Plants are my passion!!

A few hours in the garden weekly recharges me and gives me all the strength to go about my weekly chores with more vigor. I get great pleasure in doing those little routines which most would consider insignificant but are oh! so! important in maintaining a garden.

I have always longed to have a beautiful landscape. There was a time in my life( about 10 years back) that I wanted to be a Landscape consultant and help people design and plan their garden space. That is still a dream and I hope to slowly turn to making a career of that thought.

Right now I have a a little less than a hundred pots and 3 small plots of 10x4ft, 12x4ft and 3x3ft. I try and make the most of my acquired and inherent skills in these plots.

When we moved to our newly built house, I started planning the layout of the 3 plots that I had reserved for the garden. Two of the 3 plots lay outside the gate. Denzil was very insistent of a lawn which was uneven. So we skirted the neighbourhood and came across this plant nursery in Gottigere who had a farm and grew the mexican lawn. We purchased the lawn and a few plants and set about landscaping the plot inside the gate. We managed to give it some shape by Aug 15th 2006. That was a month after we had moved in.

I was handed my mom's collection of hippeastrums for safe keeping when their house was getting renovated and painted. I planted those in the plot outside alongwith a neem sapling and some verbenas that was given to me by a lady who lives close by.

This is what my garden looked like in March 2007. That was 8 months after we moved. Ever since This place has been my Laboratory for testing out my skills on Propagation through seeds, cuttings, layering.... name it.

Thanks to my office location... Siddapura and Lalbagh gave me access to varieties of plants which are so irresistable and should be brought to adorn this Haven of mine.

Winter Blues

Its been a glorious Week. The Christmas week was very hectic with all the preparations in the kitchen and the decorations that need to be put up.
The garden only got regular water. There was no time for fertilizers, cutting and any kind of damage control.

Denzil was busy at work even on Christmas eve and barely made it to the Mass at 9.30pm. It must have been one of the coldest nights. The mist was heavy and both my boys were affected by the combination of low lying mist in the morning and evening and the sharp winter sun in the afternoon.

I had put some coleus cuttings in used plastic glasses and had to get them all inside to avoid them from getting too cold from the cold wind. Though we have no frost or snow, it gets very chill and dry with the winds in the Winter.

The boys were gifted with a lot of presents. All of which were accepted well and it was a very happy evening.

My in laws came over for Lunch on Christmas day. The spread was well balanced and the food all turned out well. Everyone enjoyed the meal. Do I have the time for the garden now..... No way, just water.....

So there it is .... not more than 15 minutes in the garden every morning for the last 10 days. This is killing me...

31st Dec, the last day of the year 2010 is the day alloted for garden care.

Plan as of now ( subject to change)

Fertilizers (DAP) - Top priority
Clean the weeds in the front.
Move the zephyranthes to the lawn border
Prepare the Amaryllis for flowering. Last year, they were late blooms, started in march and went on to bloom till july. This year I had my first blooms in Nov. They were half eaten by some caterpillars. Now I am waiting for the real big bonanza
Trim the big bushes
Re arrange the pots to put all the flowers together
Check on my Nursery for any attention needed.

If time permits, I will post more pictures and the activity post 31st.