My Hot Environment

Hello my blogfriends! I have not been posting lately due to a few trips evaluating some projects in the provinces. And i am sure most of you also experience this, that after a while you feel like taking a vacation first from the blogworld. Sometimes, i get this feeling, maybe we can put a name to it. It is not a burnout yet at least. And whenever i take some exciting photos i think about my blogsite again. Sometimes though, i feel a little guilty that i am not visiting your posts as often as i should. But i guess each one of us understands that as well. So, i am alive again trying to elicit some comments again from you. And when the blogblood flows through my lazy consciousness, there is always some adrenaline rush that keeps most of us going. How are you blogfriends?

 Our dry season just started this month, but it feels like we are already in it for a long time. Imagine starting the season at 33-35°C in the mornings! That gets to at least 37°C at mid-day. I am happy i don't need to go out outside the office building the whole day, because it really is scorching hot.

Despite these conditions, some flowers still bloom, like this marigold at home in the province. Of course you know i stay in the big city during weekdays, but i blog about our garden and plants in my hometown.

The Sanchezia speciosa always blooms at the beginning of the dry season. They are lovely as long as i can minimize the attack of meally bugs. When that happens and they stick within the recesses of the buds, i just cut the spikes and put them to dry under the scorching sun.

 This Crossandra infundibuliformis loves it with a little shade, and it never stops blooming. I put its pot under the lantana bush topiary. With a little watering when my mother remembers it provides a good show, which is beautiful i agree, nevertheless adds more heat to the feeling. Dont' you think so?

And to share with you my orange-hot surroundings, this is our view of the sunrise. I went out of bed at 5:30am purposely to catch it. The bright orange morning is a prelude to the very hot sun the whole day! I lingered awhile before coming back to the house for the morning coffee, and at 7:00am i am already perspiring! Do you believe me now? It is really hot here...i told you so!!!

Orange You Glad It's Friday

Blooming Friday

Floral Friday Fotos

More Violets Please!

Most of you know that i have a deprivation bias for blue flowers. And most of us also know that blue colors are really not plenty in the hot tropics, so you will understand why I am longing for the blues. They are associated with the temperate climate, while the reds and oranges are associated with the tropical zones. 

Hence, i will settle now for the violets, the next color with slight blue hues in them. I selected and will parade with you the violets that are currently blooming in our garden. They might not be very healthy and vigorous, but i love them. And they are mostly available only during the rainy season. 

Impatiens balsamina have different color varieties. We have the beige and pink for several years now. They are lost during the dry season, but ressurrect when the first heavy rains come in May. I have long been looking for these violets, so when i saw it in a very far province from my own, i didn't hesitate getting for some seeds. Now the three plants that survived the long haul are now blooming. And i am enjoying them.

close-up of the Impatiens balsamina

 This Asystasia intrusa might be invasive, but it is still favorable for me. I planted it as a hedge on a slanting sloping land near a ledge and is now cascading through the cement wall. It covers the not so beautiful wall at the side of the entrance.

some spikes finishing their blooms

 My Hoya diversifolia might not be as violet to you, but i am trying to see violets in them, because i prefer it to be colored violet. If you wont agree, so be it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, i will not contest that. But we are talking about color violet not beauty, never mind that, just pretend it looks like violet!

Now, this dendrobium is trying hard to be violet to please me. But other yellow hues still surface, and i agree, it is more beautiful that way than monotone! 

This might not be an ornamental to you, yes i again agree. This is a viny weed at our sidewalks. This is also found is some sandy beaches in many tropical and arid shores of other countries. You might not believe me, but i found this wonderfully blooming profusely at the sandy shores in Dubai, where it is extremely hot in their dry season. This is Ipomoea pes-caprae, and this is unwanted in agricultural properties in our area.

Floral Friday Fotos

Blooming Friday

Todays Flowers

I Heart Macro

Reds Strike Again

I've always been complaining of our tropical colors. It stemmed from their perennial presence here, mostly the orange and red. Somehow, if you are always seeing them all the time, anywhere, everywhere, I am sure you will understand. I hope some of you can relate with my craving for the blues and violets. But of course, we have a few of them, but they are not as conspicuous as our loud colors.

But i confess, these oranges and reds are trully very beautiful, like the bougainvillea and the rose.

Dainty Pink Blossoms

When i was home last weekend my nephew was excitedly telling me of their visit to the nearby forest with his playmate. This forest is just 20min away, but we don't go there. I was there last when i was still in high school, decades ago. There was a deep ravine at the middle with a small flow of water.  Actually there is still a path where cattle farmers pass to the other side of the hill, crossing over the water flow. My nephew saw group of monkeys, maybe around 50 of them, travelling on tree branches. He animatingly reported that even the monkey babies are with them hanging on the mothers' bellies.

