Remembering my Bouquet

I was planning to write about my wedding bouquet last week but since we've been out visiting my mother-in-law over the weekend, the thought just completely disappeared.

But thanks to Diane's beautiful post, it all came back.... If you want to read and see flourishing shasta daisies, phlox, irises, daylilies, coneflowers and whatnot perennials, please do visit her blog here.

Anyway, I fell in love with hydrangeas when I first saw them in Kidapawan City, when we camped at the foot of Mt. Apo as a part of our Science week way back in 6th grade. So when I got married, all I could think of are hydrangeas.

we placed these baskets along the aisles.

We didn't have much during the wedding so most of the stuff were DIY's. We bought cheap baskets, glued purple and golden sinamay and viola-

These are the principal sponsors' corsage... each was a mixture of Malasian mumps, orchids, baby's breaths, dancing ladies, laces and ribbons...

our florist kindly gave us free rose petals for the flower girls' baskets.

together with my friends, the sister of my sister-in-law, we all came up with these..

this is the maid of honor's bouquet

we had to order the hydrangeas from Tupi, South Cotabato, the flower haven of South Central Mindanao. We were experiencing El Nino back then so we had trouble finding healthy hydrangeas. In fact they were overpriced. But, thanks to one of my aunts who solicited hydrangeas from her neighbors in her hometown.

So you can really imagine my glee when the brother-in-law of my sister-in-law handed me this! :)

sadly, the florist at my reception suggested that I place my bouquet in the fridge...

and since I didn't know anything about preserving flowers back then, my bouquet turned out to be....

THIS.....  

on my wedding day....

yeah.. all because I thought him to be an "expert" at everything...

well, I am guessing now that he really had placed flowers in the fridge before since the roses had survived......

but as for my hydrangeas.... never mind....

hmmm... perhaps with photoshop this wilted bouquet will turn out fine... 

do you have any suggestions?

Garden Overhaul!

One of the reasons why I fell in love with gardening is the state of my front yard... 

Well, you can imagine how I looked when I saw this.... but believe me this is waaaaayyyy much better than it was 5 years ago. I thought our house was already abandoned because of the overgrown weeds and stuff... and our backyard 2 years ago certainly looked like a mini forest... The Greenpeace people will certainly thank my then 73 yo aunt for not cutting trees, but for fear of having another cobra attack, I have to make time and embrace gardening and all its hard work...

 If you're an only girl, you'll have to have guts to plead them to clear an area like this... My brothers are not lazy, but then I guess cleaning and landscaping are not on top of their list. But if you want to learn how to ride a motorcycle, build an amplifier, remix music or learn how to cook, one of them will volunteer for sure...

Lucky I have a willing husband who did all the digging, hoeing and all the whatnot..

which transformed this ugliness   into                           THIS............... much easier:)

my coleus' are all grown up and I guess this will be their permanent home...

We just mixed and matched the existing ornamental plants and the ones I've got from a friend. :)

This is the second half moon and I've incorporated some of my new aglomenas and caladium leaves.

My ferns have multiplied so I moved some of them here together with my grandmother's old plants.

I forgot to take a picture of the other side of the third half moon, but so far this the most colorful part.

Oh, I think I love the fourth half moon best with most of my unknown plants in it.

I really love this white and green plants... from a single clump, now they're all flourishing! :)

I've also included hibiscus, and sampaguitas at the back of these rows... I really hope they will all grow up to be healthy plants.. :)

We are planning to "overhaul" the other side of the fence this week... :)

Pray that my thumb will turn out to be green! :)

'Til then! :))

Garden treasures

I was eyeing these plant a couple of weeks now and last Saturday I finally had a chance to take some of them home. They are flourishing in a vacant lot a block away from our home. I took pity on them because the lot became a garbage site and they are slowly creeping towards these lovely plants.

But, what I didn't know was my childhood friend have move their home in the adjacent lot. When she saw me rescuing the plants, she got so interested she pulled some too. She invited me over and look what I got.. :)

another variety of aglonema..

I'm still researching what these are, but I think the yellow and green one is a medicinal plant.

We call this one alusiman a.k.a. purslane. I don't know if this is edible because from what I know purslanes make great salads.

This is a white variety of my unknown violet plant and I'm so excited to see it bloom and multiply!

This is a shrimp plant 

I also got another cultivar of  Dracaena sanderiana popularly known as lucky bamboo.

