Known as Malabar spinach, Indian spinach or  climbing spinach, luo kui shu( in Chinese), is one of the most popular indigenous leafy vegetables in the Philippines. Originally from India, it is usually found in hedges and cultivated areas ans is extensively grown in market gardens and home gardens.

Its leaves are somewhat fleshy, ovate or heart-shaped. The fruit is fleshy  and turns purple when it matures. The young stems, leaves and shoots are blanched. One of the reasons why I get turned-off is because the flavor is a little earthy and the texture when cooked is slimy. I later learned that it has lots of uses and nutritional values. The purplish dye from the ripe fruit is used as food color while the cooked roots are used for treating diarrhea. The cooked stems and leaves are good laxative and the flowers are used as antidote for poison. A paste of the leaves is applied  to treat  boils while a paste of the root is  good for swelling.

Alugbati grows well under full sunlight in hot, humid climate like ours. It may take sometime before I’ll learn to eat this nutritional vegetable but until then, I’ll just watch hubby enjoy his plate of steamed alugbati and fried fish to go with it.

It belongs to the family of Musa Ornata (Bronze Banana). It is  highly attractive and is considered as an ornamental plant. Its leaves are long and wide with an orange mid rib running the length of the leaves. Its bloom is a bronze/orange that unfurls its blooming bract to reveal tiny banana like cream-colored flower.

This is the second time I’ve seen an ornamental banana blossom with this bright orange color, the other one is in a lovely pinkish /purple shade and grows like this too.  Our village janitor planted several of these and they are all in bloom , alongside red  and yellow Canna flowers.

I embrace you with joy today

I look forward  to this day

With smile and longing

Just being happy -

Watch me now!

It took almost a year for this Lily to bloom. I planted them as bulbs last September and it’s only now that I saw how beautiful the flowers are. It’s worth the long wait, don’t you think?

Here in our country it is simply known as Calamondin or just plain Kalamansi but it’s known elsewhere as Philippine lime.  The flowers  emit that sweet and tangy scent much like pomelos and oranges when they are in bloom. Kalamansi is one of the most basic necessities in Philippine kitchens. It is used  for marinating either fish or meat or  sea foods and anything that requires something sour. It is also used as dip, mixed with soy sauce or  as juice drinks, hot or cold. I wonder if  we could survive  in the kitchen without these small, juicy, tangy fruits which are very similar to lime. They are best used fresh.

The fruit also has several medicinal uses. It can be a good treatment to itchy scalp, to heal insect bites, remove freckles, clear up acne and pimples. It is also used as a deodorizer and  for stain-removal.  It is also a popular home remedy for cough. And if you want your skin to stay smooth and blemish free, you can gently rub it with kalamansi before taking a bath.

The sun was hot on our backs at 7:30am so  we didn’t  stay long.  This afternoon, we finished the task of cutting the grass. I love the smell of newly cut grass. It gives me the feeling of being home and you can walk barefoot and nobody would mind except maybe our three dogs and our four-month old puppy. They think the garden is their territory and when they see you so relaxed reading or just cloud-watching, they would watch and wait for just one small gesture that they are welcome to join  you, romping like crazy. They are a joy to watch but disastrous for our small garden.  I took some shots of it before it gets dark  experimenting with the subdued light of sunset and dusk.

The peace and serenity just watching the curved path and the even length of the newly cut grass is a welcome blessing. One could find such happiness here.  You can never resist the temptation of pulling a weed or smelling a lovely bloom.  Such surprises you find  makes one stay in a garden worth all the aching back and soiled hands and fingers.

John Ruskin  has aptly described it when he said,”The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it”.

Truly, the  garden  is a place to feel the beauty of silence and solitude.

We had the garden refurbished today. The landscape gardener came to redo a part of our fence by changing the buho with Thai bamboo.  Last year, when we had it landscaped, a two-meter expanse of the rear wall was left with the original buho fence since the Thai bamboo that they brought was not enough to cover the long expanse of the wall.  Anyway, it now has a uniform look.  Hubby ordered several sacks of garden soil and some cut bamboo for his trellis.

