THE 2012 HOMECOMING

Hello everyone! I was off for nearly six months! And within those months, a lot of things happened....garden in and garden out. haha! Right in the middle of the Christmas Season, our store opened a new department, selling curtains, pillows, furnitures and some home improvement goods. I was the one in-charge of the said department, thus the lack of time to update this blog. But the pivoting moment happened just a month ago when my family decided to let me bring back my plants from the "secret garden" at the back of our retail establishment....to our residential home! Oh Yeah! However, due to space constraints...I had to limit my plants to Begonias, Roses, Hibiscuses, Orchids and some plants that are quite rare in our place. All the rest were given away to my suki (repeat buyers and/or "sellers")....and to a friend. Initially...I intended to place my Begonias right inside my room....but even if the light is bright, the plants still needed some heat from the sun and good air circulation. So I managed to set-up my plants in the Mini-pond area of our residential house. Here are some photos of my "re-established" garden.....the Homecoming Garden.

This is the best angle to take a picture of the garden at the mini-pond area. I felt very nostalgic while enjoying the company of my plants this morning.

This is a corner area where most of my mini and floribunda roses are gathered. I think they love the area since some of them already started blooming a couple of days before.

This corner on the other hand, is where all my Hibiscus plants are. They also love the place since they are continuously blooming since the week I transferred them here.

This is the first set of my Begonia collection...the other set is on the other side of which I was not able to take a picture of.

A NoID bulb forcing out a flower bud...I do hope it's a great one! :D

An after stress Begonia sporting a new leaf that's about to be in full "bloom".

The senior member Begonia...I believe this one got most of its genes from Begonia Coralina.

A false Eranthemum or Pseudoeranthemum.....not sure of its species name.

A mini Rose just bloomed a while ago.

Traders call this pink angel!!! I think it's because the flower and leaves closely resemble that of the White angel's...however, it is purple in reality.

I don't know the name of this plant. It's one of my NoID plants in the garden. It has very nice flowers that resemble that of Ixora plants and has a very great foliage too! please help me identify this plant. Thanks!

A relatively new member...this White Hibiscus is very serene to look at. It has white petals with yellow edges that is very attractive.

This Hibiscus has Light Orange petals with dark orange blemishes making it look like an "airbrushed" flower.

The Junior member pagoda Hibiscus.

My Senior member Red Hibiscus is very alive and still "kicking"!!! It's flowers are very bright Red in color and the blooms are relatively larger than the rest of the gang.

I am linking this post to

Tootsie's Fertilizer Friday

Tina's Weekend Flowers

Lisa's Macro Monday

Thank you very much!


Happy Easter and a Happy Gardening too!!!

Interesting Village House Specimens

It's been a while since I "strolled" around our village house...the past home of my plants(majority of them). We have two ponds located just in front of the main door entrance and the mini pond on the right side of the house. I bought some Water Hyacinth two months ago and placed it on top of my brothers biological water filter. It bloomed today with very interesting lavender flowers which has yellow markings on the top petal of each flower.

the Water Hyacinth

a close-up view of the Water hyacinth

a better view of the stamen, pistil and the yellow marking!

Together with the Water Hyacinth, another water plant is in constant bloom during the rainy season in our area. This NOID plant has round leaves much like that of a nasturtium. It has creeping behavior thus hangs off the sides of the filter pot. The flower are very tiny and yellow in color. The plant has several flowers in one inflorescence. I would appreciate it if someone could identify this water plant. Thanks!

The NOID water plant.

A close-up view of the tiny yellow flowers.

Aside from the water plants, I was able to take a picture of a mini rose, or a petite-mini rose. This rose has single layered flowers and are bright red in color. I don't often see this kind of roses in trade...that is why I was so surprise to see the flowers since I bought it without blooms. I also took a shot of our Adenium plant. It has beautiful flowers and haven't stopped flowering since summer. Our Adeniums almost always shed their leaves and are left with only a couple of leaves in each stem. This is normal, so I don't worry about it.

The petite-mini Rose

The Adenium or Desert Rose

The next photo is my pilot entry to Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday!This is the Water Hyacinth photo above applied with KK's "The Ladder" texture.

