Farewell to Lychee Season

Week 29 of 2014	July 14, 2014	July 20, 2014

1.   Foreword:

Preceded by cool breeze announcing its arrival came the first of the real monsoon rains today (16 July) early in the morning from the westerly direction late only by a day of the officially announced 15 July season's commencement date. Accompanied with rumbling clouds and thunder, it rained for a good two hours drenching the trees and plants all over and soaking the parched good earth. Even though the sun remained behind the clouds most of the day, the humidity in the atmosphere increased dramatically, making us the humans sweat often quite profusely. The rains cleansed the trees of the settled dust, giving them the look of new with shiny leaves. Except the flowering trees and shrubs already described in various editions of this blog, there are no other trees and shrubs left to be introduced in this category at this time of the year at the farm. There are however a lot of ever green non flowering trees, which have not so far been mentioned and need therefore to be looked at individually. We will do exactly that starting this week.

2.    Ever Green Non Flowering Trees/Shrubs:

2.1. Ficus:

Ficus benjamina, commonly known as the weeping fig, Benjamin's fig or ficus tree and often sold in 
plant nurseries as just ficus. It is the official tree of Bangkok (Thailand). Best known are the larger 
tree types, such as F. benjamina (weeping fig) and Ficus elastica (rubber plant) with varigated marble leaves, which thrive in full or filtered light. A multiple number of both these in addition to others of the same species form the boundary of our grassy lawn.

The leaves of both these trees F. Benjamina and F. Elastica respectively are depicted hereunder:

For detailed description of Ficus Benjamina and it's varigated forms visit:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_benjamina

http://rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=669

3.   Seasonal Flowers:

3.1 Zinnia:

Zinnia is a summer flowering seasonal plant. Most species of Zinnia have upright stems but They typically range in height from 10 to 100 cm. The leaves are opposite and usually stalkless (sessile), with a shape ranging from linear to ovate, and pale to middle green in color. The flowers have a range of appearances, from a single row of petals, to a dome shape, with the colors white, chartreuse, yellow, orange, red, purple, and lilac.

For detailed description of Zinnia Flowers visit:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinnia

http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/annual/zinnia/

3.2  Portulaca Grandiflora:

The Portulaca is another summer flowering plant, which we prefer for the front roundabout and in the flower beds on both sides of entrance to our farmhouse. They bring colour and therefore life to our farmhouse in hot and very hot summer months. The common name of Portulaca is moss rose, which is quite descriptive of its key ornamental features: ruffled, rose-like flowers (to 1” diameter) appearing on prostrate to slightly ascending stems that form a moss-like foliage mat. Flowers bloom in summer (June to August) and come in single, semi-double or double forms in colors including red, rose, orange, yellow, white and pastel shades. Flowers close before the sunset and do not open on cloudy or rainy days either.

For detailed description of Portulaca Grandiflora visit:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_grandiflora

4.  Fruits and Vegetables of Season:

The Lychees season has just come to an end. From here on we will have no fruit until September when we can expect to have Persimums and hopefully a couple of Pears too, for the plants are still very young and do not appear to have a lot of fruit. 

Similarly, there are still no mentionable vegetables until August when we looking forward to harvest a lot of Turai and Bitter Gourd, which are quite obviously delayed on account of very hot weather and late coming of the monsoon rains.

5.  Pet Birds at the Farm:

During the current week some new birds were introduced into the aviary. These included a pair of Fischer's Lovebirds, Three pairs of  White Headed Nun Finches and a couple of white Munias. The newly acquired birds will be introduced in this blog in due course but for the present we will talk about the Diamond Doves, which exist in the aviary for quite some time now. The Diamond Doves are the resident birds of Australia. 

The Diamond Doves are small pigeons with a length of 19 to 21 cm. Regardless of the gender, they have white spots and black edges on their wings, orange eyes and red eye-rings. The genders look similar except the female's eye ring is less vivid and has more of a brown colour to the plumage. The male's head, neck, and breast are light blue-grey. The bill is a dark grey colour. The abdomen is a creamy colour while the back and tail is a brown-grey colour. The legs and feet are pink. At the farm we have a pair of Light Grey and another pair of Dark Grey Diamond Doves.

To learn more about the Diamond Doves, visit:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Dove