My First Bloom Day Post

Okay, I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes. It's taken me almost six months to figure out that I keep missing Bloom Day. I hope I can make up for all my rambling, non-gardening posts that must drive the purists mad. The same gene that makes it impossible for me to follow a recipe, makes me incapable of staying on one subject.
But here we go; this is what my garden is doing today.
It's a showcase of old faithfuls.
Here is Mussaenda erythophylla, I think- something tells me that this is Princess?????Family: Rubiaceae (coffee family) hybrid. I HAVE to get the horticultural bible, Tropica. By the way, my coffee plant is blooming again and there is nothing as divine as that smell. I will post it tomorrow when all the blooms have opened. It is truly one of the most spectacular flowering plants in my garden. But it only lasts about a day.
This delicate mussaenda is a hybrid that is different to the more common dark salmon mussaenda. The silky feel of both the flowers and the leaves of this plant make it an excellent addition, for both colour and texture, to any tropical garden.
My Double Chaconia. The single chaconia (Warszewiczia coccinea) is the national flower of Trinidad and Tobago and the double was an indigenous sport that spontaneously occurred in Trinidad's rain forest. Well renowned agriculturalist, Dr Johnny Lee, is the author of the informative article from which I quote: .........
"CHACONIA VS. CHACONIER The origin of the name Chaconia is also in dispute. Generally thought to be named after Don Jose Maria Chacon, the last Spanish governor of Trinidad, some prominent naturalists disagree: They believe that the name is derived from the French word chaconne, a folk dance, in which the participants wore little flags similar to the blooms on the trees. They also feel that the name should be spelled Chaconier and not Chaconia.".The Double Chaconia (Warszwiczia coccinea.cv. "David Auyong") by Dr. Johnny Lee.

This hardy orange heliconia never stops blooming. It blooms all year round and stays at a manageable height.
I have no idea what the above plant is, but the hummingbirds love it. I guess you can never go wrong with red in a garden.
My pink gingers need a good fertilizing. That why they are so pale. Look at the cobweb spun by an industrious spider. That's his day's work done.
Honeysuckle. Honeysuckle. Honeysuckle. What a beautiful name.
My dendrobiums are coming into bloom again as the sun changes direction. I am in the process of doing an orchid shed so that all my orchids can be nursed, tended and monitored in some sort of orderly fashion. I find it so interesting that in Trinidad, the serious growing of orchids is a male thing.
This is a Thai dendrobium that is very prolific and blooms almost all the time. You really can't go wrong with dendrobiums as they take a lot of abuse. It takes a lot to kill a dendrobium. I have learnt that an occasional spray of fungicide/bactericide is necessary in our humid climate.
This spotted Vanda does not bloom very often. It's only the second time that I have seen it throw flowers. For some reason the batchacs don't like this one as much as the others. Isn't that strange?
My old faithful bougainvillae never fails to bloom.

The Delicacy of Things

I'm reading my second biography of Ernest Hemingway. After visiting his home in Key West, I developed my usual author obsesssion but this one has surprised me with its intensity. After reading "Running With the Bulls", I've moved on to "Papa Hemingway" by Hotchner. Hemingway once said that he learned as much from painters about how to write as from writers.

(For all the gardeners that think I am grossly abusing my "garden" slot, I will blog later for "Bloomday".
Below are the pale mauve flowers of the Duranta plant.)


His characteristic 'bare as bones' style meant no generalizations or wishy washy adjectives. Just the distilling of emotion.
I think in all art forms we try to achieve this state of distillation; a concentration of reality.


This common yellow flower grows on a small shrubby trees with pinnated leaves. Occasionally the camera throws up something that you don't see with the naked eye. But you do when you look again.
This is what I would like my writing to do.
It is what Carnival does to a nation every year and it is what all good art should do. Artistic surroundings should present these mini-distillations everywhere and make the world clearer. The world may appear to be more ugly or more beautiful, but certainly the reality is conveyed with clarity.
Am I disciplined enough to stand; writing, working, and reworking, each sentence? Hemingway rose every morning and stood at his specially made pulpit-type desk to write. He sat to pay bills but always stood to write.