I am glad that they brought with them several pots of white and light pink Ruellia and a few pots of Golden Duranta plants to highlight my recently bought Texas firecracker plant. 

Golden Duranta or golden dewdrop as it is commonly called has a bright lemon colored leaves. It should have at least a minimum of four hours of sunlight to retain its golden lemon color, otherwise, the leaves  will remain a soft shade of green. I am looking forward to see the Ruellia plants which they planted today. I only have the purple blooms and I can imagine the varied mix of white, pink and purple in a few days. Ruellia are quite similar to Petunia . They are heat-tolerant perennials that are used as ground covers.

Don Manuel is  also known as scarlet bush, hummingbird bush and Texas firecracker plant.  I don’t know how it got its name, guardian of the forest. It is a semi-woody plant that grows to a height of at least 3.5 meters. Flowers are a mass of tubular, reddish-orange.  The  plant could be shaped and is best planted in areas with enough sun to grow best.

I would have loved digging my hands at the rich soil, sadly though, I still have cough and severe cold so I just took shots of the garden. The landscape gardener taught us how to propagate Aglonaema. They are foliage plants and they have narrow oval leaves that are attractive  and eye-catching.  I didn’t know that the stem needs to be cut at a two-inch length and planted in several lines in a huge pot, facing down. The upper stem with the leaves could be planted in  separate pots. Our bromeliads are now repotted too, so instead of just three pots, we now have eight, just great. I was afraid to repot them this early because they might die but the landscape gardener also taught us how to do it.

And this surprised me, our orange Bougainvillea is now in bloom, wow!

And these  pink clusters are a feast for sore eyes!

What a lovely afternoon being with nature again. My heart sings every time I am in the garden.

There is always something nice about seeing shoots and signs of new life in the garden. They give you that certain feeling of anticipation about life itself and the whole universe in general.  Everyday, we discover changes and everyday gives us a chance to look for and discover something new. I just could not resist taking a few shots. There was a time when, I used to document every bloom in the garden but all we have left now, when it was refurbished  a year ago are sturdy green plants that are beauties in themselves even without the flowers. Bonsai plants are quite new to me though, I mean, I am quite an amateur when it comes to taking care of them.  There was a time when I wanted to learn how to grow a bonsai plant. Bonsai to some people means a particular type of tree but it actually means “tray growing” or “tray planting” and different species of plants are used. Pruning is the key to a  successful Bonsai growing.

Our bonsai Tagaytay Cherries

I love how they could easily be shaped now because they are sprouting healthy leaves.

A bonsai Junifer plant

Gardening is really a great way of  de-stressing, a therapeutic activity that does not need too much  expertise but just the love of the soil and all its environs.  It’s more of  experiments really because they say that there are no gardening mistakes, everything that you plant becomes a part of the garden.   Every gardener knows the joys of witnessing a seed  waiting to sprout or a bulb opening to light and a bud straining to unfurl. Robert Brault said it aptly with these words, “if you’ve never experience the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden

My African Rose -it’s beginning to show new leaves..

A Jackfruit still in its bud.

The foot path is clearly visible now.    The problem with carabao grass is that you have to trim it at least once every month,  every three weeks at the most or else you’d be left with tangled weeds which looks a little bushy.

Then I found these little flowers growing side by side with our Bromeliads,  Vinca and Yellow Iris.   I actually miss the profusion of flowers here. Everything is almost green now except for this lovely Bougainvillea which we are growing as a shade for  the  grotto.

Then I remember this quote, was it from E.E Cummings, “the earth laughs in flowers.”

I was packing for our trip back to Manila when my daughter shouted, “Mama come quick, bring your camera.“   And I thought we’ll have our usual family shots when they pointed at a beautiful creature perched on one of the  blooms in front of the house.

“Oh, Oh, what a beauty!” Thank God for small miracles.  You make everyday a happy one for me!