Since moving to US I happen to be living in the houses surrounded by a small slice of land. At the beginning such land looks dry, bare and exhausted. Tiny islands of grass might be present, but they are not too strong to survive for the long summers in Houston, Texas… then I come and work-work-work to transform the land into a garden with grass, happy flowers, even fruit trees, especially after my younger daughter inspired me to compost all our food leftovers… this is only a little pre-story of the place where miracle happen.
When we bought the house four years ago I wanted it to be drowned in the flowers, but it is not easy in the shade of mighty oaks and pine trees nearby. Do you know how exotically colorful Bougainvillea thorny ornamental bushes are? At least at the store when you are choosing to buy them… then they grow well “Dark Forest Green” in my garden and somehow forget producing a single flower as they do alone the sunny streets in Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica and other South American countries.
About couple weeks ago from the second floor of my bedroom window I suddenly noticed “Scarlet” flowers on a low side of the Bougainvillea. But because it didn’t bloom since was purchased years ago, I was not sure about the color. Also, the bright red flowers were too small for Bougainvillea’s. Yet, it was a delightful moment, so I run to the garden to have a closer look.
Well, it appeared that Bougainvillea stretched one of her long thorny branches to meet and touch a new neighbor – tall (for the flower) and elegant Red Salvia with scarlet flowers full of nectar attracting hamming birds. Originally it came from my old house front yard, and proved to be growing AND blooming everywhere despite the shade, soil and/or neighboring plants. It is also unstoppable in propagating with enthusiasm which is hard to control.
Interesting, I though… should I re-plant Salvia away? Maybe later, too busy now… then few days later miracle happened! – one, then two, then cluster of flowers opened up on my enormously larger “Dark Forest Green” Bougainvillea! – and not somewhere on the top kissed by the sun every morning, and not on the very bottom regularly watered by the sprinkling system, no-no… after years of sleeping the first flowers appeared on the edge of the branch hugging the Salvia plant…(!)
You can see on the last photo that by now Salvia’s beautifully fresh scarlet flowers are sacrificed by nature and became dry brown tiny boxes for the baby-seeds, while Bougainvillea’s flowers are celebrating life and surrounding Salvia’s drying stem. I hope more flowers will come from this friendship, and feel so happy finally to see Bougainvillea’s flowers and their amazing color… some people say they are peach, while some may call this color Sundown Orange…
Mystery
Likes
509 Views
Share: