Texture & Pattern

The Word for Wednesday that Donna of Garden Walk Garden Talk is hosting this week is 'Texture and Pattern'.

Since everything is with texture and pattern, the difficulty here is to limit the length of this post.
I do not intend to limit to texture and pattern found in my garden alone.

There were many huge ferns plants at the highlands which I visited a few days ago.
I find the patterns to these unfurling fern fronds rather captivating and am posting 6 photos of them.

Below are the soft texture of the grass on the highlands and wavy patterns formed by the mountains.

Back at home, I continued my quest to look for more texture and pattern.

As soon I picked up the camera, the furry texture below, demanded to tag along as he loves to be outdoors.

Out of all the captures, I think the highlight of today is this blue feathery friend.

It is such a delight to see a White-throated Kingfisher having a feast in my garden!
To be honest, this is a regular visitor but it maintains its distance so we had to get a zoom lens.

The above is a collage of some of the textures I see around me.
Notice that my first few passion fruits shall be ripe soon?

Do head over to Garden Walk Garden Talk for an INFORMATIVE post of 'Texture and Pattern'.
Enjoy others' takes on this theme or join us with your own interpretation.

Seasonal Gardens Without Seasons

Where I stay, there are no apparent seasons.

Sometimes it rains, sometimes it is hot and dry.
Basically, the weather is almost the same throughout the year, usually ranging from 25 to 37 degree Celsius.

I used to think our weather is considered hot until I hear of the heat waves reports in many places recently.
I think I better appreciate our moderate weather in Malaysia.

Where you see the red firecracker plant above is where I used to grow tall, spiky agave plants.

Where you see the white stones on the ground now is where I had my lawn.

I got bored with spiky plants and so much green that I have changed the look of my garden.

I and am now enjoying the colour of snow.

I love the soft droopy look of many of these plants.

They seem to have a COOL and calming effect.

When I'm in the mood for Autumn, I can change the colours of the pebbles to brown and remove some leaves...

On a more serious note, I love the varied colours of Autumn.

That must be the most beautiful season.

Forget about Autumn for now.
Let's look at HOT Summer below!

This is a photo taken 2 years ago showing the same wall.

Spiky plants are from left to right, top to bottom.

They consisted of aloe vera, snake plants and agave plants.

This place looks very HOT to me.

As our taste change, our gardens evolve and even the look on our blogs go through modification.

I enjoy these changes.

Gardening without seasons need not be boring.

To create a cooler looking garden, I've made the following few changes.

- Spiky plants are replaced by droopy plants. 

- The lawn is replaced with white stones.

- White flowers overshadow bright coloured flowers.

Recently I created a new garden bed and transplanted some of my bushy plants there.

The dogs thought the bushes were in the way and kept digging them up.

Obviously, these plants suffered more than just transplanting shock.

The side effect is some pretty wintry look which the dragonflies seem attracted to.

Dried up plants with white background have enhanced the cool wintry garden look.

Seasonal gardens without seasons.

How much more fun can gardening get?
If you are fond of drgaonflies, come visit my Dragonfly Farm

(Don't remind me of the weeds, please. Clifford is taking care of that.)

Linking up with :
Cottage Flora Thursday
Fertilizer Friday
Fabulous Friday

Macro Friday

Beautiful Surroundings

We are staying in this relatively new housing development called Setia Alam.

The land used to be a palm oil estate.

Today we decided to explore around us before the entire piece of land is completely developed.

What you see above are chopped palm trees in a swampy area.

The greens are slowly disappearing...giving way to new developments.

I noted that this developer constantly propagate plants in some secluded area to beautify the landscape.

I like them because they do place a lot of importance in recreating a green environment.

The above are 2 of the plants that captured my attention.

We left the nursery and explored the wild flowers which looked just as beautiful.

The pink and yellow flowers come from the same plant as you can see below.

As usual, I love to add some bugs to my posts.

Somehow, it feels complete.

I had received comments before on why my posts usually contain many creatures of nature like dragonflies, damselflies and even a heron.

The reasons could be because we are surrounded by undeveloped land and also due to the careful planning by the developer.

I'll like to link this post to A Plant Fanatic In Hawaii where hot gardens are being flaunted.

Dream to Reality