Rain Drenched Garden

It's been raining for 12 straight days now. I've been missing my gardening time. I miss watering my plants one by one. And I miss trimming them when needed. Taking photos of random flowers that bloom. Harvesting bell peppers, tomatoes and papaya. 

It's always a wonder how plants survive non-stop rain, but easily get root rot when you over water them. Everything is so green in the garden now and I'm happy there's still some random flowers blooming despite the rain. 

I'm just afraid there will be a lot of pests again when the rain lets up. I'll just have to be vigilant and make sure they don't multiply like crazy! 

How's your garden doing?

#BeKind #StaySafe

Saving Mom's Plants

We've been trying to save as much of my Mom's plants the past 3 years. It's now time to sunset her plants on the front of the house. I checked old photos and the front lawn has changed how it looks so many times. I remember we even had a prolific santol tree before. There used to be palm trees on it before and santan plants for a time. 

My Mom gave so much of her time tending her garden. There were times we felt it was more important to her than us. She wouldn't pick up the phone during her gardening time and would always worry whenever we'd have her travel. I knew it was impossible to do it by myself. 

We were finally able to get Manong Henry's team to help save the plants. We got lucky because he assigned his son and an expert gardener. I just told them I wanted to save Mom's bougainvillea, snake plants and other flowering plants. I also proposed to make some plants into bonsai.

I'm so glad Christian and George love being gardeners. They have been happily working on saving the plants and Christian loved the challenge to turn some of the plants into bonsai. It's going to be messy in the next few days, but I'm happy we'll be able to save some of Mom's plants. 

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Front Lawn Landscaping 3 Months After

Three months ago we had our jungle-like front lawn cleaned up and landscaped. I told the landscaper we wanted something easy to maintain and some flowers.

The end result was a simple frontage. I was worried that it was a bit thin? Manong Henry reassured me it would grow and need pruning.

The last time the plants were pruned was in early December. We got busy, so we havent had time to let Manong Henry come over. I've been giving the plants complete fertilizer every six weeks and I spray it with neem oil sometimes.

Sweetie waters the plants everyday (I take care of everything inside) and he told me a lot of new plants have been growing. I fed the plants some complete fertilizer yesterday and was surprised to see a lot of new birds of paradise. The bushes also grew double from the time they were planted. 

We've also been asked several times about the pink flowers. They just keep blooming. They're called Panama rose and have been very easy to maintain. The white one is called pinwheel flower or Tabernaemontana. The birds of paradise have gone crazy. We will try to remove the ones growing in between the bushes...

Happy weekend everyone!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Started My "Expanded" Vegetable Garden

I was so shocked with the prices of vegetables. It increased a lot in the past couple of weeks. I told myself I need to take growing veggies seriously. I enjoy it anyway, plus it will benefit us. After successfully growing bell peppers, I embarked on expanding my vegetable garden. 

Got some tomato, cucumber, and carrot seeds the other day. I wanted to get some lettuce seeds, but it wasn't available. I went for Ramgo seeds to increase my chances of getting the seeds to sprout. The day before I bought seeds, I planted the mustasa seeds which I already had on hand. I was so surprised it sprouted the day after! Using a seed tray with cover really helps. 

I went to work and planted the new seeds I got the day after. I had prepared the trays already last weekend. It's pretty cold lately, so I hope keeping the trays covered will help. The mustasa sprouted so fast, I'm just a bit anxious it's getting leggy since the sun hasn't been consistent. I'll move them if needed, but I'll need to keep them elevated so snails don't get to it before they grow! 

I hope I see more of the seeds sprout this weekend. I'm not sure if it's the best time to do this since the weather is quite cold especially in the evenings! My bell peppers are growing nicely and I'm seeing more growing since I re-potted them. I still need to re-pot two more and will do it this weekend. 

While waiting for the seeds to sprout and with the bell peppers now more stable. I'll work on the orchids we rescued from my childhood home. To be honest, I haven't had that much success with orchids! Gah! They're so hard for me. I have to pray for guidance to successful save what Mom left!

#BeKind #StaySafe

Inheritance

I got the rest of my "inheritance" today.

Mom's plants and old pots.

My parents told me when I was growing up that the only inheritance they could give us is our education. All of us finished our studies and we all managed on our own to go to grad school too. 

We weren't Nepo baby rich. We got by through Dad and Mom's hardwork. Mom retired when I was born, but she helped manage Dad's law office and did some trading (buy and sell of office supplies). We had a comfortable life and that's enough when you live simply.

Dad didn't keep a lot of earthly items. I only found his neckties and a couple of tie clips. His clothes and shoes were gone when I cleared the childhood home. His treasure? His law books and documents. I sent useful law books to his Alma Mater and just kept a few key ones. Old law documents have been shredded. I asked a lawyer what I should do with it and he said we can just shred it since the courts and notarized docs are also kept by the justice system.