So the next day i asked my nephew to bring me there, hopefully to see the monkeys on their playful transfers among the canopies. We waited for an hour without hearing even any noise of the monkeys. But i am not totally disappointed because the vegetation, butterflies and some lizards give us some fun. Moreover, I love the scene given by this tree, the Palawan cherry or Casia nodosa. This tree gave me a lot of hardwork because I  had to climb a 70 degree incline to be nearer its branch. It also  provided a sweet scent around the area. I am so surprised that this species is just very near us without my knowledge.

This tree is endemic to the Philippines, the tropics' counterpart to the cherry blossoms or Japanese sakura. Normally, it flowers ahead way before the leaves during the start of the dry season. So the above photo means these branches have been flowering for a longer period. A lot of fallen petals also cover the ground below. An older post about this tree from a far province of Siquijor is here from my other blog.

It is amazing how flowers change color as they mature, from dark pink to lighter pink and finally to white, when they are ready for abscission. Young leguminous pods remain on the tree to mature for another few months.

  

            

Truth about Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum puniceum, is a much loved ornamental in the bulb industry. It has been with me since i was born, freely growing in our yard. They are on-show during the rainy season, May to January, and out of sight or dormant during the dry season, February to April.

I have long been calling ours as amaryllis, thinking that is the common name and the Hippeastrum puniceum as scientific name. I just realized that amaryllis and Hippeastrum are two different genus. It has a long history of being together in a Genus and have been formally separated just lately  into two separate Genus. Discussions lasted 5 decades from 1937 to 1987. Amaryllis are those from South Africa and Hippeastrum, from South America. The origin of the two genus are easier for me to understand because our colonizers were Spaniards and Portuguese.  Formally they are separated, but informally they are still together. The confusion arise because most of the Hippeastrum sold as bulbs are colloquially called amaryllis, because not many people know that they are formally " botanically divorced" by the International Botanical Congress.

                  

Above is an old photo of our hippeastrum hedge in our garden

So, now i am more confident to call ours as Hippeastrum (our local term actually is lirio). Our climate is more of the hot tropics, with around 36°C at the height of the dry season. Our bulbs are directly planted on the ground, self-supporting, neglected and only given particular attention when they bloom. This happens after the first heavy rains at the start of the rainy season in May. Staggered blooms last for a few weeks, followed by prolific green leaves that eventually dry coinciding with the start of the dry season in February. By then, we will not see its trace again unless we scrape the soil covering the bulbs.

 

Growth and development of hippeastrum are in two phases. Vegetative growth that follows blooming signifies active photosynthetic manufacture of its food in the leaves, then stored the manufactured food in the bulbs. When food storage is complete they are more equipped for flowering and reproduction. Leaves will eventually mature and die during the dry season. This coincides with its second phase of development called period of dormancy. Failure to flower can be due to a few reasons, but mainly because stored food in the bulb is not sufficient to sustain reproduction or flowering. This only means that leaves dried early or grown in shady conditions restrained food manufacture. Malnourished plants are naturally inhibited to reproduce, otherwise the offspring are not fitted to live to sustain life! How wonderful.

Flower forcing for bulbs in the tropics can be done with two strategies. First is by inducing early bulb dormancy, and second by breaking dormancy. Inducing dormancy of bulbs in pots is done by gradual withdrawal of water to induce fast drying of leaves and stop active physiological processes in the bulb. Then the pots can be placed in shaded areas to avoid bulb scorching. That is simulated starvation for about 6 weeks, after which they can be put back to sunny areas with full watering.

 Above is a bulb planted on the ground and watered in last week of January, 

this flower is in early February

Bulbs growing directly from the ground, with dried leaves or dormant for about six weeks can be induced to flower by heavy watering at once. They can even be dug, allowed to sit on gravels with water. Gravels hold the bulbs to keep them afloat, otherwise bulbs sunk in water will induce rotting. In two weeks growths or flower stalks will be obvious. In our climate those bulbs on the ground did not receive rain since November. They can either be watered luxuriously on the ground in January or they can be dug, put in water to break dormancy and enjoy the blooms.

My small experiment of breaking dormancy by letting bulbs sit in water in January. Spikes appear after 3d and flowers lasted for 2-3 weeks, because some bulbs produced 2nd spike. 

Some gardeners here, due to lack of knowledge on the principles of its growth and development, still do the strategies of those in the temperate climates. That is because they rely heavily on the internet. But putting in the refrigerators is not actually necessary because our bulbs can stay outdoors, even on their growing positions in the ground, until their dormancy is completed. Or if needed, dormancy can be cut by just watering them. Temperate climates only dug them during their dormancy, and put inside the refrigerators because bulbs freeze and are killed in winter. Knowledge makes work easier and cheaper!