Beautiful Gardens

Early in January - you may recall - we told you we had a couple of heavy frosts.  As much as our landlady tried, she was not able to save everything from the drastic effects.  For three or four weeks, we had a very dismal looking garden - brown and black.  We weren't sure - she wasn't sure - if everything, or even if anything would come back.  Well, it did!  Here is the proof:



The banana palm - first pic above - did come back.  It was easily twice as big when we arrived in January but it is growing.  Pic #2 above - a vine that will have many, many small white flowers, was totally shot - just a lot of spindly twigs like you can see in the upper right hand corner.  I soaked it so well one day that it started to sprout the next and is growing very well.  Pic 3 is the bougainvillea at the front of the house on Peggy's side.  It was very brown on January 4th but it is flowering beautifully now.  Pic 4 is the bougainvillea that is blooming just outside our back door.  Pic 5 is another plant that was virtually black the day after the second heavy frost.  It is blossoming now - beautiful white cups that open up and a second red blossom protrudes.  Pic 6 is one of the many orchids that Peggy has outdoors.  How it survived, I am not sure.  But it has been blossoming non-stop for the past month.  Then there are the new plants that were purchased and painstakingly planted by Bud (Peggy's partner) over the last three weeks.  Gorgeous!!  They will be posted in a separate blog tomorrow.