Garden bounty in May.

Fruit, vegetables, flowers and so much more;

Bee hotel for solitary bees, 5* and still vacancies. Come spring again it will be a busy hotel. 

Mandarins, best from your own tree.

Lovely Pumpkin flowers;

♥

Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.

Epicurus

♥

Pumpkins hidden under the leaves;

Vegetables from the garden;

Healthy looking Papaya trees growing along the fence line.

♥

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.

Epicurus

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The cool season and Poinsettia  belong together. Pruned neatly and  waiting over summer for the season to show of  their brilliant colours.

Abutilon always a winner. Summer and winter.

Flower buds of Paperbark; some are already open and I can hear the buzz of insects looking for nectar and pollen.

♥

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

Epicurus

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Golden Penda, buds and open flowers.

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Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.
Epicurus
♥

Fruit and vegetables from the garden, Rollinia, Lemons, Mandarins, Pitaya and Aubergines.

Hawaiian passion fruit,  sweet and delicious, true Ambrosia! 

Aloe for cool season cheer.

We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help in need.

Epicurus

Stage appearance for Drama Girl, Camellia japonica.

The wild garden, soft and quiet with patterns of sun and shade;

Always forget the always present and liked Mexican heather, a true staple in pink and mauve shade and also pretty in white. Love it!

Pyrethrum flowers; ( I can hear the birds, they are very agitated and alert, there must be still a Python around or perhaps a Pheasant, both give rise to a lot of noise within the birds.)

I am never quite sure with this one, it could be, it looks like a Salvia.  It is an absolutely beautiful plant.



Believe it or not:
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. -



©Photos my garden/ some Text Ts



Subtropical Garden; Vegetables; Orchard; Cottage and Wild Garden growing native and exotic plants,  Currumbin Valley,  Queensland, Australia

May; Butterfly garden;

A butterflies thinks its life goes on forever, at the most for a fortnight. Ts

Farfalla/Italian (Butterfly in different languages)

Papillon/French

Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?
~Dante Alighieri

Borboleta/Portuguese

The new Butterfly garden along the chicken fence;

Mariposa/Spanish

Cathrantus roseus; bred in many shades of red and pink plus white, but I have not seen a yellow one.

Fiäril/Swedish

Alamanda/caramel
This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.
~William Butler Yeats, "Another Song of a Fool"

Papilio/Latin

I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly!  Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"

Vlinder/Dutch

The beginnings of the butterfly garden; Billy checks it out.

 Motyl/Polish

Planted many corms of cottage gladioli

Féileacán/Irish

Cathrantus roseus;

Babochka/Russian

With the rose the butterfly's deep in love,
A thousand times hovering round;
But round himself, all tender like gold,
The sun's sweet ray is hovering found.
~Heinrich Heine, "New Spring"

Perhohen/Finnish

Imortelles/ Strawflowers

Liblikas/Estonian

Grown-ups love figures.  When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters.  They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like?  What games does he love best?  Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand:  "How old is he?  How many brothers has he?  How much does he weigh?  How much money does his father make?"  Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.  ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French

Dwarf Canna;

Kupu-kupu/Indonesian

FrenchLavender/ summer aster/ yellow Lantana;

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.
  ~Hans Christian Andersen

The girls;

Fluture/Romanian

Tropical Salvia;

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"

Plecanthrus amboinicus

Paparo/Filipino

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are.  We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them.  It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it.  Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Butterfly garden; variegated creeper Plecanthrus coleoides;

Turkish/ Kelebek

Alamanda Cheri'


The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.  I grow older.
~Li Po

Sunset in the garden; 05 May 2014 17:28 PM


Believe it or not:
Red sky at night, shepherds' delight, red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning a proverb, meaning If you see a red sky at night, the weather will be good next day, but a red sky in the morning foretells bad weather.


©Photos/Text Ts

April; For the Love of Roses;

Apricot Nectar;

. Apricot Nectar, Floribunda, bred by Eugene S. "Gene" Boerner (United States, before 1964). 

Apricot or apricot blend.  Strong, fruity fragrance.  Average diameter Very large, double (17-25 petals), cluster-flowered, in small clusters, cupped bloom form.  Blooms in flushes throughout the season.  

Tall, bushy.  Glossy, dark green foliage.  

Height 60 to 120 cm.  Width 60 to 90 cm.

Can be used for beds and borders, cut flower or garden.  In warmer climates, cut back the remaining canes by about one-third. In colder areas, you'll probably find you'll have to prune a little more than that.  Requires spring freeze protection ) .  Can be grown in the ground or in a container.

For me one of the best, I have grown for many years. In winter I make cuttings, they take readily and flower already in the first year.

Roses
by George Eliot
You love the roses- so do I.
I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off a shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

There are millions and millions of roses that are sold each year throughout the world. The biggest days for roses are Mother’s Day,  and Valentine’s Day. 

Rose hips, the fruit of the rose are full of  vitamin C. Rose hips are popular for a lovely flavoured dark pink tea or a conserve. The rose petals are also edible and have flavours like green apple and strawberries.  The rose family includes pears, apples, cherries, plums, peaches, and much more.

The oldest roses in recorded history are painted on a fresco at the palace of King Minos, who in Greek mythology was the king of Crete.
The first written records that mention roses are from the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, about 5000 B.C.

The Greek historian Herodotus, 485-425 B.C., mentioned King Midas took roses with him when he moved to Macedonia.  

 "The Iliad"  tells that Achilles carried a shield decorated with roses, and that Hector's body was anointed in rose oil. 

The Romans and the early Greeks worshipped the rose, using it to carpet the floor during important banquets.  

The Greek philosopher Theophrastus, 372-286 B.C., recorded that roses could be propagated by seeds, stem cuttings or buds.  

Wreaths of Damask-like roses have been found in Egyptian tombs.  Egyptian artefacts date the use of roses for decoration and ceremony to 1500 B.C.  

The garden roses of the most ancient times in Europe and the Mediterranean were  Damasks, the Gallicas, and the Albas. The Persians found a way of extracting the pure rose oil from the Damasks, today there are distilleries devoted to that same process. 

 In another part of the world, the Chinese philosopher Confucius, 551-479 B.C., recorded the existence of at least 600 books on roses in the Imperial Museum.

The rose continues with the Crusaders.  They brought back many species to Europe from their travels to the east. 

The early tea roses were transported from China to Europe by the tea clippers from India.

Two  areas had the greatest impact on rose history: 

the European/Mediterranean group and the Oriental group. 

The European roses are primarily the following: 

 Gallicas, Albas, Damasks, Centifolias, and Mosses.  

The Orientals are Chinas and Teas.  

The Europeans for the most part, have only one season of blooms per year, while the Orientals repeat bloom. 

 After  years of intense experimentation and crossing, in the 1840's it all resulted in a new group called the hybrid perpetuals, which were hardy, repeat blooming and diverse in color and form.   This group of roses, which included reblooming, hardy plants, overwhelmed the older roses, and interest in the ancient roses waned. 

The search to widen the range of hybrids continued and the Bourbon rose was crossed with the eastern teas, producing a plant called Hybrid Teas, the results of which were hardy repeat bloomers.

It continued through the 1900's and on into the 21st century:  the cultivation, the hybridization, the experimentation, until now we have so many to choose from.  

Believe it or not; The rose is the most popular flower today.

© Pictures/Text Ts