The Spring is almost here and the climate is already hot! I envy people from Northern parts of India where I hear it is not yet warm. Hot means watering twice and even if you miss once, you'd end up with sad droopy plants that sometimes might not ever stand back up! Scary, isn't it!

Not much is blooming in Plantville, but those that are, are doing really great like the Pink Ixora.
The Dwarf Oleander is just beginning to bloom after I repotted it. All it's been doing is sending out lots of buds.

The White Oleander is going crazy with its double blooms.

White seems to be ruling Plantville. It is surprising to see that this Jasmine (still trying to find it's botanical name) variety that stops blooming by winter is still sending out two or three blooms every day!

And this Nyctanthes has almost stopped, but for one or two every week.
This Dwarf Ixora seems to welcome the hot sun with the spring coming and so are the Crape Jasmines.

One plant that's really loving this hot sun is this Hummingbird Vine. Its maroon hot blooms really lights up the space. I'm sure this would be welcomed by the cuties over at Catherine's garden. If only, the customs allowed seed shipping, I'd be glad to send some over to her or anyone who have hummingbirds visiting their gardens. I read that the birds love this Vine.
I was speaking of seed starting in my last post and I did start some but only Bush tomato and Purple Basil have germinated.

Others have only weeds in them. Once again, the strawberry seems to have give up on me. Well, the trial would continue.

Looking at all these weed plants and the centipedes in the soil that I buy from nursery, I decided to use coir pith or coco peat as the growing medium. After long, tiring search and many phone calls, I got 4 kgs of coco peat from a dealer here. YAY! I sowed Eggplant, Cayenne Long Pepper, Fennel, Cornflower (I'm longing for these), and Borage. I wish all of them germinate, coz I finally am ready for veggies! I have quite a few radish hybrid seeds but am hesitant to sow them now, as I ended up with junk last year. Do you think this is the right time for radishes? Or do I wait for the end of summer? (It's about 30 deg. C here now - 86 deg. F)

Overhaul is coming to an end

Has it ever happened to you that you save your post as a draft and forget to publish it? Well, It did to me. I intended to post the New Year Post and wrote the post down on 31st I had to go to office on both days (Yeah, I know the surprised expression on your faces, well that’s how bad my work is, anyways!); forgot to publish it and never came back, coz I had also mentioned that I wouldn’t be posting until the month end or February! So much for being a computer savvy! And would you believe that I work with computers every other day and help people fix them! Anyways, Belated Happy New Year 2010 to all of you. May be I’ll change that New Year post to something else and post later. I was lagging behind a lot last year and I hope not to be so this year.

(The pair of shoes below is my first project of the year)(The caps and gloves are for my sister and brother in law)(This purse is for a sweet friend from Germany who was generous enough to send me the Strawberry and many other seeds that I'm gonna sow this month)

The first month of January, I was busy crocheting! Yes, I love doing it. I learnt it three years ago and stopped it as my fingers started aching. Recently I realized that it was because I was holding the yarn wrongly and now that I learnt how to hold it right, I was off crocheting gloves, caps, and stuff for my family and friends.

Plantville is almost getting cleaned up and the overhaul is almost done. I finally found that Neem Spray worked really well on mealy bugs that had conquered Plantville. (This is some unknown larvae that seemed to reduce the beautifully flowering Nyctanthes)

Initially I did the mistake of spraying them once a week but observed that the bugs didn’t go away completely. They seemed to hold their stand on the plants.(Can you make out the mealy bugs on the bud on the left)

I later learnt (after a tiresome translation from German to English – of course with the savior, Google Translator) that I should spray it once in two days for two weeks and as the instructions promised, it worked! Thanks to my sis who brought that Spray (CELAFLOR Naturen Schädlingsfrei Neem) from Germany for me a year ago.

(Can you see the aphids?)

Next huge problem was Millipedes! Yeeew! I know you can feel the chill running up your spine when you see them crawling around. They had built mansions in every pot and were eating up some leaves! Thank god I reserved my veggies sowing after the overhaul; if not these crawlers would have eaten them up! Initially I had picked them (Yeeew, I know, but I overcame the fear eventually) and later read somewhere that detergent in water would get rid of them. That seemed to do the trick but not all of them were eliminated. There were still heaps of them around, so I finally got this insecticide which did the magic. I think it was Dichlorvos.

Meanwhile many plants were trimmed, repotted, and cleaned up.

(This is a new addition)(One of the three Oleanders that I planted. This one started flowering soon. The other two are yet to flower - one is a baby pink and other a double/red colored one)

Many started sending forth beautiful blooms as if the clean environment lightened them up!

(After vigorous cutting, and spraying, this hibiscus is now finally healthy and flowering beautifully)

(I wish the Mums bloomed still so beautifully, but its days are over. Though they're blooming even now, the blooms are small)

(It was strange to find this Jasmine flowering in January!)

(I've never seen this Ixora stop flowering... touchwood...)

I’ll soon update you on the veggies and other seeds I’m gonna sow. It’s gonna be an exciting month. Wish me luck!

And yes, I almost forgot, even the parrot population seems to have increased here. Many babies can be seen from my terrace, playing with each other.