I am wondering about myself if I had so much love for plants. Yes, I did have which I never realized until now. The credit goes to my mom who inspired me since my childhood. The way she loved and cared for the plants she grew in - "
PUJAS GARDEN" (my house in my native Agasthiarpatti). The moment you step into our house, you will see wide variety of flowers welcoming you with a big smile. Regardless of the season, at least any one of the plants in our house will be flowering all round the year - my mom had collected that many varieties. My Mom loved spending all her energy to create and nurture it 24/7. All are evergreen in my memories.
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| Before I moved in |
During my stay in Liberia, my belly started challenging myself in terms of growth and started protruding. Even if I wish to resist, I couldn't stop eating above the critical limit at least twice a day (Lunch & dinner) apart from the occasional munching of snacks. I had little time after office hours to give myself a good work out. Basically, I got passion to play any game rather than jogging or spending hours out in gym. In Liberia, I had opportunity to play badminton. Big thanks to my enthusiastic colleagues. But assembling them at the right time was a challenge and playing 2 days a week was itself a big achievement considering the workload at office. So I was searching for an alternative option to sweat out - accidentally I chose Gardening!
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| Rear view of my house |
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| Side view of my house |
My company has provided me an accommodation within the plantation. It is a beautiful house surrounded by rubber trees with a mud pavement leading to it.
The mud pavement looks reddish against the lush green environment. When I moved in to the house, the yard was blank with left over of the construction materials, broken stones, hardened cement wastes, broken sheets of asbestos & tin sheets and lots of weeds etc..
I had to clear the construction debris to give my house a better look. I kept clearing & cleaning the yard, but still the house was missing something. So I planned to create a garden around the house to give it a better look. But the real challenges were
Growing the plants in the poor soil (usually the soil in rain forest will be void of nutrients)
The sloppier landscape and the gravel soil
Protecting the plants against plant eating bugs, grass hoppers, ants, slugs & other insects. Thank God there are no cattle around my area :-)
God has showered all blessings on Liberia - here it would rain heavily, sorry it will pour heavily, which has both good and bad effects on the plants. The disadvantage being removal of all left over nutrients in topsoil.
Scorching heat of the sun
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| White (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) |
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| Pink (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) |
So I need to find the right plant that suits best for this kind of soil. It was July when I begun the gardening, which is rainy season in Liberia. So I began testing with few varieties of ornamental plants like Sloppy painter, Snow mountain, Green Bush Stock and flowering plants like marigold, Rose, Hibiscus, Balsam, Madagascar Rosy (
நித்யகல்யாணி) etc.
I collected four different varieties of hibiscus stem cuttings. All started flowering at the same time.
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| Common Red (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) |
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Adukku Sembaruthi
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The Madagascar rosy (
நித்யகல்யாணி பூ) is an easy plant to grow with zero maintenance, which flowers all round the year.
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நித்யகல்யாணி பூ (Catharanthus roseus)
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| நித்யகல்யாணி பூ (Catharanthus roseus) |
I planted the "green bush stock" stem cuttings around the house like a fencing. The leaves of this plant is bright yellowish green in colour. It is an easy plant to grow from stem cuttings.There were few traces of carpet grass in patches. I spread it all over the place by plucking it with roots and replanting it in the vacant area. I got red rose cuttings and planted it in a gravelly area with plastic wastes. I didn't know that it needs some better soil, I just planted it there. I also planted wandering Jew - a bright purple coloured succulent plant with pink flowers. They were looking gorgeous against the white wall.
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| Green bush stock Fencing |
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| Wandering Jew (Tradescantia Pallida) |
Butter cups are another easy plant to grow with zero maintenance. This plant produces hundreds of flowers every day & it does not stop flowering.
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| dark-eyed Butter cup (Turnera subulata) |
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| Butter cups blooms everyday |
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| Yellow butter cup (Sci Name : Turnera Ulmifolia) |
The Rambling rose is another awesome plant which flowers in clusters. It requires zero maintenance for Liberian climate. I used stem cuttings in two different spots and both started growing vigorously. It requires proper pruning and we can train it to climb as we desire.
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| Climbing rose |
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| Climbing rose bloom |
I didn't have a garden hose to water the plants, but thanks to the nonstop heavy rain between May to September, which took care of watering. The rains helped the carpet grass to spread its wings.
