Urban Garden.13
So these potted plants sit on the balcony off the room where I meditate and do my workouts / yoga. The way these flowers suddenly appear on them is really a bit different from what I’m used to from the climate zones where I grew up, in which one has buds for a long time and eagerly waits for them to open – particularly, say, in the case of the spring bulbs like tulips or daffodils, eh? Here, one day I suddenly notice a new spike, and the next day voila, there’s a flower. The more unfolded flower-stalk here was featured previously in https://somuchworldsolittletime.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/urban-garden-6/ , and this week I noticed the second stalk, so thought I’d share with you its evolution.
By the way, online research tells me this is a variety of heliconia, which is not the flower commonly known as Bird of Paradise — for that one, do a quick search for Strelitzia. I once inherited a potted bird-of-paradise plant and, with careful application of the right fertilizers, encouraged it to bloom on a balcony in Brooklyn, long ago and far away :-). (Unlike my British friends, I cannot refer to plants in containers as pot plants. We in the US understand pot plants to be something quite entirely different from these lovely but not … pharmacopially useful? … heliconia.)
Urban Aviary – Animated Edition
You may recall my first photos, better focused and more brightly colored because the lighting conditions were good. I’ve watched them eat quite a bit, but every time the light is good and I get my phone out, they fly away. This time I caught the action but it was dusk without great light…so to see the beautiful colors, go here: https://somuchworldsolittletime.com/2020/04/27/urban-aviary/
I’ve wished often that I had a faster reflex to record some of the beautiful birdsong I’ve heard, or to take more photos or videos of these birds eating or the other lovely birds flitting about the branches of the mangoes or these trees (whatever they are) and other locations. But they don’t tend to stay in one place often, and if light is good enough for me to see them, then they also see me moving and fly away. Oh well – enjoy this and imagine them literally right off my home-office space off and on throughout the day chomping through the seeds and letting the husk drop, then picking up another seed pod to chomp through.
(so much world, so little time....) 