Blooming Friday/Sky blue Cluster Vine

Welcome to Blooming Friday! My erratic connection kept me out of
blogdom but now I hope I'll be able to make up for all that lost
time:)

I took this picture of a tiny dragonfly some time back in a nursery.
The next best reason for visiting nurseries I must say, is to see so
many lovelies flitting and flying about.





The Cluster Vine bloometh....after a gap of several months. There's a
reason here. I had to prune it because the growth was so vigorous and
that I did just when it showed signs of fatigue blooming like nobody's
business throughout the cooler months till March/April. Wish I could say
the same for other vines too but the others happen to be moody!!






The Skyblue Cluster Vine/Jacquemontia pentantha is a fast-growing climber.
A native of tropical America, it's from the Morning Glory family. It's
ideal for trellises. The flowers bloom in clusters at the end of long stalks.
The flowers are attractive to pollinators. The plant can be easily propagated
by cuttings and by seeds.


I couldn't resist posting these pictures from February and March this year.
There's always a fly or a butterfly on the many blue blooms. I hope you
enjoy going through these photos. To see what's blooming around the world,
the place to stop by is-- Katarina's.












Thank you for stopping by... Have a great weekend everyone!!

Blooming Friday!

Welcome to Blooming Friday on this wonderfully pleasant day of
November. For today's post, the blooms are from three different
places. To see what's blooming around the world please head over
Katarina's beautiful blog---Roses and Stuff.



From the gardens of Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra





November sky reflected on the pool next to Dwarf Mussaenda/
Mussaenda glabra. The entire bush was covered with tiny yellow
blooms and creamy white sepals.








The buds (below), and the blooms of the Powder Puff/
Calliandra haematocephala.












A profusely blooming shrub is the Limestone Ruellia/Ruellia strepens.






Didi's Blooms


Didi is the term we use for an older sister. My husband's sis-in-law
is a keen gardener and these blooms are from her garden. The winter-
flowering plants have been planted and in the next month or so there'll
be plenty of colour. But some blooms that seem to go on and on are....







The pretty and fragrant blooms of the Rangoon Creeper/Quisqualis indica.
From the ground it's trained to climb up to the terrace garden.












Dark pink Bougainvillea brightens up the terrace area.







The Creeping Foxglove/Asystasia gangetica is another prolific bloomer.
I hope to show some more of Didi's blooms in my future posts.



From my yard





Lighting up my rather dull yard are the bright yellow blooms of the
Candle Bush/Senna alata. I didn't plant it. It's a gift from the birds
or the wind. I'll have to transplant it later but the yard is full of
construction material now.

It's a bush that gets about 6 feet tall. The leaves are used in the
treatment of ringworm so it's also known as the Ringworm Shrub.










Yellow blooms of a variety of bean grown in the hilly areas of our
region. Don't you love that yellow?

Damselfly Days!

Damselflies (suborder Zygoptera) is an insect in the order Odanata.
Damselflies are similar to dragonflies but at rest the wings of the
damselflies are held along, parallel to the body at rest. The hindwing
is similar to the forewing while the hindwings of the dragonfly
broadens near the base. Damseflies are weaker fliers compared to
dragonflies. Their eyes are separate and look a little too big for
their slender bodies.


Over the past few months, I have taken many pictures of damselflies
in my garden. The most vibrant ones are the reds and the yellows.
The yellow ones in this post are rather pale-looking. Feeding time
is really the best time to get good shots. They're loathe to move
then, devouring the smaller insect down to the last morsel! I
hope you enjoy going through these pictures......

Hummingbird Moth!

I don't know whether you get to see hummingbird moths during the
summer but here in my garden they come during the cooler months.
And what a joy it was to see one on my lantana a week ago. It was
never still, so photographing it was difficult. I simply kept
clicking.






Last year, there were three kinds, I mean, in three different colours.
The bright green was the prettiest. The other two were in drab green
and in brown, just like the one in the picture. How wonderful that
blogging helps you remember the minutest details, just because of
the fun you had posting the same!











Maybe I'd have got better photos... but this butterfly who lives near
the lantana kept flying straight to the moth as I snapped away. Wish I'd
taken a photo of the collisions but I was so bent on getting good shots
of the moth that I thought about it only after the moth had flown away!!

Egret Moments

The other day I was watering my plants on the terrace when I was
greeted by this sight! It was early, a little after 7 AM and as you
can see from the picture, it was a grey and cloudy morning. What a
delightful surprise it was to see not one, but three egrets on the
top of my coconut tree! Now egrets are a common sight in open fields
but seeing them in my garden was wonderful indeed!







I didn't see them fly in so I assumed that they must've spent the night
on the tree. They all looked groggy-eyed and seemed in no particular
hurry to fly to their next destination.







I did manage to get some shots and it was as if they were complying
to my telepathic requests. LOL! Preen!







Look straight ahead! Don't move!







Now look down!







Look up! Try not to roll your eyes and yawn...we don't get a
chance like this everyday!






One of them sensed my presence, flapped its beautiful white wings
and took off. The others followed soon after.Too bad I couldn't
get them in flight...I only managed a blurry shot. Ah well, I might
get one soon because when all the wild colocasia die back in the
swampy areas, they come to forage there.Now that they've 'discovered'
my coconut tree, it's likely that they'll be here again. Love the
thought!

Blooming Friday/ Ah, November!

For today's Blooming Friday I headed off to Greenwood Resorts on the
outskirts of the city. It's a place where the gardens are beautifully
maintained and it was a pleasure indeed to walk about with my camera
stopping for a cup of coffee at one of the restaurants and at their
bakery for cookies. The "Ah!' on my post title is for the relief and
joy that summer's heat has left us. It's wonderfully pleasant now.

The last blooms of the flowering shrubs still cling tenaciously but
this really is a period of transition. Old giving way to new. The rows
and rows of plants in the nurseries have a tired look. But within a
month, the winter blooms will bring change. Colour in many hues. All
the sowing beds are full of tiny saplings...salvia, marigold, petunia,
calendula, dianthus, phlox, larkspur, sweet williams, linums...the list
is endless.


To see what's blooming around the world, head over to Katarina's.
Thank you Katarina for hosting Blooming Friday. It's a day
I look forward to.....







A pale variety of Mussaenda.






Vibrant canna.






A view of the Resort with agave blooming. And the next three pictures
show the close-up of the blooms.





















Ground orchids.







Potted euphorbia milii in their hundreds( that's what I feel) dot
the entire landscape.






White Mussaenda.








Yellow trumpet creeper ( I think!)






A small shrub favoured by gardens here is the Red Bird of Paradise/
Caesalpinia pulcherrima. This is the national flower of my good friend
Helen's country,Barbados. This is also known as the Pride Oof Barbados.
Other names include--the Peacock Flower and Dwarf Poinciana.













Red Mussaenda at the nursery where I stopped to pick up some
saplings.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour of the gardens of Greenwoods. Hope
to show some of the best from my region in the coming weeks. Wish
all my wonderful blogger friends, and every welcome visitor, a great
weekend!

Night Moth

 

The other day, evening rather, I found this unique-looking moth on the back of a cane chair. We mostly see brown or gray moths with some patterns but this one was a subdued mix of green, orange and brown. I checked out my favourite bug website (www.thaibugs.com) and found out that it's the Night Moth/Theretra nessus. There's something new everyday but most of them are drab-looking. I thought this one, despite not being a clear shot, was blog-worthy:)