Do you happen to know the name of this beautiful thing?

I also got an pale orange hibiscus cultivar

 all in all these are what I've got..

I still can't believe my luck! Free plants and a friendship renewed! :) Hope you're having a great day.. :)

Dish Gardens

Wow, long time no blog... I was torn between finding meee self a job and studying for my pre-midterm exams...

Anywho... I saw these in school today....

lovely aren't they? 

When I asked someone about them she said it was the project for the Humanities 1 class last summer. I can never forget when I took the subject... We were asked to make a film, do a painting and have a shot at photography....

This is my painting which really looks more like a drawing.. :( 

haha sorry I'm still learning photoshop.. :)

and this is for my bird's eye view...

 So much for old memories.... Now back to the subject...

So far, this one is my favorite... :) The stairs are already damaged and it was not placed in an earthen dish, but I still liked it. Hmmm. I think I'm gonna make one soon but I want to include perennials in mine.. :)

Help! My Peace Lilies Won't Bloom!!!

If you visit our house, perhaps the most likely plant that you can bring home with are these...

 

Yes, we've got rows of them in our front yard most of my aunt's plant-crazy co-teachers would dare struggle to dig up the roots of these green adorables....

in the hopes of having these grace their homes someday....

image source

BUT... I think these peace lilies of ours are so doomed! Yes, the first time i laid my eyes on them was way, way back when I was  in my first years in college and I haven't seen ta single flower sprout once, ever... as in nada, nil, ZERO!!!

OK, so I haven't really thought they could produce lovely white flowers back then. But now that I knew better, I can't wait for the flowers to come out. I've been researching about them all day instead of experimenting on my beer traps because hey, they've been in our yard for so long...

Online sources are so conflicting.. some say they need plenty of water while other gardeners suggest that you need to deprive them of water for the flowers to show up... and there's one guy who said something about a chemical sort of addictive thingy you have to put....

There was even one who suggested having cats to lick the leaves... 

yeah, I know.. rubbish...

But... we have plenty of cats... hmmmm....

What about you? Do you have peace lilies too? Will you give me some idea on how to make them bloom so that I too will have a peace of mind????

Oh, for the love of peace lilies.......

Pink liliums and what do you call them again?

I love gardening but I'm no horticulturist . Well not yet, but perhaps in my future self. I call these great blooms pink liliums but I'm not really really 100% sure. I got these from my aunt's dressmaker friend two years ago and they're flowering again. I also have white lilies and peace lilies but they're still not flowering. :( They all look healthy and all but I haven't seen a single blossom all these years...

Anywho, I don't know the name of this plant either. So far this is my favorite indoor plant and I took it out today to see a bit of sunshine.

Yup, I don't know what to call these white flowers too..

But I think this is a guppy plant no? If is is, I hope it will have cute orange flowers soon...

I got them yesterday together with this unknown plant again with white and purple blooms...

They look dead but they look fine now after it has drizzled half past noon...

 I am doing my legwork right now and I hope to find the names of these plants. Do you have any idea what are these? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.
"Til then! :)

A Chocolate-y Harvest

I only have afternoon classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I had the privilege to walk my little one to his daycare center which is just at the end of our backyard. 

While we were passing through my aunt's cacao orchard... 

I looked up into these...

and these farther ahead.... aren't they beautiful?

Since I was a kid my grandmother used to plant cacaos all over our house. She also have them plenty in the farm so we had  a steady supply of tablea whole year round.  

I have fond memories of our cacaos. My little brother and I used to have siesta in my lolo's hammock which he tied between the trees. We love it there because it's cool and he used to sing us songs and recount fables and tales. Sometimes he asks us to pull some of his grey hair or scratch his back and he would reward us with big one peso coins. And a single one peso coin back then already means four bubble gums to me!

Even if those trees were long gone, it's feels like this is me in the picture... :)

He had a grand time picking what he can reach and was so happy when he was able to collect all these...

He can't wait for me to slice them in half..

 He was jumping up and down when he saw the perfect seeds..

He waited no further and got his share...

  

Some of the seeds were overripe and others seeds are already sprouting so I had them separated..

But all in all we had a great harvest and I sang rain rain go away as I was placing these on a clean sack...

I really hope the rain will go away for now so that we can all sip a heartwarming chocolate next week! :)

Help me sing will you? 'Til then! :))