Spending time in the last couple of months on family affairs exhausted me both physically and mentally and didn’t leave much time left for anything else. I retreated to Instagram @petalsandwingsimages as my outlet since I didn’t have to spend time correcting images on PhotoShop. Now, as the dust settled, I’m back. With plenty of rain in early spring, the garden has grown pretty fast … Continue reading Late Spring
Colorful Display It was nice to go from bone-chilling cold to warm and humid weather and be among a variety of very bright, colorful and beautiful tropical flowers. Now, back to the cold climate and inches of snow on the ground, the longing for the site and the scent still lingers. Working on photographs I took during the trip helps a little. Here are a … Continue reading In The Tropic
Really A Fragrant Bouquet I love fragrant flowers and try my best to collect them in our garden. Many of them have to stay in pots as they are tropical plants. As we are running out of space in the basement, I try not to get a new tropical plant. I also try not to propagate plants I have. It’s hard to do since I regularly … Continue reading Cashmere Bouquet
OK, Not Much But Still Better Than Nothing There is not much to see in the garden other than white snow on the ground that’s not leaving us anytime soon. We just had a snow storm today and another one is due in two days. Then the temperature will drop into single digits again. When the weather is this unforgiving, so many birds … Continue reading Winter Colors
Still Blooming What’s left blooming in our garden now are just some hardy roses, calendula and the broccoli that we let bloom for the bees (though technically a vegetable). The re-blooming iris are just producing flower buds which may or may not bloom. The weather has been staying around 50º F during the day and drops down below 40º F at night. Last week it … Continue reading Basement Garden
Dependable For Late Season It can grow more than 30 feet in a single season, climb and entwine on everything within its reach. The UPS, FedEx and USPS people no longer drop shipments off on our patio since they are not sure they can go under the thick overhanging vine covering the walkway. My fault! I draped the young vine over the walkway without thinking … Continue reading Sweet Autumn Clematis
About Time To Go Back To Winter Camp It’s a little bit too cold for mid-September this year. Some nights the temperature has gone down below 40°F and hovered around mid 50°F during the day. But it has gone up to 70°F during in the last two days. The thirty degree gap between high and low temperatures makes it difficult for me to decide whether … Continue reading Later Summer For Tropical Plants
Not Many Flowers, But Enough To Give Me Hope I’ve been buying one or two stems of Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) at the Union Square Farmer’s Market for the last couple of years. I love its fragrance, very sweet and unique. The scent brought me back to my childhood when my grandmother grew them in her garden. The memory of walking in the garden when they … Continue reading Tuberose
Summer Flowers Summer flowers in our garden are easy to grow and most of them are drought tolerant. Having a full time job I have to be practical about what I plant in the garden. I water the vegetable garden regularly since most of the vegetables don’t do well without constant care. The opposite goes for the rest of the garden. Most of them are … Continue reading Flowers For Bees (Continued)
Early Bloomers Aside from the Rugosa roses that bloom early, some of our climbing and rambling roses are also blooming. The sad part is most of them bloom only once a year. All of the ‘once blooming’ roses in the garden are ones that I planted very early on when I had no idea that some of the roses in this climate bloom only once … Continue reading Rose This Spring: Climbing and Rambling
Petals and Wings 