Using textures is quite interesting...it is a surprise to see the effect of the texture on the selected pictures! I'll try to make some more textured photos in the future!

Until then...happy gardening!

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TEXTURE TUESDAYS: Red

Excited to join Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesdays, Kingdom failed to notice that the theme for this Tuesday is RED! hahaha! So here's my valid entry for KK's Texture Tuesdays.




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PLANTS EXPOSED: Plants in Videogames 1/5

We learned in high school that Biology is the branch of science which focuses on the study of living things, organisms that have...LIFE. The word "bio" actually came from the greek word bios which means "life"1. We were also introduced to the three(3) out of five(5)2 Life Kingdoms on earth namely: Kingdom Animalia, Kingdom Fungi and Kingdom Plantae. I think Kingdom Monera(Bacteria) was also mentioned in our biology class, but I can't seem to remember the details about it. Out of the three top kingdoms, Kingdom Plantae is said to have been the start of life on earth. From the existence of water and sunlight, algae was introduced and from these simple life forms, oxygen was manufactured and made available in our planet. Given the basic needs of animals: water and oxygen, animals emerged and thus started the introduction of more complex life forms on earth.

Since Plants from the Kingdom Plantae are given given high importance and is the primary source of life on earth, I intend to emphasize in this post, their significance and contribution to the existence of life on earth...to your existence, to my existence...to the existence of man. However, the post will have a twist. Instead of the usual formal complimentary style of writing, I will use a medium, specifically VIDEO-GAMES, as sources of information with which I plan to tell the world(like what other people do) that plants are living organisms too! Therefore, this post kicks-off, PLANTS EXPOSED: Plants in Videogames.

I used to be an avid(addict) gamer during my pre-teens, teens and early adult stage(and a normal gamer now), I have read and played a dozen or more games. I am not too old to have played with the Atari but is old enough to have played with Game&Watch and the Nintendo Family Computer. From the games I've played, I will try to share videogames exposing plants as part of the gameplay, a playable character or a supporting character in the game. I also ranked the games according to the significance of exposure, quantity of exposure and my gaming experience. Significance of exposure answers the question, "how important the plants were in the game?". Quantity of exposure, on the other hand, answers the question "how many times the plants were exposed?". Lastly, my gaming experience answers "how satisfied was I in playing the game when the "plants" were exposed?"


We can now start the Top Eight(8) Videogames with Plant Exposures!*

#8 Patapon

Sony Computer Entertainment America, 2008.

PSP

Patapon is one of the most unique games ever published in the gaming industry. The game boasts of its rhythm based gameplay where the player must follow a rhythmic pattern with which corresponding actions are undertaken by the playable characters. For example, by pressing CIRCLE,CIRCLE,SQUARE,CIRCLE...it orders your army to attack enemies if they are on sight. Pressing SQUARE,SQUARE,SQUARE,CIRCLE will tell your army to continue walking in their path. Surprisingly(hehehe), I haven't completed this game. Since with my experience, the game failed to keep me in playing the game with the very feature that made it one of the most innovative games produced for the PSP. Rhythm or Music games are just not my forte I guess. Patapon won several awards in 2008. It is one of Gamespot's "Best of 2008" winning the awards for "Best in Music" and "Most Innovative Game". IGN on the other hand, awarded the game with "Best Music/Rhythm Game", "Best Artistic Design", "Best Original Score" and "PSP Game of the Year". The game as of this date, has two sequels namely, Patapon 2 and, well...yes...Patapon 3.

So where are the plants? The Plant Exposures are actually the presence of a tree in "Pan Pakapon Mini Game" and that of the "Mater Tree"(and some minor appearances of sunflowers). In the mini-game, you will guide Pan in playing his trumpet, making sure that he is able to follow the "Bon-bon" song of a SINGING TREE. The Singing Tree is the first significant plant exposure in Patapon. The Tree has no name, but it sings, talks and has human feature such as eyes, nose and mouth! And during the course of the mini-game, the Singing Tree dances in a disco like manner complete with disco lights in multicolor effect too! The second exposure is the "Mater Tree". This Mater Tree is the tree where all the characters/Patapons are born. With the presence of selected materials such as "Banal branches", "Tender Meat" and "Stones". Combining different materials will produce different types of patapons such as Yaripons, Tatepons and Yumipons.

