DANCING IN THE RAIN

There's something magical about taking photos after the rain where you find nature at it's most beautiful.  What I love most being out and about as soon as the sky clears is the cool, refreshing and invigorating crisp air.  

It's something I enjoy tremendously; looking up in the sky and catching that spare drop or two of raindrops gliding off the leaves and falling onto me.  

Plumeria

Frangipani

Orchid

Rose

Vinca / Periwinkle

Flashback, I feel just like a child all over again playing in the rain AND shots just seem prettier!

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

For nineteen months this orchid plant remained barren.  Yes that's one year and 7 long months with 2/3 of the time spent in my apartment and the other 1/3 in MSG.

No amount of cajoling, sweet whispers or wonder food worked.  Out of exasperation, we thought perhaps the plant would only flower in its country of origin, thousands and thousands of miles away.  We were wringing our hands out of exasperation!

 

However one day we got a pleasant  surprise and claimed ownership to two very beautiful blooms.   As usual, like all other flowers my first instinct was to plant my nose in the blooms and I was rewarded with the most delicious scent! It was certainly worth the long wait. 

Then last week during a heavy downpour, the plank holding some potted plants collapsed.  The first thought that flashed in my mind was "Oh.... the orchids!" as we scrambled to salvage the damage.  Other than some bruises on the petals, everything was fine.

Please don't let us wait another two years for the next round of flowers. (*fingers crossed*)

INTRUDERS IN THE GARDEN



I stared at the near naked Vinca (Periwinkle) bush with disbelief!  

Vinca flowers come in a variety of colours eg. shades of pinks, red, white and even purple.  The flowers are unscented and the plant falls under the "poisonous" list of plants but they are very generous in flowering and relatively easy to grow.  They can grow from cuttings or seeds.  The ripe seed pods will scatter when carried by the wind and volunteer plants will spring up everywhere.
 

Just a few days back the whole bush was covered with a crop of beautiful pink but now reduced to such a pathetic sight.  On closer look, the ends of each branch looked like they have been brutally chopped off.  

My first human instinct was of suspicion and anger.  For a moment, I didn't feel safe anymore at the thought of someone intruding into the garden whilst no one was around.

We were so proud of how this Vinca has blossomed over the months.  It started off with a very small seedling of barely a few inches in the flowerbed and how much it has grown.  

So we moved cautiously around the garden preparing to nab our intruder or at least scare the wits out of him and to our pleasant (that it was not a human intruder) horror (that the plant was almost bald!), we caught the culprits in the act.

Meet them....

Time for yoga

Did I tell you this is how you pole dance?

Getting chummy

Looking at how hungry our intruders were, we excused them as they needed a lot of energy to complete their metamorphosis.  Seriously they have as many as 4000 muscles in their bodies... something we just learned! 

We've learned to live and let live.  There have been so many more subsequent sabotage of our Vincas but then they grow just as fast and someone out there has to eat.  It's amazing what is poisonous to us are food for these hungry ones.