Taken yesterday, late afternoon.
Wordless Wednesday: old rose
Taken yesterday, late afternoon.
Category: our garden
More Bloom Day in March
The borders along the upper lawn in our Kigali garden are blooming particularly well this month. I took these pictures yesterday.
(You can control the slideshow by hovering the cursor over it. Or you can scroll through larger versions of the photos by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.)
Our front garden is a rather formal arrangement of two long lawns that run parallel to each other and to the length of the house and its terrace. The narrow upper one is separated from the much wider lower one by two sets of 3′ retaining walls, which are joined in the center by a flight of steps. Irregularly curving planting beds border both sides of the lower lawn and one side of the upper.
I’ve tried to balance the formal layout with an informal, sort of “country garden” planting plan. The beds contain a closely planted mix of tropical and temperate plants and shrubs. Most are cultivated, but the “wild” plants and vines that work their self-seeding way up through the jumble can stay if they they add nice textures or colors.
The beds between the retaining walls and the one along the far side of the lower lawn are anchored by several large, often flowering, shrubs and lianas, and even some small trees.
Because of the vigorous plants and the constant warm weather, I’m always pruning or chopping something back.
Almost every plant repeats in the garden, often in several places. But each 7′ to 15′ section of border has its own primary and secondary colors and then a bit of a third color trailing through the middle or around the edges.
The border along the upper lawn starts out orange and white (with a little pink) at its south end, then becomes yellow and blue/purple with some orange to the center steps. On the north side of the steps, it is yellow and blue/purple again with a stronger trail of orange (red hot poker, lantana, tropical hibiscus). At the north end, it is red and pink with blue around the edges.
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is the 15th of every month. To see what’s blooming today in other bloggers’ gardens, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.
My earlier March Bloom Day post today is here.
Continue reading “More Bloom Day in March”
Bloom Day in March
An abutilon and a red hot poker in our Kigali garden this week.
A little later today, I’ll have some wider Bloom Day views of flowers in our garden (they’re here).
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day is the 15th of every month. To see what’s blooming today in other bloggers’ gardens, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.
Our garden: springtime (again)
I had an odd January and February. Ever since we returned from our Christmas vacation, I’ve had very little interest in working in the garden, and I’ve been fascinated by the cold and snow back home in Washington, D.C.
The weather here in Kigali has been its usual just-about-perfect, but except for a couple of nice trips out of town, I haven’t wanted to be out in it that much.
I know those of you who live in North America and Europe will probably not have any sympathy for me, but gardening in a climate where it’s constantly late spring is relentless. . . and I think I was tired. So I did the same thing all of you are doing (although not by choice): I curled up inside with T.V., books, and the internet.
But now it’s March, and I’m determined to shake off my “winter” doldrums.
I won’t be posting anything this week. I’ve decided to take an electronic media break and work everyday at a number of overdue gardening tasks, as well as some domestic organization (my desk area is too messy to find anything).
I’ll be back next Sunday. In the meantime, here are some of my favorite photos from a walk I did take around the garden on February 24th, during a very light rain.
The lower, even light allowed me to capture both the long front hedge and the hills in our view. (Usually, I get either very dark hedge or whited-out view.)
You can pause the slideshow by hovering the cursor over it.
Please do leave comments, if you like. I’ll probably cheat and check back a few times.
You can scroll through larger versions of the images by clicking on ‘Continue reading’ below and then on any thumbnail in the gallery.
Continue reading “Our garden: springtime (again)”
Our garden: twilight
The final moments before nightfall. . .
These photos were taken yesterday about 6:20 p.m. — standing on the center steps looking down to the lower lawn and out to our view of the city and Mt. Kigali.
enclos*ure 