Summer Rose in My Little Village

Hydrangea

We call this a Million Dollar Flower in our locality back in my country. It's foliage are quite impressive, with large, dark green oval leaves, often with serrated edges. Flowerheads are made up of very small fertile flowers surrounded by larger, eye-catching, 4-petalled, sterile florets, and usually emerge in spring and summer.

Colors range from white through to red, purple, and blue.

A member of the mallow (Malvaceae) family, this flower grows in warm, temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions of the world.

Hydrangea features lush foliage and large flamboyant blooms in vibrant colors. In other places, these plants are grown not only for their great beauty, but also for their edible leaves and flowers. It can also be trimmed to shape and make effective hedging or screening plants.

Flowering Season: Summer, Spring

Source: Gardening Australia

Homemade Floral Arrangement by Jan

This floral arrangement is done by Jan, our local Elder's wife. Before she came into our little congregation, we ladies in the church used to take turn in bringing fresh flowers for the service. Upon her arrival, she made it sure that none of us will be burdened as flowers are very expensive to buy. We have flowers right here in our village but am too shy to ask. People don't usually pick flowers from the garden. My own flowers are not much to take anyway and I often forget that I have grown right in my own place.

What has attracted me to the simplicity of the arrangement is this old-fashioned flower vase, a very very old one. It has a base covered with velvet. The TV Antique Roadshow helped me to identify the genuineness of an antique item. So that's what I am doing now each time I see an old ware like this one.

Incidentally, I found out that the Curio Shops or Opportunity Shops here in our area have learned the trade of overpricing items which are normally given to them by willing donors if they think that the item is valuable.

Cheers!

Fuschia

106% Enhanced colour effect

Original

Mostly climbing or spreading shrubs, fuchsias have deep green, heavily veined leaves that grow in whorls on the stems. The pendulous flowers have long tubes with flared sepals and often contrastingly colored petals, mostly in shades of red, white, pink, and purple, as well as bicolored. The garden hybrids usually have rounded flowers with a skirt of large sepals around an often double corolla. Fleshy berries, usually with many seeds, follow the flowers.

Source: Plant Profile

Cheers!

Red Vine for Today's Flower November 2009

It's My Number 13th

Kudos to the Blog Creator, Luis Santilli Jr and Team!


Today's Flowers is on offer as florally created by Luis Santilli Jr. It's time to visit Today's Flowers and smell those sweet scented delights. TF Team on Board:Santilli - Denise - Pupo - Valkyrien

I took these photos from my friend Jacqui's backyard two years ago. There was this trellis attached to the fence that served as a barrier to give cover to a cute shed as a detached laundry room with utmost privacy.

This vine beautifully climbs to the trellis having broad green thick leaves that blooms in scarcity. The redness of which is bright yet soft and the closed stamens flash like a little incandescent bulbs. Jacqui was not home at the time I took these photos and for some reason, it did not occur to me to ask her the name of this floral vine.

I tried searching for this flower via google to no avail. I am not sure if this is local or imported vine but it was the first time I saw this kind. The petals of the flower alone made me think of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan as my imagination went far to Neverland.

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! ~Edward Abbey

Cheers!

Imported Today's Flowers from Karaka Tree Motel

My 11th Entry

Thank you Luis Santilli Jr for creating Today's Flowers for us and your Team! Thank You Very Much!!!


To all the gardeners, horticulturists, and flower enthusiasts let's give Today's Flowers a big Hurray! It's time to visit Today's Flowers
and smell those sweet scented delights. TF Team on Board: Santilli - Denise - Pupo - Valkyrien

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Afternoon on a Hill"

When I saw these orchids first time, I said to the owner, "are those orchids real?" Roger, the husband of Ann, replied, "yes, they are real."

"Well, they look plastic to me!" So I went near to touch it and they were real indeed! And Roger laughed. I took a close up or macro shot, but there's internal error that it can't be uploaded. So I hope this shot will do.


A bonus of beautiful clusters of Azaleas.



I don't know the name of these flowers. I just took it outside the Karaka Tree Motel where we stayed in Taupo, New Zealand recently.

Check out the link for more interesting read and pictures.

Cheers!

Home Sweet Home

My old home in Central Tableland called Orange. When my girls and I first moved in, the place looked so desolate. It was plain, weedy vegetation thriving with hard rock soil. I built this garden from scratches without any chemical aid. My pride of organic gardening using kitchen scraps to soften and break the clayish red ground.



"Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Cheers!

Homegrown Succulents

Homegrown succulent beauties. They propagate like mad in my backyard. These plants do not require maintenance. You just plant and forget them. Yet, when they bloom, you really cannot escape wondering how their starlike blooms shine at daytime your eyes can't help but notice. They grow in semi shady place.

Azaleas in Today's Flowers

My 10th Entry

Thank you Luis Santilli Jr for creating Today's Flowers for us and your Team! Thank You Very Much!!!


To all the gardeners, horticulturists, and flower enthusiasts let's give Today's Flowers a big Hurray! It's time to visit Today's Flowers
and smell those sweet scented delights. TF Team on Board: Santilli - Denise - Pupo - Valkyrien

"In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful." ~Abram L. Urban

How nature works is clearly visible in this Azalea flower. The original color is pink as can be seen below the white with pinkish taint.
This is part of the garden landscape grown along the pathway outside my unit.



This is the original Pink Azalea of the same shrub as above and from below.



And this is the main plant of the pink-white Azalea. Like the lilac colour, this was also trimmed or pruned.




There is no other way I can describe this pretty Azalea in lilac hue. In just one shrub, how this sturdy plant gives off copious blooms.
Their buds spurt from this shrub generously.



When they finished blooming last year, I pruned them to discourage growth as they have the tendency to grow very high. I wanted them to look dwarfy but bushy. But nature cannot suppress their growth anyway. So I thought, I will try to eliminate overcrowding of branches to give more room for the flowers to spread out. And it looks like my idea works.



This is how this Azalea looked last year. My space is small with enough room to fill with garden delights*.

"Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity." ~Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com

Cheers!

Last Bloom

A thorny rose plant grows below my bedroom window.

When I first moved in, the season was heading towards summer of 2007. Then by fall, this prickly plant suddenly came into
view among the bushes



and it bloomed. It was too late for me to realize that this plant existed right in my little garden patch. Rather than letting the
cold season ruined this flower, I cut it and put it in a flower vase to decorate my bedroom.



At that time, I was busy working and was almost away from home with little time to regularly attend to my own garden.
The reason I did not notice it was because this elusive plant lays hidden behind the bushy plants.



The blooming however was irregular. When the next summer came in 2008 this same beautiful rose plant bloomed again
and having been unattended, the flower wilted in the hot afternoon sun. My bedroom window faces west. Even the western
summer sun is too intensed for some plants.



I was still very lucky to be able to catch the last glimpse of this rose and managed to take a snapshot.

Cheers!