Plants at Silang

Last Weekend, after almost a month of being locked at home, my high school friends plotted a day on our calendar to go plant shopping two cities away from ours. The Town of Silang is famous for it's plants for sale for decades now and with the past year's houseplant bandwagon, it just got back it's glory days, as lush as the foliage of the leafy babies waiting to be adopted on new homes.

Fun photo using my Ferdie's "Change the Sky" App

There's a wide variety of plants that welcomed us and we were so happy to be surrounded by all colors and shapes of leaves, both those that we can name and not! My friends Ferdie and Myrcel bought a lot of plants home which made their whole families happy! As per me, I only bought nice pots since it's time for me to repot a few Bromeliad babies in the garden.

Most of the plants on this stretch of shops that we visited are mostly ornamental garden plants that thrive in tropical climate such as ours, but inside the stalls are potted houseplants that are more expensive but still cheaper than those sold online, plus you can really get to see the plant for yourself before buying it. 

Though in this time of the pandemic, shopping online still can win all its perks to avoid crowds, that's also why we went to Silang very early so we avoid the Sunday flocking. And of course, masks on!

Though I did not buy any plant, I was so happy to be there because I was surrounded with so much plants, truly relaxing and therapeutic to my senses, and of course, priceless to be with my best friends on a weekend after more than a month of not seeing each other.

Then we had lunch before we pushed our way home. We ate at Balinsasayaw restaurant where every group is assigned a specific Nipa hut which is perfect for social distancing! We had so much fun and of course, we had to have a photo of us taken for the books! Thank you to our waiter Sir Dan of Balinsasayaw for the awesome service!

Myrcel, Ferdie, Judy, RJay, and Me.

What a great end of January it was, we made the last day of the first month, truly timeless - together! May I send you all hugs and wishes of a great weekend to come! To all my friends up north, please stay warm on this Winter. And down under in Australia and New Zealand, keep yourselves hydrated this Summer (I'm already nervous with our upcoming Summer - I hate Summer - I don't melt literally but I have sleep problems when days hits 36-40C).

Sun's out, Masks on!

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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join Timeless Thursdays.

Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.

This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Sunday at 11:59 pm (Manila/Perth Time)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Weekend Gardening

It has been quite a productive week for me, though not on a blogging sense, but for my gardening. I spend most of my free time now on this beautiful spot that was bare and hot just a week and a half ago. Now that I left Facebook, I now have more time to spend in other things and even add some of those to sleeping which I am not complaining about. Work has been still quite demanding last week so I'm really praying for a leaner work week on this one since I had to call a sick day last Wednesday because I felt really dizzy already.

** Thank you so much to my friend The Padre who greeted me on his last Sunday's episode of his awesome Radio Show. I enjoyed the world music so much. Thank you brother Padre, I was so thrilled to hear my name!!! So far so good here in the P.I. and you got that right, it's quite hard to be living here at the moment for so many reasons! But staying strong, have to :)

As I wonder how you all my friends are, I wanted to give you an update to my Garden. Let me start with this photo I took yesterday just after my latest fix.

07.19.2020

What's new? I added more hanging plants on the steel stairs that led to the roof deck. Also, if you can notice the addition of two plant boxes. I asked someone to get hollow-blocks for me from a nearby hardware (I don't drive, sorry) and I used them to create these enclosures which I then filled with Garden soil. 

For the plant box at the far center, since it's not covered by the net, I'm dreaming of desert plants such as cacti and agave if ever I can find some since they will enjoy a lot of sun on that side. My problem though is the rain, I am still planning well on how I can help such desert plants thrive in rainy seasons, but I'm thinking of adding a lot of sandy soil and pumice to the box.

North-facing shaded plant box

For the one on the left of the first photo, I added some bright indirect sun plants since the UV net will take care of them not to be exposed to direct sun rays. I added a Philodendron selloum (left plant inside the plant box) that seems to be dying inside my bathroom even after moving it to different spots. It came with a partner of its same kind (you can see part of its leaf at the leftmost part of the photo) which I added outdoors few weeks before which now looks as healthy as ever! I just hope it survives now that I placed it right beside the one that grows perfectly.

