Heat Tolerant Blooms of April

Our rains stopped since early March, most annuals already died, and those left alive have scorched leaves and dwindling existence. But in our garden, a few flowers are still fighting for dear life. And my mother and sister try their best to at least supply water as ration. We are so sorry for those that are farther away, they watched and hear the watering but they didn't get any share. Again we are so sorry!

This plant is flowering nicely because it is under the shades of the hoyas, and receive the drips from hoya watering. It looks so happy that way!

Lantana camara shows symptoms of dehydration, umbels get very small and begin to produce ripe fruits, but still it is providing some nectar to visiting insects. It is not only drought tolerant, it is drought resistant, never mind the invasiveness as long as there is some food for the butterflies.

This marigold is also getting drip shares from the hoyas, and is also shaded by the fruit trees shading them. At least these left over heads will provide some seeds for the next rainy season.

This might not be a flower, but the color variegations provide wonderful color contrasts even lovelier than some flowers. It is only in one pot but provide a good accent to a dull corner in the patch. Again it is sharing the nich below the hoyas, getting the shelter and the spill-over water.

This impatiens is very susceptible to heat. It curls and wilts at noontime, yet watering them again after sunset revives them in a few minutes, and they are turgid again in the morning ready for another hot war! The only caution is not to forget watering every morning and evening, forgetting it once will totally decimate them.

This might not be the most beautiful Hoya diversifolia bloom, but it came from the stalk that is being rooted through marcotting. It is a stem only as big as 3mm in diameter, so this umbel size is already a treasure. Besides, there are 3 umbels in the 3-node stem.

Another diligent bloomer is our Hoya crassicaulis. The plant used a half-coke bottle as its home, you can even see the red bottle cover. It has 6 umbels that never stop blooming, producing new buds again after the blooms dehisce. The half bottle provides a very good humidity control mechanism to the plant. The bottom part is inserted above such that the part with the cover is inside the other half. Can you visualize what i meant. Only the container with plant has small holes, and the cover can be tightened or loosened for the desired water in the media. The drips are also contained in the other bottom half to provide more humidity. 

With the performance of this plant, i conclude that my container is a good one for hoya. As a consequence, i am pooling the discarded coke bottles just for this purpose. We are happy and my hoyas are happy too! And to show that this hoya is happy, wait till you see the present characteristics of the flowers. Please see below!

There are so plenty of individual flowers, that didn't allow room for the corolas to recurve back. And all the six umbels showed the same characteristics in this present blooming. It is a very welcome abnormality because the bloom seems different than the real one! What more can i ask for!

GBBD

NF-Blo-Ma