The significance of the plant exposures in Patapon is good. I regret though that the Trees don't feature the dominant color of most plants....GREEN. They are shown in very dark colors, dark grey and black shades. However, it is repeatedly shown since you see them everytime you need to get special items from the Pan Pakapon mini-game and everytime you want to add or revive patapons from the Mater Tree. This is Plants in Videogames #8....the game that shows the wacky side of a singing tree and that which brings us to the basic scientific theory that "Life on earth started with plants"....PATAPON.

TO BE CONTINUED......

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A trip to my garden this weekend gave me an opportunity to take photos of some plants in bloom! Here are some of the flowers in the secret garden.



My Episcia Cupreata in bloom, I will try to get some other color variety for company. :)



This is my Latana with lots of blooms last Friday.




A Mini-Rose in bloom.



The following are photos of my Calliandra Haematocephala...


This is the flower in full bloom.




This is the flower bud just a day before it will fully bloom.



This photo shows three stages of the flower. From the berry-like bud to the flower in full bloom.

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Hope you enjoyed this weekender post! Happy Gardening!

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
by Mahatma Gandhi

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* Final Fantasy Games are excluded from this feature because I intend to post a separate PLANTS EXPOSED article featuring the grandest and most addicting RPG game in the industry(IMHO).

References:
1 www.thefreedictionary.com
2 waynesword.palomar.edu/trfeb98.htm

Image References:
www.ign.com
www.kingPs3.com
mysite.verizon.net
krooze.wordpress.com
www.unikgamer.com
library.thinkquest.org
www.beastbeat.net
www.pinoypsp.com
www.emuparadise.me
www.Iparchive.org
www.gamerdna.com
chrono.gamewiki.com
videogameafterlife.blogspot.com
www.jap-sai.com
www.plantsvszombies.com
www.techpinas.com
http://gweenkent.blogspot.com
www.pippysays.com
www.cashgenerator.co.uk

Bibliography:
waynesword.palomar.edu/trfeb98.htm
www.blueplanetbiomes.org/plants.htm
www.gamefaqs.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patapon

Gerbera

This is my first Gerbera! It was also the first bloom from my care after around a year with no blooms at all! Sadly, it only lived for 4 or 5 years...severely damaged by the El Nino phenomenon of year 2006/2007.

This post is linked to Lisa's



Awesome Macro Monday!

It's a bird!...It's a plane!...No! It's a...Bat plant!

Given a very sunny morning last Friday in our city, I had the chance to check out my plants in the small garden. I still had to repair some wiring and supports damaged by the non-stop rains but was given an opportunity to relax in the garden during that rain-free morning. Surprisingly, my bat plant bloomed! I got her sometime in April or May this year and haven't seen her bloom. I am so lucky that my plants' new home has more sunlight exposure which considerably help them bloom normally. hehe! Below are some photos I took with my Bat plant or scientifically called Tacca Chantrieri.

Aside from the Bat plant, my White Dona Aurora or Mussaenda Philippica was also in bloom! It is said that this plant is endemic to our country, the Philippines. Our subdivision actually has several of these planted along the center island of the main street. But the pinkish bloom variety is more prominent given its color. I have read and seen other Dona Aurora varieties but so far, in our area, only the white and pink ones can be seen. Below are photos of my Dona Aurora.

One of my Begonias was also in bloom that Friday morning. But this particular Begonia(I don't know the variants/species of my begonias..hehe.) blooms profusely compared to my other varieties. I also took some photos given the opportunity.

On the other hand, a day before, I managed to cut a bloom from my favorite Rose in the garden. It has peach colored flowers. According to my mother it is peach, but I see it as a pink one. No matter what color it is, I still admire the beauty and the form of its petals. I alway cut Rose flowers for my mother when I see them bloom in the garden so I often fail to take their photos before they are placed in a soda bottle. You will find photos of my recent rose blooms below with the tip of the soda bottle too.

Happy Weekend Gardening!

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