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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Dry Season Flowers

I hope somebody knows the answer to my question about the orange and red flowers predominantly present during our dry season!

 above honey bee is our native Apis cerana, which produce a wonderfully-tasting honey

 Ixora javanica, for me personally, is more beautiful and preferred than the other Ixora species. It has large round umbels and flowers during our dry season when all the rest are affected by drought and high temperatures. It also becomes a tall bush and is really loved by nectar-sucking insects and butterflies. 



This plant has been here at the side of our garden for more than 20 years now! It never fails to produce profuse blooms every year for our dry season, in time for the Flores de Mayo or Santacrusan, which needs flowers to offer the Virgin Mary every night for the whole month of May. In this picture, it provided a good foreground for a jackfruit tree that is balding and unsightly. Even the sunbirds come here and get their share of the much coveted nectar.

orange Crossandra infundibuliformis

 red Crossandra infundibuliformis

Hipeastrum puniceum 

This amaryllis is dormant during the dry season, grows again when the first heavy rains arrive. It produces the flowers first and followed by the leaves. We have hedges of this in the property in the province, and i have posted it in last years posts. Normally, this happens in June, when the climate has not changed yet. This time the early afternoon rains, although only once was heavy enough to break its dormancy. So we got the early flowers, although the blooms are not as profuse and simultaneous as during the previous years. 


 The red hibiscus is present all year round, come rain come shine. But this time a little rain gave it some boost to produce greener leaves with more and bigger flowers. It is so beautiful as a cover for the lower trunks/branches of the mussaenda, as in the lower photo.


This is the full picture of the complimentary show of the red hibiscus and orange mussaenda. At the back left is a golden shower tree which did not produce flowers now, because it suffered heavy pruning. It would have been more beautiful if the 3 colors are simultaneously blooming.


I noticed last week that most of our flowers these dry season are orange and red. I wonder what that means for the Flower Kingdom. The rest which i did not include here like Clerodendrum intermedium, Sanchezia and Euphorbia millii are also orange and red. Our yellows cannot withstand the waterless soil and extreme heat. Other colors are not available as well. I really wonder why. The only outlier is the blue Duranta erecta, but the flowers are so limited unlike during the rainy season. What are left are mostly the orange berries, orange again! Even the Florida beauty has the orange and red berries. 

Oh, there is one color interrupting all the orange-red color predominance, the off-white flowers of the corn plant or fortune plant, Dracaena fragrans. This is the only non-orange-red in our garden.



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22 comments:

  1. Wow, you have some beautiful red flowers. I am posting the end of the month and it shows some of my red flowers I got from a job in my yard, and they do not have the pop of these. The Apis is gorgeous. Love your bee photo too.

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  2. WAU, with some nice red / Orenge flower viewing.
    Wishing you a good day.
    Hanne Bente / hbt.finus.dk

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  3. they're all absolutely gorgeous reds. We have some of them growing here in Florida. Very nice series.

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  4. Ooh my! Those reds and oranges are just stunning ♥ ♥ ♥ I'm visiting from Floral Friday that I just discovered. I'm very excited to visit new blogs and getting to see oh so many wonderful flower images! I ♥ Flowers you see.

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  5. i took santan for granted until seeing your photo---it's gorgeous! my grandma had pink and yellow santan, and there were lots of white santan in the wild (well, at my grandfather's mini forest :p). the white santan smells sweet, too. can't answer your question scientifically, but maybe it's one of the reasons why we associate the colors red and orange with the heat.:p

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    1. I also took santan for granted, except this species. This is different from the common santan we see as hedges and don't grow tall. Where is your grandfather's mini forest? I am curious to see a white bush santan! I hope it really is not the common hedge santan or Ixora coccinea. Mine is Ixora javanica.

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  6. Lovely, bright colors. What a treat to see them every day.

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  7. WOW! Stunning pics! I just love those tropical flowers! I can't grow them here in Norway...

    Helene

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  8. Andrea - LOVE the new blog - just signed up as a follower :)

    It must be beautiful in the Philippians! I think I love the first and last shots the best - the mass of orange-red and then the Macro...

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  9. gorgeous blooms. i have Ixora in my garden too. They look amazing when they are in full bloom. The insects really know where to get good stuff!

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  10. a lovely series; enjoyed your flower photography very much

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  11. Gorgeous flowers and I imagine they are a hit for sunbirds and butterflies alike. The clusters remind me of Pentas here.....but much much larger than the Penta. Hope you have a great Friday!

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  12. Great pictures of wonderful tropical flowers I can admire only during my vacations in warmer climates.
    Apis cerana are also available with white and yellow flowers.
    Thank you for sharing information as well!

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    1. Hi Guild-rez, Apis cerana is our native bee. The flower it is nectaring on is Ixora javanica. The one you are referring to is maybe the Ixora chinensis, which are the dwarf type, the opposite of I javanica. thanks for visiting.

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  13. Oh how I would love to have gorgeous blooming trees and shrubs this size! Beautiful.

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  14. Wow--what flowers you have--just gorgeous! I grow hibiscus, but where we live it is a late-summer bloomer only. I have amarylis as well, but grow it as an indoor flowering plant because it is too cold here for it to survive outdoors. They go outside in their containers for the summer, and then I bring them in before it gets too cold in the fall.

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  15. I love the red flowers many we can only see as annuals...you certainly have so many incredible flowers

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  16. You have some very beautiful blossoms even in the dry season. We had plenty of Spring rains here, so our flowers have done very well. I can only hope they continue to do well as the weather gets hotter and drier for the next three months.

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  17. I also love that type of Ixora it seems to suffer less from rust and other problems. the butterflies here love it. I have started a new plant from a cutting, but it seems a bit slow growing for some reason.

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  18. Beautiful series of shots!

    I am a little late in visiting from last week due to work commitments, but I thank you heartily for your continuing support of Floral Friday Fotos!

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