The Amazing Chase

I had been planning for some time to go get myself some new plants.  Then cousins flew in from the USA and I offered to host a dinner for them that same evening I was going plant buying.  Yes, plants and cousins all in one day.  My main goal being to buy new plants and get back home in time to prepare a 4-course dinner for my lovely cousins, Maybelle & Sonia, Manila-based Heidi and my sister Maricar who were joining us.

Join me as I recount this amazing chase.

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Phil Keoghan by Jennifer Boyer. (CC BY 2.0)

***For best results, you'll have to channel Phil while reading this.

Welcome to Metropolitan Manila.  Composed of 16 cities, it is  the National Capital Region of the Philippines.  It is from here that I will embark on a quest for must-have plants. 

My first task was to get up and depart at 3:40 am.

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The Water Tank's New Clothes

Regular readers of this blog and owners of blogs I frequent are  probably tired of hearing me say that I don't have a "proper" garden.  Some areas of Southern Metro Manila used to have a water shortage problem which is why our current home's grounds have hardly any soil at all.  What we have is a lot of cemented flooring which requires no trimming, fertilizing and most especially no watering.  Here are pictures of our "yard" a few months before we and the plants moved in.

The view from the back wall showing the base of our water tank.

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First Show of the Year

Below are some of scenes from the exhibit area.  It is so difficult to remember to take pictures for this blog when I was already cataloguing in my mind which plants I wanted to take home. The commercial exhibit was calling me.  No easier plant chase than at a garden show, right?

Oh, I've added bigger versions of the pictures to my Gallery for those of you who want to see more detail.

The next pictures were taken especially for my brother-in-law who is a recent plant convert.  He started with bonsai last month and I hope these beautiful specimens inspire him.  However, the first picture is not really a bonsai tree but an impostor and a very good one at that.  It's actually just drift wood decorated with Tillandsia andreanas.  

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Medium

What do you call a vertically challenged fortune teller who escapes from prison?

As you can tell, I was stumped for an introduction to my next plant.  Maybe I still am.

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Fireworks

Wishing all of you a peaceful, prosperous and plant-filled 2012!

Happy New Year!!!