Month: May 2016

My first Heliconia …

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Anyone who lives in the tropics will think this event is quite ho-hum, but for me it’s quite exciting.  For the past three weeks I’ve been watching the development of my very first sub-tropical heliconia flower.

I had begun to give up hope of mine ever flowering, but finally here it is, helped no doubt by the unusually long warm autumn we are having.

Resident insect
Resident Helicona insect

Last night the temperature dropped to 6C, so I don’t like my chances of seeing the remaining heliconias open, but I’m very happy with my very first flower.

More Heliconias to come?
More Heliconias to come?

And there are some other sub-tropical plants blooming at the moment – the Cat’s Whiskers, Brazilian Cloak, Champagne Ginger and the ever crazy Costa Rican Butterfly vine.  Not bad considering Winter officially starts in only six days!

Crazy Costa Ricans
Champagne Ginger
Cat’s Whiskers
Costa Rican Butterfly vine flowers
Brazilian Cloak flower

Badly behaving bamboo …

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Even the best behaved bamboo can get a bit out of control if you turn your back on it.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a “before” photo, so when I say that this is a Slender Weaver’s Bamboo after I cut down 56 monstrous canes ( yes, I counted) you’ll get an idea of just how enthusiastically it was growing.

More than 3 stories high!
More than 3 stories high!

Most of them were pruned with my trusty Fiskars loppers (the Finns certainly know how to make strong, quality cutting tools) but some of the internal canes were so compacted that I had to attack them with an electric grinder! This left the base looking somewhat unattractive.

The ugly result of pruning
The ugly result of pruning

I’ve mentioned before that I have become rather fond of bromeliads, and here’s another reason why …

Looking better with bromeliads
Happy Buddha ?
View from balcony

All I had to do was chop some bromeliads out of an overgrown clump and rescue a rather dejected looking Buddha from under a tree, and voila, no more ugly stumps.