Answered Prayers

Or is it a combination of that and a lot of care and attention that finally, my bougainvillea has proudly produced a single bract after 5 years of keeping me waiting? Believe me, many times I have come to the verge of cutting it down but then just left it there for aesthetic reasons. (The real reason is that I am a softie and live in eternal hope that it will flower). So this time I decided that I will put a rockery over my heart and cut it down to the base and wait for it to throw out new branches and in the process probably it will be nudged to flower. And look what I found...

One of the challenges of growing plants in a garden which gets hardly a couple of hours of sunlight is to coax the plants to thrive and flower. While my dream is to grow all the flowers of my childhood in my tiny garden like gulmoher, frangipani, jasmine, all colors of bougainvillea, hibiscus, roses, daisy, lily, crotons, dahliya and marigold...I know that most of them will just thrive as greenery and not flower like what they do in full sunlight.

So while I lust at them common garden bougainvilleas (yes, I have small wishes in life) and roses and even jasmines that were rampant in my childhood garden, I cannot bring them all home.

5 years ago, I was fooled into believing that any damn plant can grow in any damn soil. I had bought exotic hibiscus, jasmines, roses and so on and planted them all over on the front and rear patches and watched them die on me or worse still thrive without flowering even once- reason- lack of full day of direct sunlight.

I have learnt from my mistakes. Instead of spending hard earned money on nursery bought plants, I am always on the lookout. I am experimenting. So if you find a crazy looking woman with windblown unkempt hair tugging at a plant near a vacant plot, don't get scared.. that would be me trying to propagate a piece of vegetation.

This white periwinkle is an example of a tugged out branch sprouting roots finally...I mean who BUYS periwinkles? Unless they are of colors other than the common white & purple!

And what do you think is a huge sigh of relief for an experimentative gardener?

When the adenium that was dormant for 4 years on 5 leaves was cut off after assurance that it will thrive after a cutting and will also branch out in a beautiful shape.

Why do I get stuck with slow growing plants?