My banana tree is bearing fruit! Just got back from Morocco to this scene, I am very excited and can’t wait to sample its wares!
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Summer Flowering Hippaestrum
This is such a beautiful plant, and to have it actually flower at this time of year, in Bahrain, when the temperatures outside go between 35 – 45 celcius is such a thrill.
Scabious (Scarlet Empress)
It took so long for these lovely plants to flower, that I almost gave up on them. But am I glad that I didn’t! Quite distinctive flowers with lovely foliage too. I hope I will be able to harvest some seeds for next season.
Busy week
I didn’t have much time for gardening at all over the last couple of weeks and with the so-called-replacement-gardener fired, there isn’t anyone else to do it other than myself. That’s fine, I enjoy a challenge. I was (am) prepared for hard work.
This weekend was the first opportunity I had to do something with the garden. The first thing I did was test the new electric hedge trimmer again! I used it to give a “short back and sides” (as my wife calls it) to most of the bushes as well as several short borders around the garden. That done, I brought out the lawn mower and setting it on “1″ this time – I usually leave it on 3 as I like the longer grass, squishy as you walk on it, like pillows – and a couple of hours later (I wasn’t in a hurry) I was done, with the grass cut down to the shortest it’s probably ever been. I hope this is good for it. It looks quite nice nevertheless. That done, I cleaned up a corner patch and merged it with another bed right in front of it, I mentioned it previously as the “English garden patch”. That place now looks in need of being filled again, after the various bunches of cypress grass removal and the trimming of the ground cover.
Needless to say that I was absolutely bushed by the time I was done. The pool beckoned and promised to repair sore muscles. It was welcome but it didn’t do anything to the aches… I was in bed and asleep at 9pm.
The problem with that, sleeping early, is that you wake up early too. So 3.30am was the time I was awake! But no gardening was done until after lunch. Unfortunately I had various errands to run in the morning. This afternoon I dedicated the time to cleaning up the vegetable patch and emptied the compost bin into it. I then looked into the sprinklers in the front garden, many were semi-blocked and many others needed their direction and spread adjusted.
The tiredness meter is not on full deflection now, but am just chillin’ and watching TV while writing this. It will probably be another full week before I can do some more gardening.
Beautiful front garden
This is a house located at the middle of the Saar avenue and a lot of people pass it every day. I personally get to pass it once in a while and every time I do, as I am sure the many hundreds or thousands of others that do, it fills me with admiration and a sense of happiness at the beauty of the arrangement that this house always sports, seasonally.
There are a few other houses like this in Bahrain, I hope that if you come across one, or know of one, please let me know. I’d like to go and have a look myself.
Summer flowering Hippaesrum (Amaryllis)
I was amazed a few days ago when I noticed that the Amaryllis was actually budding! The temperature outside is in the 40s now, but inside the house it’s about 24C so I think this is a very confused plant, the result; however, is very very welcome!
Summer seasonals
This long weekend has been pure gardening pleasure so far. On Thursday, I mowed the lawn and strimmed all the edges too. That took most of the day at the end of which I was happily tired. Needless to say that sleep last night came fast and deep!
After a good night’s sleep, I woke up at 5am raring to go. I intended to trim the climbers so I thought to visit Manazil to buy an electric hedge trimmer, unfortunately they didn’t have them. I’ll go to Almahroos tomorrow to see if I can get one.
Next on the list is buying enough summer annuals to fill the empty borders; I got 80 gazanias, 60 portulacas and about 100 other regular stuff that I can’t remember the names off (will be corrected tomorrow!) as well as four 50L bags of compost, those went into the borders first as I mixed the compost in to air and rejuvenate the soil.
I planted the various annuals in 4 areas; gazanias went into the “tear-drop” and the small area by the small pond at the back; portulacas went in the front path borders. I punctuated the borders with rosemary and crutons in clumps, I hope the arrangement will work.
By the time I was done just after lunch I was absolutely bushed, again! I showered, had lunch and dozed off at the sofa. My wife and son decided that I might be better off in bed, I didn’t complain too much! Off to a siesta I went – a thing I hadn’t done in years – and had a good 3 hours exhausted sleep. Even though I woke at 7pm, I’m still sleepy and it’s only a couple of hours later!
Anyway, I’ve got a nice task-list for tomorrow and hope that I get through it fine. My regular gardener is on holiday at the moment and his replacement was useless. I had to fire him. Regardless, there is work to be done and as I only have the weekend to actually do things in the garden now, I am thankful for this long weekend to accomplish as much as I could in it.
I hope that you had a wonderful gardening time too. Let me know what you’re planting, particularly if you are in Bahrain, and maybe we can share ideas.




