This one Red Ginger plant has created 6 blooms all together at the top. Not normal! Especially that bulging over-sized bloom! But an interesting phenomenon! 🙂
My Flora & Forest Galleries
¡Pura Vida!
This one Red Ginger plant has created 6 blooms all together at the top. Not normal! Especially that bulging over-sized bloom! But an interesting phenomenon! 🙂
My Flora & Forest Galleries
¡Pura Vida!
One of the other blogs I’ve encountered because of their “like” of mine was “The Compulsive Gardener” who copied another blog’s “Six on Saturday” garden blogging phenomena with her own “Six on Saturday–A Flurry of Flowers.” If you want to learn more, go to the originator’s blog: The Propagator. Or to his 6 on Sat collection and Participant Guide. I don’t plan to do this every Saturday, but thought it would be fun to do it at least one time to help propagate the idea! 🙂 And ohhh, is it hard to limit myself to just 6! 🙂 But here is 6 of my favorite from My Garden Gallery:
At the end of Avenida 8 on the “Country Lane” part of the land is forest even though private property. As everywhere here in Costa Rica, if you look deep into the forest you see more details and colors like the orange Heliconia in the foreground of this photo and towards the back left the Red Ginger flowers. Yes, these flowers do grow wild in the forests as well as being cultivated in home gardens. Tropical Costa Rica! And even the variety of leaves and shades of green bring me joy as I continue to love forests more and more!
“In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.”
~Paulo Coelho
See also my Flora & Forest Galleries.
¡Pura Vida!
Last year after Christmas I took the potted Poinsettia I had had inside and planted it in my garden. When I recently asked my gardeners to “thin out” my garden, well . . . they really thinned it out including the removal of my poinsettia which was not doing well anyway.
So today I looked for another poinsettia in town and found only one little plant store that had any and they were expensive, but I got two anyway. They add to the “Christmas Spirit” around my house and I already had in mind putting them immediately in my garden, which I did. Well, the rain seems to have stopped (we might get 1 or 2 more) and the wind has started blowing (think March in the states). The petals or really leaves on the poinsettia are be thrashed by the wind and already look weathered.
Oh well, I meant well and in my thinned out garden there is not much color now, so they have been added to my two other now-blooming red flowers: Red Ginger and Torch Ginger or in Costa Rica El bastón de emperador. So maybe all this red in my gardens is my Christmas color for this year! 🙂
See the Photo Gallery of My Home Gardens for more of my flowers and they’re not all red! 🙂
“What is the colour of Christmas? Red?
The red of the toyshops on a dark winter’s afternoon,
Of Father Christmas and the robin’s breast?
Or green?
Green of holly and spruce and mistletoe in the house,
dark shadow of summer in leafless winter?
One might plainly add a romance of white,
fields of frost and snow;
thus white, green, red- reducing the event to the level of a Chianti bottle.
But many will say that the significant colour is gold,
gold of fire and treasure, of light in the winter dark; and this gets closer,
For the true colour of Christmas is Black.
Black of winter, black of night, black of frost and of the east wind,
black of dangerous shadows beyond the firelight.― William Sansom
¡Feliz Navidad!
In a Blur – How I feel 2 days after surgery – but all is well – saw doc today. Physical Therapy starts soon. And photo from my garden yesterday is a red ginger with background blurred. Happy day to you!
Desert Rose Is becoming a favorite while it blooms! Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Heliconia Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Heliconia – Fewer of these blooming now. Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Red Ginger My most faithful year around bloomer! Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
My photo gallery FLORA & FOREST
Heliconia & Blue Plumbago My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Red Ginger among the Maraca Plants My Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
“Parrot Flower” or a type of Heliconia |
Fern My Home Garden, Atenas, Costa Rica |
See also my photo gallery of Flora & Forests
Not the expensive one, just a simple Canon 100mm zoom, 1:28, Image Stabilizer (for hand-held) and auto focus. Here’s a few flowers with it and MY VERY FIRST HIBISCUS in my garden! I only recently got the plant which is slow-growing, but here’s the first bloom!
Hibiscus My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Once de Abril (haven’t found an English name yet) My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Heliconia My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Plumbago My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Red Ginger My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Porter Weed My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
I think I did okay on close-ups of flowers before with a telephoto lens from a distance, but this is suppose to be better! It has the capability of a 1:1 ratio if I get close enough. Insects will be more difficult because they scare off, so I’ll probably continue with my 300 mm for them. Though, note the little tiny ant on the Porter Weed above. 🙂 And it is so nice having flowers blooming year around!
My Flora & Forests photo gallery
Step into my main garden from the driveway or back door of house. Surrounded by the trees and other flowers of neighbors. You know you are in a tropical place! |
One is a Nance Tree which by July will have little yellow fruits I can eat! |
The largest of my 4 Heliconia plants. |
The brightest of my Heliconia plants. |
The smallest of my Heliconia plants. |
And the most prolific of the 4 Heliconia plants. It greets you at the driveway next to the Plumbago. |
Red Ginger is all over my garden & prolific. |
Lantanas are my border and called multiple things here. Grow fast! I have to cut them back regularly or they become shrubs! That is something like a Florida White Butterfly here today. |
A type of Petunia that blooms abundantly every morning, then by mid-afternoon the blooms have all dropped to the ground. More the next morning! Year-around. |
Flame Vine in English or Triquitraque in Spanish which literally means “firecracker” in Spanish |
Flame Vine or Triquitraque |
“Crown of Thorns” is what Lynda called it. I bought at Don & Lynda’s Moving Sale. |
Aloe Vera – I’m always ready for burn! 🙂 |
Sorry I made so many photos this morning! And that is not all of my garden! 🙂 I love it!
Plumbago |
I think most of my photos have been of the total garden or yard and not each blossom. So here are some close-ups of a sort, zoomed in on with my Canon Rebel and 75-300 zoom lens. Enjoy!
Flame Vine or Triquitraque |
My large Heliconia There are so many varieties that I hesitate to identify the species |
This large Heliconia has seeds in it that birds eat or they grow to new plants |
There are 6 varieties of this small yellow Heliconia growing in wild and cultivated. I have two . . . |
This is my other small yellow Heliconia |
Then this small red Heliconia that is finally blooming again. None open yet. |
The almost constantly blooming Red Ginger here with a fully open bloom and . . . |
A Red Ginger bud just opening and growing sideways I cut all of mine back and so they are just now starting to fill with blooms again. |
One of the many colors of Lantanas I have as a border. They are coming back strong after I cut them to the ground 2 months ago. |
Porter Weed for Hummingbirds I have pink and purple. |
The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly. ~William Wordsworth