My mom, the tropical gardener

My mom has a green thumb and everything she plants, grows. Around her house she always has green things growing. We had a beautiful Indian mango tree that gave abundant fruit year after year, a camias tree that was a copious producer, productive langka (jackfruit) and guyabano, and always a banana tree or two - we always needed the leaves for wrapping foods that were to be grilled. Ornamentals too, flourished under her care. She had orchids galore, indestructible coleus, sturdy San Francisco (Codiaeum variegatum), climbing jasmine. Currently she's growing (though growing implies effort and she seems to do it so effortlessly) various ferns, "buhok ni Ester" or Ester's hair (Tillandsia usneoides I), and a mature yellow bell vine that keeps our front yard shady. I also remember yellow-throated purple flowers growing in a bush in the shade, when I was in my teens. It bloomed throughout the year. Only recently have I identified it as Thunbergia erecta, a shrub native to tropical East Africa. This site says: "This sprawling shrub was introduced to the Philippines in 1950s...It responds well to regular pruning. It likes the full fun and well-drained soil, but it will bloom in partial shade. Propagated from cuttings." ...I would like to grow Thunbergia again but it will have to be in a hothouse I think.

I snapped the blue blooms shown above in her garden early this year, on one of my visits home. They're actually pretty small flowers, but thanks to the camera zoom they show up quite well. Here's a clearer picture of the leaves:



This is the yellow bell aka yellow trumpet tree and, scientifically, Tecoma stans:



Some views of the house and garden. It's a modest house but it's of course home and most of the memories of my youth are locked up in this place and its gardens:





Other flowering plants and bushes we currently have growing around the house:















I grew up in a pocket Eden and took it for granted. But it's so dear to me now. I hope my Mom will be gardening and planting and weeding and nursing her precious cuttings for a long, long time.