?

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Finally

Tackled that long overdue weeding outside while the laundry is on Wash. An hour of pulling stubborn weeds, a dirty  job but it is much needed. Now my snake plants can be seen in all their glory. Planning to transfer one into a pot for indoor. Do you know that a snake plant cleans air better than most other indoor plants as it has the ability to absorb excessive amounts of carbon monoxide? It also  emits oxygen and filters other toxins from the air. I scattered dried Zinnia seeds where my  Blue Ternatea plant used to grow.

One thing I am so wary of bringing plants inside (except for a pot of Chinese bamboo in one corner of the sala) is that Oreo plays with the leaves. I tried bringing in a small but robust pot of white grass before, when the day ended, almost all the leaves were scattered at the glass top of our side table. Naughty, naughty Oreo 😦

I am thinking since the snake plants have sturdy and thick leaves, it would be harder for Oreo to chew them. All I need now  is to remove the little weeds left  and  trim the carabao grass.

Heaven!

I’ll be able to concentrate on reading now. Having fun with my new tab and there are sites online where you could download e-books free of charge. I am so careful placing it back inside its box so it won’t get scratched meantime I don’t have a safety cover and screen yet. Haha, the things you do for those gadgets!

Would you believe, I sustained blogging every day for the first two weeks of August?  Hooray!  My stats has reached a sizable 585,669 as of this writing.

Just so glad there weren’t strong typhoons to induce flood. I hope the rest of the rainy days would be as good as this month. No flooding, no strong typhoons to hit our shore.

Good morning to all.

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When Gardening Becomes A Chore

Finally, I’m done weeding outside  but I have two blistered fingers  despite wearing gloves. Some weeds are so hard to uproot but I have to do it. My snake plants can’t grow well because of these stubborn weeds. At least half of the job is done. There is still the carabao grass to trim and the Fukien Tea plants and Pandakaki too.

My Pandakaki blooms. There are several but they are so tiny.

Carabao grass

I hate trimming the carabao grass. We have to use a manual grass cutter because there are lots of  concrete stepping stones in between. Hopefully by the weekend, Josef can help me with it. We also need to trim the Santan plants in front of our concrete fence. They are the dwarf variety but they are growing tall.

my front garden

Side yard with my two Calamansi trees

Ornamental pineapple and my bulb plant. The latter is a pink lily.

Sometimes, gardening becomes a chore that you can’t avoid.

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Let Them Grow

I uprooted the sweet potato vines early this morning.  We locally call it “camote”. We  usually use the young leaves for our sinigang or just  steam them for a few minutes and make them into a salad.  I replanted a few healthy stems  and maybe in a month, they’ll  give fresh young leaves again.

I also planted the Roselle seeds that a friend gave me together with the other seeds from his farm. I am not really familiar with how Roselle looks like. It belongs to the family of hibiscus and the flowers are lovely.  And it is edible.  Wow! All I have left for planting now are the burgundy okra seeds.  Maybe when the others have grown, I will think of where to put the latter. The blue ternatea  are slowly climbing the steel matting we put on top of our  concrete perimeter fence.  I planted the white ones two days ago along with the blue ones. I  could now imagine when they’ll bear those lovely blue and white flowers.  Lovely 🙂

Got plenty of gardening gloves but every time I visit the garden and plant those seeds, I’d rather have my hands bare. Digging the earth  with my garden trowel with bare hands, feeling the soft soil and wishing those seeds to grow well, such a lovely wish for a small-time gardener like me. Just taking advantage of the sunny days before another weather disturbance touches  our shores.  Maybe by the end of the year, I’ll have more blooms and fresh veggies in my garden. The carabao grass needs to be trimmed again and yesterday, I harvested more calamansi fruits and gave some to my two neighbors.

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. – Alfred Austin

 

 

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At The Garden With Our Pets

Planted some cuttings of Bougainvillea early this morning. I really hope they would grow healthy. Sometimes it is hard to grow plants from cuttings.

Had some time with Oreo and our other pet Noki.  Love these lazy moments playing with the dogs while drinking a hot cup of coffee. 

Camera shy Oreo. I could not see your eyes. A few more days to go and you’ll have a puppy cut.

 

Noki loves posing for the camera.

 

Enjoying some moments at the garden.

 

 

Oreo is curious while Noki is not even looking.

 

According to the vet, Oreo is overweight….haha!

It is hard to take a photo of Oreo, he is so playful.  He couldn’t stay quiet for a while except when he is asleep.

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Garden Improvements

It seems like I have to reorganize my garden after they’re done removing the Thai bamboo,  installing the steel matting on our fence and  repainting the fence and the steel matting that they will install.

My potted plants are lined up along the wall so everything has to be moved.  Others have rooted in the ground so re-potting is a must too. Busy, busy summer!

Had a general cleaning in my bedroom and changed the sheets and curtains. My gosh, it is so hot but this is that perfect time to clean and re-organize. My garden would probably look “brand new” after this  🙂

Summer is usually a busy month for carpenters  and construction workers. Lot owners choose summer months to have their houses built taking advantage of the days when there is no rain. I had a hard time finding one. His rate is sky-high and  he doesn’t accept payment on a daily basis but chose instead “the pakyawan” where you have to pay a certain amount  until he finishes the scope of work at hand.  “Pakyawan” is more costly than paying the worker on a daily basis but you are assured that they will finish the job.  One thing though, you’ll provide all the materials needed.

I think that when you begin some renovations in the house, there is always a chance that you would have to think of other things that they could do after and it involves more funding…haha!

 

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