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| A neighbors up the hill has yellow & orange flowers blooming together. Click for larger image. |
Yellow Bells Keep Increasing!
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| Up close they are a very bright yellow trumpet-shaped flower |
The Yellow Bells are blooming earlier than I expected or remember from last year and do hope they are still around when Reagan arrives in February. They started with a few blooms on the high tips of limbs that get the most sun and are now spreading all over. They do attract hummingbirds!
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| From my lunch table today at about 1:30 facing NW. |
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| From the street today at 2:00 PM (bad time for photo) |
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| An even worse image at 2:00 PM but you can see that my terrace is surrounded! |
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| Bouquets on the terrace! |
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| And color below my horizon views! |
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| Plus they are already coloring the ground as blossoms drop! |
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| A tree in my neighbor’s yard. |
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.~Luther Burbank
And I’ve added most of the new birds to my Costa Rica Birds photo gallery. It’s growing!
Pura Vida!
A New Black Witch Moth
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| Black Witch Moth, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica Inside my house on screen. I opened screen, shooed him out. |
And this one is darker, though still not quite black! 🙂 And he was INSIDE my house.
Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what’s in a name?
~Helen Hunt Jackson
And my photo galleries on:
Costa Rica Butterflies & Moths
Costa Rica Insects
Or all my Costa Rica Galleries together
Groove-billed Ani
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| Groove-billed Ani, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
Though fairly common and widespread all over Costa Rica, I haven’t seen many here. This was one of four in my yellow-bell tree just off my terrace. From a distance he can be confused with the Melodious Blackbird, but a closer look at the bill is the difference in these two all black birds with black eyes, the only two totally black. I made an out-of-focus photo of one at La Jacaranda last January, but this is a much better image. Also back then I called that one a Smooth-billed Ani which is almost the same, without the grooves on top bill which is also a little higher pitched. But they only appear in the South Pacific area of Costa Rica, so I renamed it there and in my online photo gallery of Costa Rica Birds.
Cornell Lab Site on the Groove-billed Ani, an unusual bird
“Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?” ~Rose Kennedy
The Maturing Garden
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| The garden is a full jungle now, needing pruning every month. This means the Tuti Fruti Verbenas border get most of their blooms cut off and thus not as many flowers on them now. While the Heliconias and Gingers are getting very large. Gingers constantly bloom, Heliconias are in down period. |
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| The Maraca or Shampoo Ginger has 5 new stems growing fast, but lost the 1 flower. |
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| The Triquetraque or Mexican Trumpet Vine is finally blooming but not covering the wall yet. Hoping for more. |
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| The extra large Heliconia plant lost its big flowers and now has 1 new one growing with more expected soon. |
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| This Costa Rica Petunia blooms profusely every morning with blooms dropping off in the afternoon. Interesting! |
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| One of the many Red Ginger blooms |
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| The favorite flower of the hummingbirds and butterflies for which I haven’t been give a name yet. Same one below, different color. |
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| Fewer butterflies now after the June-July swarm. |
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| The Blue Plumbago continues to bloom mucho as the background hedge. It now gets trimmed only on the front side, so only losing some flowers. |
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| One of the small Heliconias |
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| My gardener calls it Once Junio planta, 11th of June Plant, a nice extra gift plant he brought for my front yard. Has yellow berries too! |
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| The ground-cover I got sprigs of from the apartments has spread well around my small palms in the front yard. Nice bright blooms in morning which simply close in the afternoon. No name for it yet. |
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| The Pilea ground-cover in my main garden has complete coverage now. I think it is much better than mulch and the lizards like it. Hope not snakes! |
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| Another Heliconia opening up. They too bloom year around. |
And to see what garden looked like on the first day planted, just click the link for May 1 post!
And see a free preview of my little book in Spanish about the garden Mi Pura Vida Naturaleza Jardín
“God made a beauteous garden
With lovely flowers strown,
But one straight, narrow pathway
That was not overgrown.
And to this beauteous garden
He brought mankind to live,
And said “To you, my children,
These lovely flowers I give.
Prune ye my vines and fig trees,
With care my flowers tend,
But keep the pathway open
Your home is at the end.”
“God’s Garden”
― Robert Frost
Unidentified Butterfly
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| Unidentified Butterfly In My Garden, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica I’m seeing fewer now. June & July are the peak months for butterflies here. |
If you know the identity, please leave a comment below. Thanks! -Charlie
And my Spanish post today: Verbos Tallo Cambio
Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird
Back to my garden . . .
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| Fork-tailed Emerald Hummingbird In my garden, Roca Verde house, Atenas, Costa Rica |
This is my second time to photograph this species in my garden. Both times the light is not good for a clear and colorful photo. He/she is an iridescent green all over except for the dark, forked tail. The first time was no better. What I need is sunlight shining directly on the bird! 🙂
SPANISH LANGUAGE UPDATE
My progress has been so very slow. ¡Aprendo poco a poco español! (I learn Spanish little by little.) Is what I say to some people. So I have joined a second class that meets only once a week at the little evangelical church I have attended some, Iglesia Biblical. It provides a text book and workbook for homework and it is too early to see if it will help me learn faster, though every effort is of some value! What I need most is to just talk more in Spanish, ignoring the embarrassment of doing it wrong. That is what David Castillo at Su Espacio is trying to get me to do. We are down to just two in his class right now, so it is almost like tutoring. I also try to do one little activity each day on duolingo.com which is a great free language learning site! And I just ordered another CD-based course. So I’m trying! ¡Pero es difícil! (But it is difficult!) Or slow! David suggested I do this blog in Spanish, but that would leave too many of you out, so I won’t. Maybe a separate blog in Spanish?
