Hello New York

It's all about relativity. I fly out for a week in New York city tomorrow morning and I am so excited that I am going to see snow for the first time in almost two decades. It goes to show that different is exotic. We are beautiful at this time of year but sometimes you have to have a city break to appreciate living on an island
My house is very quiet tonight as Hayley and Shoobie have been farmed out for the week and the cats are oblivious to the suitcases.

Who knew begonias had it in them?

I have several layers in my garden. The one that gets the most attention is my main level. Yet it is the lower end of the garden that always explodes in a riot of colour. This year is had been particularly pretty because I introduced pink begonias to the mix. They now flank the sides of the stairs that lead down to this level. The mix of bougainvillaea and begonias is the colouful front and the terrace is given height by heliconias and musa bananas.
Ever curious. What ARE you doing down there? The pink begonias are also lightly scented in the morning but strangely not at night. This is the front of my garden. I am a big believer in using mundo grass to hold my beds. I find without a good border, I lose all my soil in the rainy season. I also like the effect that it provides. This bed is difficult to handle as it receives blasts of blistering sun or full shade depending on the time of year. Again my begonias have done really well here. My grass on the other hand, is just beginning to grow after not receiving sun for the better part of six months.

Hello babies! Yes this is my brand new crop of cocoa seedlings grown from my mother tree. I also managed to germinated a batch of roucou or annatto but could not get them past the seedling stage. My congo or scotch bonnet peppers are also just coming in and I want to try and combine these with the more highly flavoured piri piri ones and make a Chutney pepper sauce.