Our cold temperature experience only lasted for 3 weeks in January- February, courtesy of the cold spillage from Russia and North China. We had then 19°C in the mornings before sunrise, and you people from the temperate countries, please don't laugh! This is the coldest we receive so far, and we are so thankful for the lovely experience. We all wish to have it longer, so we will be more efficient, more relax and of course, happier. Since last week, the easterlies with warm air from the Pacific got here again, and we are now above 30°C, our normal temps. Our dry season has not officially started, but we feel that we are already in it. Actually, this is already the beginning of our dry season. The symptoms around us confirmed all these.
The city sidewalks grasses are now brown. Many of the trees are shedding their leaves and the skies are clearer through them. Our home garden also changes its character.
Above and below are both Impatiens balsamina, both rainy season plants here. They are now at the end of their lives evidenced by the maturing pods and dehiscing flowers.
Odontonema strictum is also a rainy season plant, but it still produces flowers because it is planted under canopies of trees.
We have some plant types depending on our 2 seasons. Those above die during the dry months, while those below persist throughout the dry season despite their pitiful conditions. Most of them i trim and prune to get rid of the lanky bald branches and to produce healthy growths again come rainy months.
This bush lantana is a prolific grower during the dry season, but is now showing old age. This condition of yellowing leaves and less flowers even aggravates during the dry season and must be pruned before the rainy season begins.
Sanchezia speciosa, which i favored for its leaves is now tall and starts to produce blooms. I just pinch the growing points to delay its aging. I don't like it when a lot of protruding inflorescence comes out. Some tips were missed and still produce some flower buds like that below.
Another tolerant or even resistant species is this Dracaena surculosa. A lot of flowers are produced this time, with wonderful scent at night around 9:00pm. In the morning, these flowers are already closed and the scent just happens during the time of blooming.
Dracaena surculosa blooms are not only sweet scented, they also look like sparklers in the dark! I am so glad it is planted just near the living room, flooding us with its mild scent while we are viewing TV.
Ixora javanica is a tree species, producing bigger and heavier umbels. This particular plant is maybe around 10 ft tall. It also normally starts flowering at the start of the dry season continuing until May when the rains start to arrive. It is mostly vegetative throughout the rainy months.
The above yellow cosmos came from seeds i got from a trip, only 1 plant grow to this height. It was just cared for with constant watering, so able to grow nicely in a pot. The petioles are reddish so i am expecting some different pinkish petals when the flowers mature.
Among our plants, the above is the newcomer, as it's just been exhumed from the wild portion of our property where we normally thread upon. I originally thought it was a hoya so am ecstatically expectant for it to bloom. However, blooms after a few months proved it is not a hoya, maybe Dischidia rosea or Dischidiopsis parasitica, with those lipstick-like dark red flowers. But the plant itself is lovely in a hanging basket. I guess i will love it together with the hoyas.
This one is the most tolerant because it has been with us since time began! We normally erradicate this in the property, but now i allow a few plants because the butterflies very much love them. It is bushy that produces maybe 4-5 inflorescence per plant, so you can imagine the butterflies visiting them.
Of course i will not end the Garden Bloggers Bloom Parade without showing the plant that is keeping me busy while at home. They actually get most of my weekends. I arrive after lunch on a Saturday and leave at 3pm the next day, and these hoyas make me feel like i still need more time at home. There are no blooms last weekend, but the peduncles are enough to make my weekend so rewarding. It might take 3 more weeks for the above to open and i hope to come home again with them still in full show! I will post them next month's GBBD if they will wait for me.
What wonderful bloomers for Valentine's day week. They make me want to get out and work in my own gardens. I did pull some weeds earlier this morning and that did feel good. You and I grow some of the same things, but you've also some I'm not familiar with.
ReplyDeleteHave a great week and Happy Valentine's Day to you ~ FlowerLady
Hi Lorraine, Happy Valentine's. Even if we have almost same plants it is easier to grow them there in your conditions, and easier to garden there. It is so hot now in my part of the world, i pity our plants really! In fact, i feel a little envious with your conditions, but i don't want to garden in places with much deeper winters.
DeleteSuch very beautiful tropical flowers. But I do have to laugh at your low temperature - we were at -27°C this week at our house!
ReplyDeleteHi Al, Happy Valentine's! Thanks for the kindness, i still have a lot of blooms that didn't find place here! And i laughed too at your reply of -27°C! How lovely our world is!
DeleteGosh, 19C does seem cool for you. You would need a jacket then. ;-) But it must be pleasant after constantly hot weather. I'm fascinated by all your tropical plants, especially the Dracaena that looks like fireworks! Thanks for sharing these warm, bright images!
ReplyDeleteYes Beth that is already cool for us in the lowlands, and if we want a semblance of the temperate countries we go to our summer capital at the highlands of Baguio City. There we get frost with the lowest temps last Jan of 8°C, where we can use our jackets, hahaha!
DeleteThank you for posting those tropical plants. We are covered with snow and ice. Love all the colors.
