Visitors In My Garden

Having a garden in my home country Philippines is one of the best things I have done for myself and for my environment. Although I am not there always, as I am a traveler, I see to it that my garden is well taken care of. It is well taken care of by my kind and loving cousin when I´m not there and I am glad that I have somebody whom I can trust to. I call this garden as my sanctuary and a heritage from my late loving mother. God bless her where ever she is now. The flowers that are planted there are all dedicated to her and we bring these beautiful flowers every time we visit her grave.

A huge butterfly hanging on a plant.

Since I started planting flowers in my front yard in 2011, natural visitors come walking and flying in. Well, not only flying but also crawling. Butterflies, humming birds and dragonflies of different sizes and colors are enjoying their "flight" since that year I discovered my green thumb.

A butterfly sipping the nectar of Zinnia flower.

Whenever I am in my house, I drink my first creamy black tea at the garden table while thinking what other things I can do to my garden. I enjoy listening to the sounds of the birds humming on the branches of my star fruit, guava and pomelo trees. Butterflies and dragonflies on the other hand are flying from flowers to flowers. The butterflies love the nectar of Zinnias, Cosmos, Sapphire Showers and Lantana Camara flowers. Some butterflies are flying with their small babies. Every time I notice these, I silently walk to them like a paparazzo with a digital or a video camera  in my hand. I know that some neighbors who noticed me in that behavior thought I am crazy. I don´t mind.

A beautiful bird resting in a branch of bougainvilla.

Another beautiful butterfly sipping the nectar of Zinnia.

A dark brown butterfly hanging on a Sapphire Showers plant.

A snake crawling in the Guava tree
.

I don´t know the names of the butterflies, the bird and the snake above. I hope you can help me with this. The butterflies and birds are getting plenty in my garden but I hope a snake will never come again.

                                                      Butterfly in my tropical garden.

Thanks for reading my garden blog and I will be happy to see your comment below. Have a beautiful Sunday and a new productive week ahead. Take care;-)

Here´s a link to my garden: http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/hub/The-Flowers-In-My-Garden-A-Photo-Gallery

Copyright 2015 © Thelma Alberts, All Rights Reserved

5 Easy To Grow Flowers In My Garden

I think planting in a tropical country like Philippines is more easier than planting in a cold country like Germany. You know why? It is because my flower plants in my balcony here in Germany are more difficult to keep alive than when I planted in my yard in the Philippines. There, I only have to throw seeds to the ground or in a hole in the pots and they grow. I have a green thumb there than here in my adopted country. 

Here are 5 easy to grow flowers in my garden.

1. Moss Rose

Moss Rose or Portulaca is one of the most easiest flower I have grown. I planted every where but mostly as  boundaries to some boring plants where I thought Portulaca could give life and vibrant colors to the view. 

Just a few cuttings planted in the ground like the photo below and watered them. They loved the full sun and mostly opened their flowers at around 10 in the morning that was why they were and still are also called 10 O´clock flower.

Moss Rose or Portulaca

2. Lantana Camara

Lantana Camara is also called Otot-Otot ( Otot means farting in Bisayan language) in my home country Philippines as the smell of this flower stinks. This flower is very ornamental and easy to care for. Just plant a cutting of Lantana Camara without leaves on the ground or pot, water it and voila, it will grow fast. This plant loves full sun, too.

Lantana Camara 

3. Turmeric Plant

My cousin had accidentally found out the name of this plant growing in our garden when she was searching acne cure online. It was a surprise that what I planted from the root rhizome was one of the healthy spices that I was using in my kitchen here in Germany. Some of these plants were growing near our fence and we did not planted them. Maybe some birds brought the seeds in the garden and they just grew by their own. 

Turmeric Plant I planted from rhizome

4. Cosmos

My brother gave me the seeds of Cosmos a few years ago after I told him about wanting to have the seeds from the ornamental highway plants. I have seen these beautiful flowers along the sides of our town highway. We did not know the name of the plant yet when I planted the seeds and so I was searching online after taking a photo of the flower. 

This is the most easiest flower I have planted. When the Cosmos flowers got brown and wilted, I harvested the seeds and just threw the seeds to the places I wanted them to grow. The seeds that felt on the ground propagated themselves. 

Yellow Cosmos, Red Bougainvillea and Dona Sirikit 

5. Zinnia Elegans

Zinnia Elegans is one of my favorites. I brought the seeds from Germany and I did not believe that Zinnias could grow in the Philippines as I have not seen one yet before that. I was glad Zinnias grew well and I had to do trial and error. I found out then that when Zinnias were planted, they should stay in the same place as transplanting them was killing them. They love full sun as well and butterflies are loving them, too.

                            Zinnias Elegans

I hope you like this blog and please comment, tweet, pin  or share this to your online account. I would love to hear from you my readers. Thanks for your visit.

Here´s my link to my garden hub and to my  main writing site.

http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/hub/The-Flowers-In-My-Garden-A-Photo-Gallery

http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/

Cosmos in the  vase.

                                  
                            Copyright 2015 © Thelma Alberts, All Rights Reserved

Typhoon Hit My Tropical Garden

Every year, my garden had to suffer from the monsoon rain, typhoon and flood in my home country. Every year, some flowers and other plants were destroyed. Either cut off by the strong wind or uprooted from the ground. Well, it made me sad but what could I do? Nothing besides accepting the fact that nature is sometimes cruel. Then, I tried to save what I could or else I have planted new ones.

One of the plants that the typhoon uprooted in my garden was the papaya plant that had 21 pieces of fruits. Yes, I counted them. Mostly were still green and unripe. 

This was one of the ripe papayas  that we were able to eat right after we gathered the papayas from the garden. It was so delicious as it ripen from the plant itself.

This was how it looked inside when it was cut through lenghtwise. It had a lot of seeds and some of these seeds were planted in my garden. I hope the new papaya plants will be having new fruits when I´ll be back in my garden again.

Thank you Guys for reading this blog. Please comment below. You are of course free to share, pin, tweet, etc. this blog to wherever you want it to be. Happy weekend.


Here are some links for what I did with the papaya fruits from my garden.

http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/hub/My-Homemade-Papaya-and-Mango-Body-Scrubs-and-Facial-Masks

http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Make-A-Healthy-and-Delicious-Fruit-Salad

http://thelmaalberts.hubpages.com/hub/Fruit-Snack-Mix-Recipe

Copyright 2015 © Thelma Alberts, All Rights Reserved