The red rose which refused to grow initially started its progress with reddish tender leaves, which was heartening to watch. Within 3 weeks, it started flowering which looked like velvet against the lush green grass.
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| Common Red Rose (Rosaceae) |
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| Common Red Rose (Rosaceae) |
Balsam which are basically fast growers, started flowering in short period- all were in dazzling white, pink and red. The snow mountain started showing its tender pinkish white leaves, just like a new born baby's palm. The Pagoda flower commonly called "Hanuman kreedam" added special beauty to the garden. I would award it as "The crown of my garden". The crotons started with bright foliage brought kaleidoscope effect to the garden.
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| Impatiens balsamina (Red) |
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Impatiens balsamina (White)
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| Impatiens balsamina (Pink) |
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| Pagoda Flower (Clerodendron paniculatum ) |
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Snow Mountain
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| Crotons |
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| Sloppy Painter (crotons) |
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| Crotons |
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| Angel wings (Caladium Bicolor) |
November marks the start of summer season here. In Liberia, the day time is extremely hot and humid. If you stand in the sun for 5 minutes, you will feel getting baked in a oven. The land was drying out fast. Now, the plants which I didn't water for around 5 months demanded water every alternate day if not everyday. So I bought a garden hose and gave the responsibility for my yard boy to water all the plants. Within an half an hour he would complete watering the whole yard. In other words he just sprinkled water over the plants. If I had watered, it would have taken at least 2 hours to completely soak the place considering the scorching heat of the sun. When I asked him to water sufficiently, his claim was that too much of water can kill the plants. But in spite of repeated instructions he kept on just sprinkling the water. Also he never had the habit of removing the weeds, and it kept on spreading. When I went for a vacation and came back, I was shocked to see that the entire yard has been taken over by the weeds. Now I am taking care of the plants myself, which in-turn it has gives me a good work out and I depend on my helper. Now am researching on plants that can sustain itself without my intervention.
Other flowers in my garden can be seen in the pictures below - I have tried to provide the scientific names for most the flowers as much as I can.
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Cone Flower - Echinacea
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| Pink Cone Flower - Echinacea |
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| Barberton Daisy-Red (Gerbera jamesonii) |
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| Barberton Daisy-Orange (Gerbera jamesonii) |
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| Blood Lily |
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| Common Marigold (Tagetes Erecta) |
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| Bush Lily (Clivia miniata) |
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| Minni Root (Sci Name : Ruellia tuberosa) |
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| Mustard Flower (Brassica) |
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| A variety of croton |
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| Episcia cupriata |
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| Flame violet : Episcia cupriata |
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| Idly Poo (Ixora coccinea) |
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| Adukku Nandhiyavattai |
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| Nandhiyavattai (Ervatamia coronaria) |
My memories started rewinding...
The days when I had zero interest for the plants...
The days when my mom asked me to water the plants... (I just did it for name sake 😀)
Whenever my parents travel outside hometown, it was my responsibility to water the plants. But I preferred playing with my friends. On returning she will end up seeing the plants dying for water and eventually I will get nice thrashings from her 😔 Whenever she returns home after a break, the very first thing she does is (before even stepping into the house) inspecting all the plants. She knew that I wouldn't have cared for it. My mom will take a bucket and start watering each and every plant. Only on seeing the plants smiling back at her she will be satisfied and step into the house. The love she had for plants is astonishing. She cared the plants as if it were her own children. No wonder she was a "Botany teacher".
Now the same Jenil who loves playing and hanging around with friends has started caring for the plants. He has started watering the plants himself. On top of it, he had started to feel the vibration of the plants. If he sees a plant drying, he is upset (வாடிய பயிரைக் கண்ட போதெல்லாம் வாடினேன்) whereas a healthy plant brings up a smile in his face. Whenever he plants a stem cutting or sapling, he takes sincere efforts to ensure it grows well. Every morning as soon as he wakes up, first thing he looks out is the progress of the plants. He feels that it is refreshing and exciting to follow its growth every day. The happiness or sadness experienced with plants can only be felt and words cannot explain that. In the process, my Mom has inspired me to create a beautiful garden with my own efforts - Thanks a million Amma!!
Now the garden has given my house the much needed decorative outfit and my better half is impressed. Will share my experience about growing vegetables in home Garden in my next blog - PJ's Garden.
