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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Oxygen Generators one month after the rains

Our official rainy season this year started in June, and that is mainly true in Metro Manila where i work. In the province where our garden is, rainy season is one month late. It is good that plants are not aware of what happens where I came from, unless they have a very well developed extra sharp perception (ESP), or else they will be very envious. At any rate, in July they got what everybody desires, notwithstanding one month late.  So here is a parade of some of our flowering plants at the end of July.

Because of the unusual one slight rainfall in May, some of the bulbs started to open in June. It was a very unusual sight because we are familiar with them blooming at the same time about two weeks after the first heavy rain. This year their flowering was staggered, and some of the blood lily (Haemanthus multiflorus) opened only in July. This happened also with the Hippeastrum puniceum or amarilys. The normally wonderful hedge of orange blooms did not show up like the previous years.




The above old cast iron discard pot already produced two blooms in June and now in July, it produced another bloom. Blood lilies produce the red blooms way ahead of the leaves, so the above simultaneous growth is already an abnormality in our garden. 

Those which flowered in June are already fruiting like the above in July. So the picture of simultaneously having the red bloom, the green leaves and the fruiting umbels is a new phenomenon here. If that is also an effect of climate change, i don't know!

This is the 2nd year of flowering of this Proiphys amboinensis (Euricles amboinensis). Like the blood lily, it also exhibited a staggered blooming, such that while having the above flowers, the spent umbel (below) shows the growing seeds.



Pachystachys lutea produced lots of blooms and longer candles with the rains.

This is just the first bloom of the Pentas lanceolata. A caladium leaf is at the back.

Even the Catharantus roseus seem so delighted with the rains. This is also the first bloom.

Turnera ulmifolia is tolerant of the dry season, so despite the drought it still produced flowers. Rains only produced more branches and more blooms. It has been consistently producing flowers for the dry season which sustained the nectaring insects in the area. Together with the hibiscus and Duranta, it help the insects tolerate the dry season.

Crape myrtle, which was so affected by the dry season also flourished well.  At this photo however, the flowers are not yet fully open.

Marigold flourished growth in July. In a few weeks these will show lovely blooms. These are just self seeds from the old plants which died in this area. A lot of seeds actually germinated during the first single rain in May, but they died without any water follow-up.

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13 comments:

  1. Hello there stranger:) I laughed at your comment today. I remember you just looking at the pics:) We do have a lot of similiar plants. Looking today at your post, I can say that we have about 75 percent of those plants in our gardens here. The exception? The Shrimp plant. That's a tough one to have in our landscape. I've figured out that your vegetation is just a tad more tropical than our sub tropic desert because of the avocado trees. If we could easily grow avocados here, I'd say we'd be almost at the same for gardening zone. Our rainy season has been here now for 1 month and we've got this one to go....after that, it'll be hit or miss:( Have a good weekend my friend. Kreesh:)

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  2. All the flowers are so pretty! all of them can be found here, the difference is they bloom all year long due to our tropical heat.

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    1. I am sorry i cannot fully agree with you Jama, i thought you are from Singapore? You mean to say your blood lily blooms throughout the year! I know the plants in my post are all in Singapore, but i am amazed when you said all of them flowers all year there, as if we are not from ASEAN!

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  3. i love the colors of pentas and pachystachys lutea.
    so it's called blood lily---we call it ball of fire.:p

    Gumamela

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    1. It actually has a lot of common names, depending on the country too. So common names are not a reliable way of calling a plant, so we always put the Scientific name, to limit the "gulo"!

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  4. beautiful series; the first flower is very unusual..

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  5. Just gorgeous. With the continuing drought we have few blooms left.

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    1. You have the drought because some rains supposed to be for you are poured over here too, giving us many flooded places and displaced families. And the rain hasn't stopped yet, at least my family in the province is in safe grounds!

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  6. Thank you for your great pictures!!
    Love the variety of flowers I see.

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    1. Oh you have some awesome tropical plants, i wonder how you can raise them that pretty in your temperate climate! I cannot open your captcha so i cannot leave any comment on your site.

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  7. beautiful variety of flowers. thanks for brightening up my day.

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  8. The raindrops on the flowers are not so obvious but they really look so refreshing and vigorating to see in the freshness in the garden.
    Just feel so alive!

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