As I have noted before, there are not many flowers in my actual garden, as compared with the plethora of roses, up on the balcony and on the roof garden. But I have shown some delights, notably the purple orchids that for a year and more appeared regularly on a branch of the dead temple flower tree.

Unfortunately that plant fell from the tree, and though I have put it up elsewhere there have been no flowers. Nor, after one or two some years back on the Kandyan Dancer which Kavi gave me when the garden was inaugurated, five years ago, were there any blooms on that. So some months back, thinking that perhaps the reason was that there was not enough sun on the ehala tree where it had been placed, I moved it, together with other orchid plants I had been given, to the tall trees at the back of the tortoise enclosure where I have on occasion shown delicate purple flowers.

But when nothing appeared for some months I had given up hope, so much so that I had not looked in that direction. So I was both surprised and delighted when at the beginning of this month I saw a whole host of Kandyan dancers on that old plant. There were several, which had not happened before, and in two clusters, a glory to behold in the morning as I sit by the ponds there to feed the fish.

Behind the seat, in front of the orchid tree, is the ambarella tree which is about to complete two years. It has flowered four times during this period, and now there is a fifth set of flowers. But these are tiny and so the second picture here shows the fruits of the fourth set of flowers. Behind them you can glimpse the yellow Kandyan Dancer.

On the other side of the pond round the temple flower tree there is a ginger plant, the only one that remains of several my sister gave me a few years back. A few months back it finally produced a flower, and then another, though the second did not flourish as the first had done because of the rain. Now there are a couple of buds on the plant, which I thought worth capturing since the rains may do for them before they reach fruition. But I also value the picture that appears third here because in the pond itself you can see one of the white fish which have been prolific breeders. Unfortunately the mother is no longer there – assuming the bigger fish is the father, which I may have got wrong – but several babies are just about visible near this chap when I look closely. This set of parents are more accomplished than those in the waterfall pond, for there are half a dozen of their first brood now in the other part of the pond – though more about that will have to appear on a Wednesday.

Finally I show the most extraordinary flower that emerged on one of the vegetables that Janaki has planted below the frame that was intended initially for jasmines. Those produced hardly any flowers, and now spinach and other healthy foodstuffs flourish there. But one of these produced the most extraordinary white flowers, I think three of them now. So I end with one that appeared in September, the first, and then one from the end of last month.