DROUGHT
This has been one of the driest “Rainy Seasons” on record for the Central Valley and I have to water my garden and new trees every other day. Everyone says the rain should really come in September and October. We’ll see! It is cloudy and thundering right now, but that often means little or nothing!
This has been one of the driest “Rainy Seasons” on record for the Central Valley and I have to water my garden and new trees every other day. Everyone says the rain should really come in September and October. We’ll see! It is cloudy and thundering right now, but that often means little or nothing!
The only exception to the drought has been the Caribbean side of the country and a few places in the north. It rained every day we were at Yorkin. The northwest or Guanacaste area is always the driest part of the country and it is even drier this year. It is really hard on farmers!
Time flies, but not backwards, like a hummingbird can.
(-:
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| Good night from Atenas, Costa Rica! The little bit of rain passed fast and gave us fog. Pura Vida! View from my balcony of course! |
More Garden Additions
Yesterday (Saturday) I took a taxi to La Garita to visit Vivero Central, my favorite plant nursery (largest in the country). Just walking through the place motivates you to work on your garden!
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| Kevin Hunter at Vivero Central in March, making a photo of course! |
My new garden art is on a tree stump with a hole in a root near bottom that just needed a plant
coming out of it! Pequeño (small) of course! This is what I came up with:
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| Garrobo en español, like a small stateside philodendron or caladium. Kind of snuggled into a crack of the tree base, like it would in the jungle! I was afraid a vine might get out of control or take over the garden. |
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| You just barely notice it at base of tree stump, but I like the use of that hole for a plant and think it makes the garden more interesting. Its an ongoing, creative process that is fun! And notice how my ground-cover has spread! It is pilea depressa or helxine soleirolii – wonderful! Next photo is up close of it: |
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| pilea depressa or helxine soleirolii ground-cover in my main garden |
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| I also got this small planter for my patio/balcony with a red flower that blooms year-around! Plus it attracts colibri (hummingbirds)! Didn’t get the name of it. You also see the crotons around one of my front yard palms and barely the ground cover I added there. Next photo of it: |
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| I haven’t even tried to get the name of this flowering ground-cover – love it! Got a few cuttings from the apartment manager and it now covers the ground around three different trees in my front yard. The crotons were already there. |
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| The aloe vera was getting too big for the narrow bed it was in, so it got a new home of its own in this pot at the end of walk by palma roja (red palm) and you can see I added some free coleus around the palm. Not sure that’s a good match, we’ll see. May move it. Had to plant it somewhere. This pot might later go on the balcony/patio, my medicine cabinet for burns! 🙂 And it had two babies, so I have plenty of aloe around. |
I also added two ferns in two bare spots which is another texture this tropical garden needed. And I got a new ceramic pot for my dining room plant which was in a plastic pot. Accomplished at lot!
And if you have wondered about the concrete wall behind my new garden, well, my house is built into the side of a hill. It is a retainer wall above which is the landlord’s driveway on one side (below photo) and a neighbor on the other side (above photo). I have planted Triquetraque or Mexican Flame Vine at top of the wall which will soon cascade down with beautiful orange flowers and cover the ugly concrete. I’m trying to be patient while it grows! 🙂 Photo below (22-July-2015 growth):
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| Triquitraque or Mexican Flame Vine will someday cover my back wall. The advantage of being the first one in a new house is I get to help design it! |
One of my “regular” taxistas (taxi drivers) is Nelson. He is learning English and helps me with my Spanish and I help him with his English. This is his second time to take me to La Garita and he is patient waiting on me shopping. In fact he walks around with me and seems to enjoy it. I pay him above the going rate for this trip to make it fair for an hour and half+ of his time. And I now have a favorite helper at Vivero Central named Francisco (who gave me the coleus). He is so good at helping me and does pretty fair English and puts up with my Spanish, so more good local friends/helpers. And a tip will assure good service next time. Its my second time with Francisco and he has already remembered me! La Garita is halfway between Atenas and Alajuela and is the plant nursery “capital” of Costa Rica, 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) east of Atenas through the mountains and over the Rio Grande.
It is always exciting to open the door and go out
into the garden for the first time on any day.
– Marion Cran
Little Yellow Sulphur
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| Little Yellow Sulphur is one of many yellow ones all around now. Note that this is different than the other two yellow butterflies I’ve shown. On my Plumbago flower, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun.
And find your shoulder to light on.
To bring you luck, happiness and riches.
Today, tomorrow and beyond.
An Irish Blessing
And I have a PHOTO GALLERY of Costa Rica Butterflies that you might enjoy. Peace & Love!
Three New Butterflies!
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| Southern Broken Dash Skipper In my garden at Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Smyrna Blomfildia butterfly inside my house on window screen. Atenas, Costa Rica |
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| Turquoise Emperor butterfly In a neighbor’s yard, Roca Verde, Atenas, Costa Rica |
I’m getting more photos at home than I do at some of these butterfly farms! And I never tire of this! Also so glad I went to the trouble and expense of starting a flower garden two weeks after moving in! It has really paid off! In just two months! I’ve lost count of the butterflies I’ve photographed here, and that is in addition to 5 species of Hummingbirds photographed! My Costa Rica Butterflies Gallery is up to 19 species now, but not all from my yard!
May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on,
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, tomorrow and beyond.
~Irish Blessing