Year-Round Color and Sound
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| These Tropical Flowers Bloom Year-Round |
One of the splendors of living in tropical México is the year-round
beauty in our garden. Plants are always blooming, some all year long, some for
a season. Green is the background color all year, with vibrant pinks popping
out throughout. Orange flowers bring the hummingbirds. The bougainvillea bring other
birds for the shade and a meal of insects. The red berries hanging from a palm
tree bring the chachalacas.
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| Vibrant Pink Leaves Popping Through the Papaya Tree |
These Orange Flowers Bring Hummingbirds
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| Red Berries in the Palm Tree Bring Chachalacas |
Bougainvilleas Bring Groove-Billed Ani Birds
The garden is a riot of color throughout the year—variegated
leaves mix yellow, red, and green on one plant, striated light and dark greens
in another that appears north of the border only as a house plant, and the
purples and greens of the wandering jew plant creating a colorful ground-cover.
For those of us who enjoy gardening, this is paradise. For others, it is an exquisite
backdrop in daily life.
Fruit-bearing plants including papaya, bananas, and pomegranates, grow well
in our yard, only requiring weekly watering during the dry season. So, I decided
to try planting a Roma tomato seed in one of my pots this spring. It not only
sprouted and is climbing up a column of our terrace, reaching for the roof, but it is also producing nice-sized tomatoes.
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| We Have a Small Bunch of Bananas This Year |
It's Fun to Watch the Papaya Bloom and Produce Fruit
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| Our Roma Tomato Vine is Reaching for the Roof |
Jon and I have both enjoyed watching the tomato plant grow, checking
each day to see how many new tiny green tomatoes have set on. I thought it
might be too humid to grow tomatoes here since I found when I lived in Houston,
Texas, the tomatoes mildewed on the vine before they ever began to turn red. But a sunny spot in the yard and some good home-made compost in the soil are all we
needed! Next, we’ll try jalapeños and cucumbers. The growing season is so long
here, it’s wonderful for wanna-be farmers like us.
One of our favorite bright spots in the garden is our poinsettia plant
from Christmas 2016. After Christmas that year, I plunked it into a pot where
it gets afternoon sun for a few hours each day. I ran two one-gallon drippers from my irrigation
system to the pot so it gets watered weekly during the dry season from October
through May. It has grown to be three feet tall with amazingly bright red
flowers that have lasted from January through spring.
Then our plumeria and orange hibiscus begin blooming, bringing more
hummingbirds. What a wonderful addition to our already vivid garden, letting us
know it’s spring in the tropics.
Our small water feature creates a wonderful bubbling
background sound in our garden. It brings hummingbirds, Yellow-winged Caciques,
and little Yellow Warblers to the fountain to bathe and drink while sitting on
the bubbling rock or in the pool of water. Jon built it from a small pond pump,
a plastic plant pot, and various other parts. Watch the short video below to enjoy the musical sound it makes. To view the video online, click
HERE.
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| Our Bubbling Water Feature Brings Birds |
Our
bubbling fountain also provides a display for some of the many rocks
and seashells we have collected in our years of travelling. These are some of the
few trinkets we brought with us when we moved to México, reminding us of many
good memories we have shared on the road.
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| Terry L Turrell, Author |
You have a lovely garden!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Fabiola!
DeleteTerry I enjoyed this as always.LOVE MOM
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mom! I hoped you would enjoy the photos of our garden.
DeleteLove,
Terry
THIS is what my minds eye sees when I read Mexico anywhere... And what I crave to have in my jardin algun dia. Thanks for sharing, its lovely.
ReplyDeleteHi Candace,
DeleteThanks for reading my blog (and books) and for your nice comment. I'm glad you enjoyed my photos of our garden. Best wishes with your plans.
Terry
Terry, I am newly retired in Bucerias and am looking for books on what grows well and when here. I have a small yard so some vegetables are possible but also ornamental. Our poinsettias are almost trees now from one season in the ground, amazing.
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteI am still learning the names of plants here, also. One of my readers sent me the name of a book that I plan to get from Amazon, but they may have in bookstores in this area. She said that most of the plants that grow in Hawaii also grow here. Here's the Amazon.com link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0935180834/?coliid=I3PPLB3RM5ZZL8&colid=3QKQRLGLXIDNV&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
Best Wishes,
Terry
The name of the book is Exotic Tropicals of Hawaii: Heliconias, Gingers, Anthuriums and Decorative Foliage by Angela Kay Kepler (Author).
DeleteTerry
Terry, your garden is gorgeous! I think your hot pink plant is Hawaiian Ti Plant. I learned this as we saw them all over in central Florida, where we've been since last August, and I bought a couple during the winter. Yours look much happier and healthier than mine, but mine are stuck in pots at our RV park. I am sure they like being in the ground much better!
ReplyDeleteHi Emily,
DeleteThanks for your great comment on this blog. I looked up Hawaiian Ti plant photos and you are right! There are lots of varieties of that plant, apparently, all very colorful. I love that when they get tall and gangly, I can prune them back and stick the pruned plant in the ground. Given enough water, it grows into a new plant!
Sorry, I was delayed in my reply to you. I have been obsessed with getting my new novel published on Amazon. Now that "Just Another Manic Moment" is available for pre-order, and going live 5/22, I can start to write my blog articles again. Thanks for reading my blogs.
Terry