Healing Plants

   The pomegranate has one of the prettiest blooms of all shrubs.  It is often unusual to find a shrub of any type that has true orange blooms.   I prefer to call it "Halloween Orange" as it reminds me so much of my favorite holiday.  Plus, if all goes well with a tree, the fruit will be ready to harvest just around Halloween!  (How ironic is that?)  They are self-pollinating but encouraging bees to pollinate gives the tree a better chance at setting fruit.  Come on, bees!  Do your thing!

  While doing chores in the garden, today, I noticed that the pomegranate was blooming so, of course, I had to take time to admire the "orange".  While checking the shrub, I had the grand thought that I need to root more of these things.   Between these and the gardenias, I could have the entire yard filled with loveliness and both are simple to root.  

  It seems that since a good deal of my time this past fall was spent confined to the Small Gardens, it is now a unspoken goal to root every type of plant.  I want to fill my little corner of the world with plants...lots of plants...any kind of plants!  Plants from the tallest trees to the smallest mosses.  While ill, I found complete comfort in piddling around in the Small Gardens.  I think that being near the plants hastened my healing greatly.  It is only fair turnaround if I now help the plants. So, propagating shall commence!  Halloween Orange shrubs will dot the hillside!

The Fluffy Blob of Halloween Orange

  One of my favorite things to do is photograph things found here on the Bayou.  Mother Nature has been kind to me in supplying me with all sorts of opportunities.  The abundance and diversity of the flora and fauna astounds.  It seems that we have a little bit of just about everything one could desire.  Sometimes, however, certain things are a bit challenging for me to get a photograph that does justice.  Crazy as it may be, fauna is usually easier than flora!  Critters seem to be very photogenic while some of the flowers present problems.  Shouldn't it be just the opposite?  Plants just sit there!

  One of my most problematic subjects is the pomegranate blooms.  I adore these things as they are one of the only truly orange blooms in my gardens.  "Halloween Orange" is hard to come by.  Most plants are either more golden or more salmon in color.  Nope, the pomegranate is pure old "Halloween Orange"!  That said, it is also the most difficult for me to photograph.  The ruffly petals seem to always blur together in one big blob!  The fluffy petals get in the way of each other and refuse to cooperate, the color never is accurate and the detail is lost in the blur.

  It matters not.  Perhaps this shrub has issues with being photographed just as I do.  (I hate it which explains why I am always behind the camera!)  The blooms of the pomegranate in my garden are best when viewed personally and not through pictures.  There! That settles it!  Stroll through the gardens and you be pleasantly surprised at the beauty that is tucked neatly in the bright green leaves between the avocado tree and the althea bush.