A touch of Christmas Red in our Tropical Garden

This morning the sky was blue, and the garden looking lovely, despite the ominous warnings of the impending cyclone, named Owen. However as the day has drawn on, the weather has become more sultry, the skies cloudy, and the weather forecasts are changing by the hour it seems. I think that the media drives a lot of these reports however the average person is over a barrel in determining what is actually happening, and often it is a wait and see game. We should see some weather action here  by Tuesday.

I hope you enjoy these photos of my garden turning on it's red Christmas lights, without any batteries or electricity involved, just the sun and the rain. The African Blood Lillies appeared without any fanfare and are stealing the show, and the rain has certainly helped their bulbs to multiply and produce magnificent blooms this year.

African Blood Lilly

Medinilla

Bromeliad flower

I hope you enjoy your weekend my friends. I have had enough of the shops this Christmas. I think that one of the solutions to a stress free Christmas is to stay away from the shops and shopping centres as much as possible.  All of my Christmas shopping and wrapping is done, our Christmas letter written, Christmas menu partly planned (of course), edible gifts distributed, and now I am preparing batches of Rum Balls, and whatever else I find time to do. 

I have been surprised, frustrated  and dismayed at the amount of up selling that department store staff are trying on this year with every customer. Surely this must result in overspending by many people which becomes very stressful when the credit card is due in January. No doubt the message and training is coming from upper management to shop staff to try and sell as much as possible above and beyond what the customer came into the shop for. Oh well it didn't work with me.

On the kitchen front, I made a delicious cake loaf yesterday, which I hope to share with you in the next couple of days, combining Dulce de Leche, banana, spice and all things nice. Stay tuned for that. Hopefully I will get back to blogging in the next couple of days.

Take care everyone and I hope you have Christmas preparations under control and don't feel stressed out by it all. 

Best wishes

Pauline

The splendour of the Blood Lilly (Haemanthus) in Tropical Gardens

  

The African Blood Lilly with large red globe shaped blooms, resembling a very soft brush or a pincushion even, arrives unannounced, saying Look At Me and quietly takes centre stage. Splashes of brilliant red tinged with gold throughout our Tropical Garden signals to me that Christmas is on it's way. The bulbs which grow quite large if left alone, lie dormant beneath the ground for most of the year, some lush green leaves appear and then if the weather conditions are to their liking, the flower bursts into song in early Summer. We have had ideal weather this year for tropical bulbs, with rain showers, cloudy conditions and not too much heat just yet. However if you live in a frost prone region, these bulbs are not for you.