Garden Bloom Day in June

Our rainy season has just officially started last week. These rains normally start arriving in the afternoons, so we now always carry an umbrella in our bags, in case it is raining when we leave our offices. However, there are consecutive days that are still very sunny and it easily gets so hot. The high humidity even aggravates our Heat Index or feeling of heat intensity. Even just going out accross the street literally makes our head hot. Thanks again for the airconditioning inside the buildings. During weekends, the malls are full of people taking advantage of the colder conditions than in their homes.

Our plants and gardens have also responded favorably to the first few rains. In our province the one heavy downpour in May, even before the official rainy season, was enough to break the dormancy of some bulb ornamentals; the crinums, the spider lilies, blood lilies and the amaryllis/hyppeastrum. Even the seeds on the ground scattered normally during the dry months started to sprout, and we have the native plants and weeds now growing well. Of course, it is followed by the butterflies, and the caterpillars are now emerging. In fact the early risers already turned into adults. There already are butterflies roaming in the garden now.

The parade presents:

 Hippeastrum puniceum

I have a long hedge of this species, as well as some mounds scattered around the house. However, this mound responded first to the rain in May, while the length of the hedges didn't give simultaneous flowering. 

Crinum 'Ellen Bosanquet'

This was a present by a friend in the US, and it has flowered twice since it was with me. The scent is lovely. However, all the flowers stageredly bloom in one scape. The first scape opened earlier, this is already its 2nd scape. 

 Crinum white - also with lovely scent, but the blooms are so thin it gets scorched with intense sunlight. 

 Citrus flowers

 the insects like this stingless bee has lots of nectar now from the citrus flowers

Most of my flowers are in hoyas and they are confined in one area. They also favorably responded to the first heavy downpour. The shoots are emerging and flower umbels are bigger.

Hoya multiflora

Hoya celata

Hoya merrillii

Hoya lacunosa

 Hoya alwitriana

 Hoya blashernaezii

 Hoya bifunda ssp. integra

Hoya meliflua

The flowers when it rains are very different than during dry days, because the nectar is washed off leaving only the pale color of the corolla. 

 Hoya pubicalyx with round leaves

  Hoya pubicalyx with round leaves

I posted the flowers because they are from separate plants. The chimeric flowers are beautiful reminiscent of the Royal Hawaiian Purple. 

 Hoya benguetensis 

Hoya mindorensis

Nature Notes

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Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day