The Flowers that Love the Sun

The change to hotter weather has been horrendous. I've had to figure out how much water to add to my plants because of the heat. I have to be careful since I don't want to cause root rot or over watering. 

Well, there are some plants that thrive during sunnier weather. The kalachuchi (desert rose) I rescued from Mom's garden is so happy. It's been producing flowers non-stop.

The bougainvillea cuttings I propagated last year have been producing flowers too. I'm amazed even the smaller ones are flowering too. Bougainvillea truly thrives under the sun.

I have two santan plants I've been meaning to fix, but they've been producing flowers lately. I'll just probably add some nutrients to it. I'm scared it might get shocked if I re-pot it under this crazy heat.

My Gumamela plants are slowly recovering and showing signs of flowering again. I hope they will produce flowers again soon!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Ending November wit Beautiful Flowers

We don't have that many flowering plants in our garden. The only one I bought were my gumamela plants. They haven't produced any flowers since I moved them to another area and that's something I need to figure out why.

Most frequent to bloom are the desert rose (kalachuchi) which we rescued from Mom's garden. The new one I re-potted in mid-October has been producing blooms already.

Surprisingly, a set of torenias sprouted at the foot of the repotted kalachuchi. Good thing I didn't remove it because it's been producing pretty violet flowers. 

I asked Manong Henry to plant some flowers in the front garden and the Panama rose bushes he planted have been flowering too. They're a cute shade of pink.

And he also planted some pinwheel jasmine. They always have flowers whenever I see it and they're so far easy to maintain.

Oh, I just remembered, I also have two suntan plants. I think I need to re-pot them since there's so many weeds growing in their pot. I read, they also need regular trimming to encourage them to produce flowers. They also like to be fed with compost regularly.ni thought they'd be easy to manage.

I hope to produce some Gumamela flowers in time for Christmas!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Desert Rose (Kalachuchi) Rescue After Two Months

It's been two months since we rescued a pot of kalachuchi from my childhood home. It stood lonely beside our pedestrian gate. It was totally neglected and had very few leaves yet.

We brought it back home and I worked on adding soil, perlite, rice hull and compost to it. I didn't dare cut any of the stems for fear it might die. I gave it a good soak and put it where rain could reach it.

After a few weeks, baby leaves started to come out. I would turn the pot around to allow it to get more sunlight. I guess it was happy hanging around my calamansi plants because it started to produce flowers stems last October.

Two months after

Despite heavy rains and typhoons, it bloomed beautifully during typhoon UwanPH. The strong howling winds did not affect the flowers. At the same time, my two other pots (also rescued from Mom's garden) bloomed.

Rescued early this year

Thanks Mom and St. Fialcre, for helping me with the plants. There's more I need to transfer. We'll get them soon.

#BeKind #StaySafe

Desert Rose 7 Months After Being Rescued

I started rescuing my Mom's plants last year. It's been a long, slow process since all her plants need to be re-potted. I re-potted two desert rose plants (Kalachuchi) last October. I placed both pots in our tiny square garden. It's a very sunny spot which the plant loves. The plant also gets some rain water when it rains. 

I was ecstatic when the plant started growing new leaves. It was a sign of recovery and by January it started blooming flowers. I was so happy since it was just two months since I re-potted them. Here's how they looked -

January 2025 vs. October 2024

October 2024 vs. January 2025

Both pots kept on producing flowers. It was a happy sight since I liked the color. The plants also have healthy green leaves and continue to grow. I'm keeping them in pots for now and will transplant to soil eventually. 

May 2025

One thing I realized is like hibiscus (gumamela), desert rose plants need to be fed with compost every few weeks. I have placed a reminder on my calendar so I don't forget. Notice the beautiful color of the flower and leaves. I took this photo the other day after I added compost to the soil early this month. 

#BeKind #StaySafe

Sunday Family Day

We love Sundays. It's usually a laid back day where we sleep in and try to be bored. We're retired, but we do get busy during the week. There's actually so much to do at home and the chores are never-ending. So, Sunday is fun day. We rarely go out on Sunday's since it's usually crowded outside, so we do our lakwatsa on odd weekdays. 

We stayed in today even though there's a Pokemon community day. We've been catching sprigatitto for years now, so we just caught whatever spawned within our perimeter. I woke up at noon and thought about cooking some pasta. There's a can of crushed tomatoes that need to be used, so that's what I did after eating breakfast (yup, breakfast at noon). I also got to watch some parts of ASAP. 

