Lots of things spring to life in my garden once the wet season starts. My ginger bed is erupting with little green spikes and I know under the ground lovely juicy ginger tubers are forming. The sweet potato bed is doing the same, and turmeric is popping up in a couple of places, where I knew I had planted them. The torch ginger and this lovely beehive ginger is flowering, although the leaves never totally die back during the dry season.
My neighbor gave me a plant with a beautiful flower at the end of the last wet season. She said it had died and I tried to tell her it was ok but just going dormant. No, she wanted me to have it, insisting I was the one with the green thumb. Here it is rising up in all its glory six months later. Behind it is kampheria, another plant that completely disappears during the dry season.
This one I know is Siam ginger, with a lovely pink flower - I picked it up for a song on clearance - clearly the nursery staff had no idea that the plant would come back year after year.
Elsewhere in the garden I often think I have an empty spot and then remember that is a spot where one of my plants is hibernating! I wonder if I should put some sort of marker there to remind me that I have a plant sleeping underground? I guess those gardeners in the northern hemisphere that plant out bulbs in the autumn don't do much gardening until they sprout in the spring. My lovely lipstick plant is blooming again - such a bright spot in the garden...
I love the little red tops peeping out... is it warm enough and wet enough to come out ?- I am a delicate tropical plant you know...
Oh and great excitement - I have a little lime slowly maturing....
Definitely this is a time of growth in the tropical garden
Oh, I just loved seeing all these plants popping up in your garden, so different from anything growing in mine!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it a great time of year.
ReplyDeleteYour garden is a bit ahead of mine being so much further North but a few things have started to reappear as well. I love the beehive ginger.
We grow some of the same plants. I love Kaempferias and other gingers. I still have a number of Alpinias, Curcumas, and Zingibers although a lot of my species have died over the years due to drought and too low of humidity. Happy Spring and early Summer.
ReplyDeleteDavid/ :-)
Das sind Raphael und YvonneSat Nov 26, 01:42:00 AM
Hi
ReplyDeleteI forgot you have spring, as in Switzerland winter is coming soon. Very nice to see your garden coming to life!
Have a nice weekend
Yvonne & Raphael
I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see all this new life popping up in your garden, and so exotic, too!
ReplyDeleteI'll have such a good time visiting your garden through the endless months of white to come here.
That lipstick plant is very cute. I miss tropical plant very much.
ReplyDeleteAlison,
ReplyDeleteYes it is fun, especially when I have forgotten where some of them are going to show up. I suppose you have that with spring bulbs.
Missy,
Just as well the garden is looking after itself at this time of year, as i have not had much time out there.
David,
that's right! and you spell them correctly too! I admire you for growing those in your area, mine just grow on their own.
Yvonne and Raphael,
Hope you get a bit of warmth from my photos!
Karen,
I always enjoy visiting yours to see what you have been up to.
Malay Kadazan,
Your garden is so prolific! but I suppose we always yearn for the flowers of our childhood.
Imbir wygląda jak lody w rożku :-). Pozdrawiam
ReplyDeleteLooking good, but it just makes me envious.
ReplyDeleteGood to see some of your garden plants waking up from their winter slumber. Very different from seeing tulips, daffodils, etc. which are commonly seen in spring here.
ReplyDeleteI am a little late with viewing this post, but how exciting to see all those wonderful plants emerging! I probably risk sounding pretty dumb, but I had no idea there were so many different kinds of ginger. You appear to have at least five varieties in your garden! Is there a discernible difference in flavour between the different types? If so, that would explain something we saw on a Thai menu recently. One of the items had 'lesser ginger' listed as an ingredient and we wondered what that could mean.
ReplyDeleteI love your lipstick plant. I'd not seen one prior to visiting your blog and still clearly recall the marvellous pictures you shared with us a year ago :)
One day I would love to come and see your garden "in the flesh". Here, the weeds are as high as an elephant's eye!
ReplyDeleteGiga,
ReplyDeleteYou are right, that beehive ginger looks like an ice cream cone :) It would be lovely in this heat if that were the case!
Dave,
Hi there :) How is your ginger growing? and have you got that tumeric plant yet? You can come and visit anytime you know!
Solitude rising,
these are the kinds of plants you have on the farm though!
Desiree,
It seems to be quite a generic term for tropical plants! I am not sure if they are all edible. I really only harvest galangal and pure ginger to eat. I am not sure which galangal I have - it may be the lesser. The torch ginger bud is also edible. That lipstick plant took a while to settle in, but now it seems very happy.
Kate,
you would be very welcome! just let me know when. The weeds are taking over in my garden too.