Mom's treasure. Her garden and craft materials. I finished sorting the craft materials last October and have been working to rescue her plants for two years now. It's a lot of work, but I know Mom loved her garden (sometimes more than me, haha). She had been passing potter plants to me since we got home and I know she wanted me to continue her work. 

I know Mom has been watching me. I've only so far been unsuccessful with all her orchids, but most of her ornamental plants have recovered from neglect. The boys got some more plants and empty pots today and I'm happy I have more gardening work to do. I'll do my best to save the plants Mom left. The huge, huge flowering tree beside my childhood home is definitely one remembrance of Mom's epic green thumb.

#BeKind #StaySafe

Saving Mom's Garden, One Pot at a Time

I've been working on saving Mom's plants and after going around her garden I decided to get some plants that needed a lot of TLC. 

To be honest, I can only name a few of Mom's plants. Thanks to Google Lens I'm able to identify the plants. Identifying the plant is important so I know what kind of soil, watering and sunlight it needs.

The first plant I worked on is a bromeliad. It was strangely not potted, but had roots. There were mixed views on what kind of soil it needs. I decided to use cactus soil mix (loam soil + stones + perlite). If it survives that's when I'll re-pot it with peat moss. 

By the time I finished gardening, Meredith was probably cross because I occupied part of her bench. She hung on my gardening scissors and refused to give it up. It was her way of saying that it was time fo me to rest.

I had a productive day. I was able to re-pot most of my cacti and succulents. I also took the opportunity to propagate gumamela cuttings. Hope everything I worked on will flourish :)

#BeKind #StaySafe

Mom's Garden is Amazing

Did some adulting stuff today and took the opportunity to take stock of what is in my Mom's garden. We had the garden cleared so we could walk around. I was afraid that Mom's plants have died.

The garden is still very lush. Mom left a lot of knick-knacks but her true treasure is her garden. My Mom was a "mega-evolved" plantita. If there are stages to being one, she's at the highest level. Anything she touched would grow and thrive. Even without maintenance her garden is still very lush.

Plants usually don't survive when you do construction. I've been trying to work out a plan to save my Mom's plants. Weeds have taken over the grass and only a small patch is alive. There's a lot of potted plants, but some are being choked already by vines. The invasive vines will probably die when work is done on the property.

I think the first step I would take is to identify and make an inventory of Mom's plants. Then I can research and plan how to save them. I think we can probably move those that need full sun and less watering to a side that won't be disturbed. This way I can prioritize to take what needs more maintenance and bring it home. For bigger plants/trees, we can probably propagate them to grow new ones.

You might ask why I'm trying to do this. Why save my Mom's plants? It's going to be a lot of work. Well, it was my Mom's wish to preserve her garden. All of us have fond memories of her in her garden. She poured a lot of love in it and it will be my way of preserving her memory.

Good luck to us 😊

#BeKind #StaySafe

Garden Update After Being Away for 3 Weeks

 My boys tried to keep my plants happy while I was in the hospital. They'd go home in the evenings to feed the cats and water the plants. Of course, this meant the usual routine was disrupted. The herbs were normally watered twice a day. I usually used a soil meter in the afternoons to make sure they were not overwatered. 

The orchids had a special watering routine. I'd give them garlic water once a week and spray the roots whenever they were dry. The gumamela plants were watered twice a day. The rest of the plants I'd water in the afternoons. Watering the plants is part of my exercise regime and I started doing part of it again today. I'll probably conk out soon, haha. 

As expected, some plants died while I was away. I haven't seen the herbs yet, but Sweetie said some of them look really sad. Told him not to worry, we can just buy again when we're able to go to Tagaytay. The orchids survived with some leaves wilting. I must have done something right because the buds that started three weeks ago have started to bloom. Yay!

I nicknamed the philodendron, Jack. It grew at least 2 more feet the past few weeks. I added a long bamboo stick to hold it up. I'll trim it once I get better and will start a new pot which I plan to put indoors. The aglaonemas are doing well. I hope to see them produce flowers like what I saw at Mom's house. 

Jack the Philodendron

The cacti and succulents are all doing well. I think they were happy to have dried soil. I think I asked Sweetie to water them once while I was away. Rubber plant soil was super dry, but it likes it that way. I've yet to check my veggies. The mustasa died while I was away, but it was already doing that direction even before my first admission. I'll just plant some again. 

The gumamela plants are fine albeit with some yellow leaves. Sweetie said they produced some flowers while I was in the hospital. I sprayed them with neem oil today and will resume spraying apple cider vinegar maybe tomorrow to keep the mites out. I probably need to prune new leaves also to encourage them to produce flowers again. 

Going to nurse them back to good health.

I hope to get some poinsettia for Christmas. Maybe I'll find some next week if I get my energy back. :)

#BeKind #StaySafe