Euphorbia Milii - Crown of Thorns

Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia Milii) are year round bloomers. They can always be relied upon to brighten up the garden. Each inflorescence last for months and they are seldom seen without any floral adornment. This is a tough plant and resistant to common pests such as mealy bugs, thrips and aphids.

This inflorescence of red flowers is tinged with green. Contrast this with ...


this cluster of pure red flowers. This plant has since passed on to plant heaven due to poor drainage of the pot-bound plant.


In the background is a Lantana camara standard.

 

Euphorbia Milii co-existing happily in container with pink Portulaca and pink Torenia fournieri. Its bluish-green leaves are thick and when crushed, bleeds with a white latex.
A single frond of the Philodendron bipinnatifidum is seen stretching out towards it.

Euphorbia Milii is easily propagated from stem cuttings. Snip off a small section from the lateral branches, let the milky white latex dry off for a day and stick it into a rich soil mixture. It will take root in no time. 

This male dawn dropwing dragonfly perched on a dried up twig.

 

The blue and pink flowers in the background are those of Torenia fournieri which self-seeded themselves in containers meant for other plants.

Inle Lake at Heho, Myanmar. This photo taken from the verandah of a lakeside restaurant. This restaurant serves western meals.

Wooden houses built at the edge of the lake are charming and hark back to a rustic, gentler way of life.

Busy As A Bee

Its no wonder the phrase "busy as a bee" was coined. Whenever the flowers in my garden are in bloom, honey bees (Apis mellifera)  jet in, making a beeline for their favourites.

To get at the sweet nectar of these portulaca grandiflora blooms, they can curve, contort and assume all sorts of posture.





 

The pristine white flowers of Echinodorus palaefolius (mexican sword plant) provide numerous opportunities for them to imbibe.

Double-petaled Quisqualis indica (Rangoon creeper) exude a delicate fragrance to ensure their visitation.

The flowers of Cuphea hyssopifolia (Mexican Heather) are tiny, but they made up for it in numbers. 

They scramble over the filaments of Calliandra emarginata (Dwarf Red Powder Puff) to get at the nectar located at their bases.

This is a smart cookie as it go through the "back door" to have the goodies without having to return the favour of spreading the pollens.

Philodendron Xanadu with Birds, Dragonfly and Caterpillar

Philodendron Xanadu makes attractive house plants. To me they are the smaller cousins of Philodendron bipinnatifidum.


Due to constraints in space, these two P. xanadu have to be planted in the same container

These two plants and many other plantlets sprouted from the stem of the mother plant when I decapitated it for looking too leggy.


 
Philodendron Xanadu and portulaca grandiflora happily cohabit the same container.

A fledgling took a brief respite from the fierce sun to perch below the over- arching fronds.

A sparrow perched on the rim of the container of P. xanadu pondering its next move.

A Dawn dropwing dragonfly brought a drop of colour to this verdant scene.

A tiny, hairy caterpillar walked purposely ...

 

down a blade of leaf.


This Madagascar Periwinkle is a favourite with caterpillars. Overnight the leaves can be decimated by them in their feeding frenzy.

and ended up with some tiny dried leaves on the Philodendron leaf.

 

The attractive and glossy burgundy bract partially covered the white spadix.

This burgeoning spadix is about to pop out of the protective bract. These bright appendages can be seen on the plant for many weeks.

A Pot-hopping Oriental Magpie-Robin

The Oriental Magpie-Robin (Copsychus saularis) or Murai Kampung in Malay  is a small bird with distinctive black and white markings. As they perched or hopped around foraging for food, their tail is held upright. They carry a good tune and because of this are sometimes kept as cage birds.

 Perched high up on this thick Bougainvillea branch, this magpie surveyed my garden intently before ...

The bright orange Bougainvillea flowers with variegated leaves.

hopping down on to the ledge of a long planter box. 
 

From here it continued to survey the surroundings and when it thought the coast was clear, proceeded to ...

 take the plunge towards ...

 a pot nearby. 


It sat among the leaves of the Ruellia Elegans with eyes still intent.

It next hopped to a second flower pot containing a Dieffenbachia.


It cranied its neck all round to check out its new surroundings ...

 

before it takes a breather.

 

Then  very quickly, it flew to yet another pot containing  Portulaca grandiflora

and Alocasia macroorrhizos (Elephant Ears/Giant Taro) 

Among this more verdant surroundings it seems to have found its niche and settled down for quite a while, looking very serene.

A close-up of a deep pink Portulaca grandiflora.

A pleasing cascading effect is achieved by planting it inside the rim of a tall container. 

One day I spotted these feathers under a tree where the grass grew sparsely. There was strong evidence of violence. I do not know the fate of this unfortunate magpie. However, efforts at forensic investigation strongly  indicated that culpable homicide had taken place.