From the lotuses up on the balcony I move to those down below, which have also done splendidly. Not those in the garden, where several plants I put in only displayed the flowers I had brought along, or at most produced a couple more blossoms; but the new pond by the garage. I suppose I should not be upset by ...
I showed last week three of the rose plants I acquired last month, one on the balcony and two in one of the new beds in the garden. The fourth plant was placed in the bed Ranji had created on his own when the workmen were tidying up after the new building was almost finished. It looked so good that ...
Back after three weeks to the lotuses on the balcony, this week those in the big pond, which began to blossom after there had been four, one after another in the little one. But the first, which had been a beautifully developing bud when I last wrote, was damaged, and the morning I expected it to blossom I went up ...
Finally last week I was able to get a few more roses for the new beds in the garden. Or rather for the one bed there, where I placed two plants, while one of the others I bought went into the bed by the pond beside the garage. The other went into the bed on the balcony where my first ...
The little tanks on the balcony also did well this year. The black mollies continued to flourish in the first one I had built, under the long flower bed on the east. They come in several sizes, indicative of their fecundity, and I think you can see in the second picture the littlest towards the bottom. There are also platies, ...
There are two other beds in the downstairs garden, in addition to the two I showed last week. One was there from November, in the corner between the downstairs bedroom and its bathroom, and I have tried roses there but they have failed to produce blooms, doubtless because not enough sun reaches the place. I have greater hopes of the ...
I return today to my fish, and though there have been losses recently, I thought I should show something positive given that there was so much about loss earlier this year. When disaster struck the pond by the dining room, I removed all the fish that were there except for the one white gourami that had survived. The four catfish, ...
After nearly two months I go down again to the main garden, though there is not much to show there in the way of flowers. However while I was away in January Somapala corrected the deficiencies I have noted previously with regard to the new little beds in the garden. He raised the level of the bed in the southwest ...
I failed to post here on Saturday since I was travelling, and we started earlier than I had thought we would and arrived later. But since on Mondays I do not post usually on either this or the literary blog, I thought I would make up for Saturday by talking today here about my ponds. I did not want to ...
I mentioned some weeks back the new red rose I had obtained for the bed next to the smaller pond on the balcony. There had been two blossoms on it when I put it in, but one had collapsed on the way to Colombo. But the other blossom looked splendid, and before I went away last month there were several ...
The bigger pond on the balcony also had, after the inroads of predators in December, to have protective netting placed all round it. This was easier than for the small pond, since much of the bigger one is under the main roof of the house. Still, Kithsiri put up netting all round the wall of the pond, to stop the ...
I showed last week the roses this month brought me on the east side of the roof garden. But there were lots elsewhere up there too. In the bed in the middle one of the earliest plants I had put there had a lovely pink to purple blossom, and I show it full on to begin with, and at the ...
Last week’s post was chaotic, with the third paragraph being repeated, and then the next two also, at the end. How this happened I have no idea, unless it is that the computer thought it should meet the word count of 500 I had earlier set myself, having failed to register that I thought shorter posts better for this year, ...
Back after two weeks to the Roof Garden, which has continued to flourish. I was away for ten days, and when I got back it was to find another host of roses, with blossoms aplenty visible from the balcony yesterday morning, in the pots and the beds of the eastern edge by the stairway. The first picture here shows the ...
I wrote last week of the tragedy that befell the fish in the tank by the dining room, which I had looked at with such pride just a few days earlier, its eight fish darting and gliding along in great elegance. That tragedy followed not long after the nights of the predators, up on the balcony, and also I noticed ...
I looked at two of the beds on the balcony last week. There are three others, or rather two beds and a pot. In the last are white roses, a tall plant that has not failed thus far to produce blossoms, one or two every month or so. They are perfectly formed roses, and I show first today a close ...
The first post for this series in the current year was on a positive note, as was what I showed last week. I was exulting in the two new ponds, the second very new and doing well it seemed, the first having recovered from its earlier bleak situation with the arrival of new fish which Janaki’s brother Dharshana gave me, ...
The roses on the balcony also did well at the turn of the year. I showed some of them in December, so here I will confine myself to what was there after Christmas, and in the first couple of weeks of this year. This included a new plant, which I brought back on December 27th after two nights at the ...
The fish Kavi gave me I put in the new tank next to the garage, which I have described already as providing a home for some of the angels who were born on the balcony way back in October 2022. There are four of them there, placed after I had put in a lotus plant that I hoped would provide ...
Despite the absurdities of the weather, fierce rain interrupting intense sunshine, the roof garden continued to flourish. Less than a week after I had denuded it so that Christmas lunch would be with flowers from up there on each table, the place was again in fine fettle. On the last day of last year the variegated bush had several blossoms, ...