And here's the recipe of this yummy pink pasta (just use rigatoni instead of spaghetti noodles):

After cooking, I got busy watering the plants. I played with the cats in between since they usually lay on my feet while I'm going around the garden. It was Grogu who stayed with me the whole time I was watering in the pocket garden. He's such a sweetheart and never fails to rub on my legs everyday. After having a snack, I then proceeded to water the plants in the garage area.

I super love the desert rose (kalachuchi) flowers. It started blooming last week. I had no idea it would be fuschia since I just picked it up from my Mom's garden to resuscitate. I'm glad I researched what soil mixture to use and it worked. Hopefully it will continue blooming even though Anakin keeps using the pot to sleep in! 

The gumamela plant also sprouted a nice yellow and pink flower. I learned that gumamela plants are always hungry for fertilizer in order for it to bloom continuously. I'm working up the energy to re-pot them since they've grown so big already. I'm trying to propagate some too. I hope it works since my first two propagation batches failed. Try and try until you succeed!

I went crazy yesterday and ironed quite a lot of clothes, so I'm just chilling for the rest of the day. I'll visit the cats again after dinner to see what they're up to. I might try also the treat toy I saw on IG. I need to make them move more since they are getting chonkier, haha. 

Happy Sunday everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Garden Notes: Cactus and Succulent Soil, Calamansi Soil, Avocado Soil

I have different kinds of plants and I can't find the notebook where I used to write down notes for my plants. I realized I should have just noted it here in my blog. That's what I do anyway when I need to refresh my memory. It's also why I make cooking videos at "Recipes for My Son". 

It's been hard to keep track of the needs of my plants. There's soil needs, fertilizer, pesticide, watering etc. So I thought I should write down what I use. It's easier to find it here than my (currently) missing notebook. Miggy can also put it to good use one day when he becomes a plantito (haha). 

Okay, so here's what I generally use for different kinds of plants -

Cactus and Succulents - loam soil, perlite, tiny pebbles, a little compost (learned this from Manong at the nursery)

Calamansi Soil - loam soil, compost/manure, rice husk, coco peat

Papaya Soil - loam soil, compost, rice husk, Coco peat

Avocado Soil - loam soil, compost, perlite, Coco peat, rice husk (use when you transfer from water)

Soil to Propagate Gumamela - loam soil, coco peat, perlite, rice husk

Gumamela Soil - loam soil, rice husk, vermicast

Bell Pepper Soil - loam soil, compost, rice husk

Desert Rose/Kalachuchi Soil - use succulent mix

Belly Buddha - use succulent mix

Ginger - loam soil, compost, rice husk

Dill Soil - loam soil, compost, sun drenched coffee grinds, rice husk

Rosemary Soil - loam soil, compost, sun drenched coffee grinds, rice husk, can also add some pebbles

Will update for other plants :)

#BeKind #StaySafe

Buddha Belly, Desert Rose and Caladium Bicolor

I'm on a roll After realizing that the plants from Mom's garden were essentially succulents, I decided to immediately re-pot them today. I had been watering them like crazy and realized they might die without proper care.

I was pleasantly surprised with what I got. One of the plants is commonly known as Buddha Belly (Jatropha podagrica). I'm not sure if it's a common succulent, but I was happy to see it had flowers when I saw it in my Mom's garden. It's a beautiful plant and I hope it will bounce back after I've given it some TLC.

Another plant that caught my eye is a caladium or more known as the Heart of Jesus. It wasn't in peril, but I liked the color. It will also remind me of my Mom whenever I see it. 

Last plant I got were two pots of desert rose or commonly known as kalachuchi. I remember Mom didn't like it before because of the smell of the flowers. I'm not sure why there were two in her garden. They both badly needed TLC, so I re-potted them in big pots. Hopefully they recover.

I never thought I'd enjoy gardening this much. It's a lot of work, but it's also a great way to know my Mom more with the plants she kept. She always told me she didn't like cacti and succulents, but most of those I re-potted the past two days are succulents. She probably had a change of heart since they are flowering plants. I'm also enjoy figuring out what the plants are and researching how best to care for them. 

I hope I'll be able to save the plants. There's a gazillion more!

#BeKind #StaySafe