ReplyDeleteJM Illinois
U.S.A.
Thanks for the visit, i am always posting my flowers to perk up the hibernating senses due to deep winter of my blogger friends. I had a disclaimer at the beginning not to laugh for feeling cold at our coldest 19C, hahaha!
DeleteThank you for sharing so many beautiful flowers, each photo is gorgeous. So many that I have never seen before, a delightful learning experience. I was awakened at 2.58 am by the sound of snow plows and am very grateful to the people who gave up a good night's sleep to clear our roads. Even so, the roads will be icy and unsafe to drive upon today. I don't think we will be going anywhere. Thank you for visiting my blog. To answer your question I had my camera set on the sports setting for action to take pictures of the flying fish. Also, manatees are marine mammals and this link gives a very good description of them. http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/manatee/. I have enjoyed learning about them too. Wishing you a great day, and I hope it warms up for you also :)
ReplyDeleteOh no Denise, I am praying that our temperatures don't get higher. If you read the first paragraph, i told there our conditions. Thanks for the link on the manatees.
Deletep.s. Happy Valentine's Day!
ReplyDeleteFascinating flowers. Some of them I have never seen before! Wonderful shots!
ReplyDeleteYes Mary because you might not have been in the tropics perhaps, just like the temperate flowers that i only see in blogs. But hoyas are common in European countries! Some even grow them better there than mine.
DeleteI do laugh at my family members back in India who say that they are shivering because the freezing winter is there. What's the temperature? 12 degree C!! Eh! that's our summer temperature :-P. But jokes apart, you have such exotic and beautiful flowers -- I never heard those names; I can't even pronounce. I could only remember the red shrimp plant and it looks beautiful.
ReplyDeleteKL, can you imagine the acclimatizing ordeals of our people here who migrated to Alberta, Canada already as adults! They often encounter around -37C, and when they can't resist anymore they come here for vacations. hahaha!
DeleteWell here are my Valentines Day flowers and they are beautiful.... I loved my visit Andrea.... Michelle
ReplyDeleteWhat a wealth of flowers! And you must all like them otherwise you wouldn't have them in your garden:) Didn't realize that the Dracaena blooms at night! With your love of flowers - a happy Valentine!
ReplyDeleteI just realized that too after living with them for a long time, since birth! Haha. And you should smell the scent, so lovely unlike its bigger cousin, D fragrans, which is actually foul for me!
DeleteThis tropical scene is just what I need on a cold snowy day.
ReplyDeleteI am glad i was able to at least give you a semblance of warmth, during your deep winters of purely white snow!
DeleteA Justicia that I have not seen -- be sure that I will look for one.
ReplyDeleteWe know Balsam Impatiens as 'Touch Me Nots" for no good reason that I can see. Maybe it has to do with the exploding seed pods.
I look forward to the season when I grow tropicals again. Thank you for the reminder of how glorious it can get.
Jean, I've seen the real "touch-me-not" in Sweden as weeds, maybe the old settlers of America somehow passed the wrong name, that remains till now. We have many names of the same fate as that and they varry among regions and islands, wrong transmissions that prevailed with time!
DeleteFabulous flowers to warm my heart and soul
ReplyDeleteI didn’t laugh, honestly – but I did smile. 19 degrees in the morning before sunrise. I wouldn’t mind having that as the coldest I ever got. But then again, I wouldn’t like to have as hot as you have it for 10 months a year, and no real seasons. I guess the ideal climate doesn’t exist, but I do wonder what it would be like!
ReplyDeleteAs usual you have a lot of amazing plants I have never even seen before, wonderful :-)
Hi Helene, hahaha, i put that at the beginning because I know how deep in winter many of my blogger friends are. It really is funny to me because 19C is already our coldest here in the lowlands, although some of our highlands get as low as 8C. Of course, that is still high temp with your standards. I agree with you, there is no ideal climate, it just depends on where we are living most of our lives, as I for sure cannot live in negative winters! Thanks for dropping by.
DeleteIt looks like we share similar temperatures at the moment; many of your blooms are very familiar to me. I do love the tree ixora. We can generally only buy the smaller shrubs - I have a white one and a number of 'Pink Malay'. Occasionally I see a different taller variety, like yours, most often in quite old gardens. I might have to try to strike a cutting. Have a lovely GBBD.
ReplyDeleteHi Marisa, this is your first time here, thanks for your visit. Yes we have many common plants because you have subtropical climate. But it definitely is easier and lovelier to garden there, and the growths are easier there than here were we only have a very short duration of lower temps. Yes Ixoras are very tolerant of dry and hot temps, and they are loved by butterflies so i maintain them.
DeleteUnlike you, I love the sancheza flowers, so I only snipped of a long chunk to make the bush more compact only after the flowering has ended. its great browsing through your interesting collection of flowers.
ReplyDeleteHi Elsie belated happy Valentine's. Meally bugs here love to dwell inside the intricate pockets of sanchezia flowers, the more that needs them pinched!
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