Moonlight & Roses

  Supermoon taken at 11:05 pm May 5, 2012, from Tenerife

Camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 full optical zoom

 Manual setting - f/4.9, 1/125 s

Here we are already in May and it's the time of roses and beautiful skies.

I'm sorry I haven't been around much but sometimes life can be so busy that one doesn't have time to write about it.  And I have many new photos to add here.

 I'm so glad we had ideal conditions for photographing the moon last night.
The supermoon was brilliant in a clear sky here in our part of Tenerife.

Here's another one from May 3rd when I looked out my window and saw the moon rising in the east from a sea of pink clouds just after sunset.

Moon rising in the east, May 3, 2012.

And our garden is full of roses and white trumpet vines.

Iceberg Roses with Sonia in the background

Peace Rose

Large blooms on the Peace rose

Iceberg

Pedro Dot Rose

Sonia

Granada

Brugmansia

We have wonderful weather here now.  

It seems we have suddenly jumped out of spring and into summer.

I hope you are enjoying these early days of May, the month of flowers.

Thanks for dropping by and I hope you'll come again soon! Bye for now.

I'm Back

Greenfinch

Hello again.  Here we are already in January of the new year 2012!

After a long absence I'm back on my blog.

I had a major computer crash last fall and at the same time I have been occupied caring for a family member who has been ill over the past year, so I was unable to spend the time I would have liked here on Tenerife Journal.

However the new computer has been installed and I have a new camera to try out so I'm ready and looking forward to being back here again.

The blackbirds and doves are busy in the garden hunting for stray pieces of dry cat food, and the other day I heard a black cap warbler singing.  (Audio link from the web.) We've had no winter on the island, with sunshine, warm temperatures and little rain. The peach blossoms are out in my back yard and the brugmansia is in full bloom.

Canon EOS 600D  EF 50mm lens f/5

This is still the time when poinsettias are blooming in our back yard, along roadsides and in many private gardens. As the weather has been mild with no wind or rainstorms, they are still looking pretty good.  We usually prune them down at the end of February when both flowers and leaves are looking bedraggled.

And while walking down in the town during the Christmas holidays, there were many living statues to be seen in the streets.  This one had a perpetual water flow from his urn into the dish below. He must have a hose and pump cleverly hidden somewhere! 

What patience to be able to stand still for such a long time!

I'll be back very soon with more pictures from the last weeks as well as some from future walks around the town.  

Wishing everyone an early Springtime full of showers and flowers!

Thanks for your visit and ¡hasta la vista!

Autumn Began Today

Summer has ended! We had the first real rains in a long time here over the past couple of days but today the air has turned warm and muggy again. Not complaining though because the garden is lush and green. The weeds are growing at their usual fast pace and I can drag the loaded laundry racks out of the musty tool shed where I pushed them as the first drops fell and put them in their rightful place on the back lawn.

Just before it rained I took photos of the brugmansia in the front garden. I'm always tempted to run out with the camera and see if their upturned edges can be viewed from a new angle. Well I guess not this time but I'm happy to capture their clusters of pristine trumpets as long as they hang so gracefully in our front garden.

You see what happens when you have your sprinkler turned on for a morning.
It will bring on the rain for sure a few hours later!



Thanks for dropping by. Have a good weekend and hasta la vista!

Our Summer Garden

Our back garden with bougainvillae and areca palm

Isn't this a wonderful time of the year. The morning air is fresh and sweet with the scent of oleander and brugmansia, and our nights are perfumed with the Dama de Noche, Cestrum Nocturnum. As you can see I am still in the process of putting new plants into patio pots and have not yet finished. I'm hoping to buy a small banana plant to put in a bare spot of the lawn, where it will be visible when we sit outside to dine.

Part of our cactus garden

The back lawn is still green

There's something to say about just leaving a group of tropical plants to grow where and how they please. I haven't put a hand to this part of my little tropical corner for a couple of years and yet the plants have thrived and grown lush with just regular watering.


And one happy aspect of leaving plants to their own tendencies, is the pleasant surprise one has to find an untended corner has bloomed into a mass of lush greenery.


Of course one has to plant them there in the first place, but in this climate one never has to worry about filling up garden spaces. Things just grow together on their own creating eye pleasing masses.


This pot was a happy find in a garden shop. I can't bear to put a plant it though as it would look silly sticking out of Buddha's head, so it's a purely decorative part of my garden. Besides the blackbirds like to sit there.


The front garden is full of a mixture of roses and tropical plants. I've also planted another Dama de Noche there near the house so the scent will waft through the window around nine o'clock in the evening.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of my Tenerife garden.
Thank you for your visit. Have a good rest of the week and ¡hasta la vista!

Beautiful Brugmansia

Here I am back again with my computer repaired, new hard disk and new router, so I hope to be able to post again regularly without problems. Please excuse my long absence. I've been taking many photos and hope you will find some of them interesting.


We have several brugmansia bushes in our garden, most of them white, but this peach one was cut down from a sunny spot where it wasn't at all happy, and from cuttings placed in different parts of the garden, we found the ideal place for this one. It wanted a sheltered position, away from wind and up against the house, facing west and next to a large oleander bush. Here are photos taken as the flower pods were developing:








It's now over 2 meters (6 feet) tall and puts out flowers in layers.
We're so pleased to have finally found the ideal location for this lovely bush.
As with other plants from the Solanaceae family, all parts of this one are highly toxic as well, so do be careful if you have small children or pets that chew on plant material.

Thanks for your visit, and hasta la vista!

77 ~ Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

A Blue Tit this morning

This morning I could have gone through the garden singing that old song from from the show Oklahoma...Oh What a Beautiful Morning...because it would have been very appropriate with sun shining, balmy warm air, twittering birds flying around the palm trees and many roses in bloom. Yes it's December 29th but it feels like spring here.

Here's what I saw while meandering around the front garden.

Iceberg

Queen Elizabeth

Strelitzia Reginae

Rheoe

Bibi follows me so closely underfoot that I sometimes step on her toes. But this time she's content to just lie and watch.

Grüss an Aachen

Gold Medal

Brugmansia

Barcarole

Tigger loves the sun

As I write this, it's Tuesday evening and Bibi has just jumped on my desk...and she's soaking wet, so it must be raining outside now. That's the best way to have the weather I think...a beautiful sunny day and a soft rain at night to water the garden. Now where's a towel so I can dry you off Bibi.

Have a lovely rest of the week and drive carefully!

I'll finish here with the beautiful voice of Eva Cassidy singing "What a Wonderful World".



¡Hasta La Vista! Sharon.

Photos were taken with a Canon EOS 30D DSLR and 50mm f/1.4 lens.