All the other plants are re-potted either from old plants from our rooftop, like these spider lilies and Bromeliads, or from my cousin's house which I visited last Saturday. Yes! I went outside the house again, 6th time since March to count. It was a great experience because aside from seeing my cousins again, I was able to check out all the plants on their lawn and my cousin Caren let me pull out a few and added to that plant box. I was able to take home a couple of Aglaonema plants and a Caladium which surprised both of us, because they are growing like weeds in their lawn when they are sold for a good hundreds of pesos online! We took a photo of it below to share to all of you.

Beautiful heart shaped caladiums at my Aunt's place

By the way, the cousins I met last weekend are the children of my Aunt who's in the hospital right now, the one I asked you all for prayers. With all my heart, thank you so much for praying for her because she has undergone surgery and is currently recovering. Please continue to pray for her, we really hope she recovers very soon, I miss her so so much! 

I am very close to my aunt and her kids because they treat me as a part of their family, like I'm their fifth sibling and that means so much to me. They love me so much and never fails to make me know and feel that. So 5 out of 6 times I was outside the house during this pandemic were all spent with them. They are my energy and my peace. Below is a photo we took during our afternoon tea (Yes, we thought of having tea on a 97 F afternoon). The couple beside me are my younger cousin Carlos and his wife Jean. The one beside me is Carlos' younger sister Caren who is an incoming senior in law school (talk about feeling old, I took care of them when we were all kids. I'm their big brother and will always be forever).

Afternoon tea with the kids (they'll always be kids to me)

I'm leaving you all for the meantime. I pray and wish that your coming week will be blessed and productive, happy and peaceful. Stay kind and be a source of other people's happiness and comfort. May God bless all of you and your loved once and stay safe, we're still far from over with this pandemic.

This post is part of My Corner of the World

Trying to Get Back

It's been a while since I saw this blogger editor page, to my blogging friends, I think you took notice of this. I would like to extend my apologies, I know I don't have to but still I feel like it because it might worry some friends I have here, you are all so dear to me. I think it has been three weeks since I last posted something. I really appreciate your thoughts, especially my friends Iris Flavia and Ananka who took time and efforts to send me emails and check on me. I really appreciate that my dear friends.

I had a restful weekend so I really put posting as a top priority here, but the problem is I'm having a hard time on what I will be writing about. Do you also feel this at times? Like you feel so motivated to write something and share something but the problem is you don't know what to write? I guess I'll just share some updates on what happened to my life in the past weeks:

• Hectic last two weeks of June at work - It as been quite hectic at work for the first two weeks that I was away. As a response to the current situation, to save our company, it decided to roll up a directive to use all our paid leaves in the second quarter, and with that, since a lot of my teammates had to use more leaves than me, I was the one left to work on their processes and so as my manager. We worked hard for a week, substituting for a team of 4. It was quite tedious but the gratefulness for having a stable job despite this situation just embraces my heart much more than the extra efforts I gave.

• Deactivated Facebook - It's been a very crazy series of events here in our country, plus having fake accounts made of me, complete with pictures and information that seemed very legitimate, encouraged me to leave Facebook. Plus trust me, a lot, that is happening about the country just urged me to kick the can and shut my profile down. I had to post a notice for a good 24 hours just so my friends will not be surprised and think that I blocked them or something because if you leave Facebook and a friend searches for you, it displays the same screens and behaviors as when somebody blocked you. At the moment it's been more than two weeks since I left Facebook. I did not deprived myself that much of updates from my friends and family, I'm still on messenger so they can connect with me. And I'm also on Twitter @stevenque and on Instagram @thisisstevenque just in case you may want to follow me.

• My favorite Aunt is not feeling well - This one, I would like to ask for your prayers because it's something that is so hard for me. She is a very close Aunt, just like a mom to me and we traveled together to a lot of places like Japan, USA, Italy, Czech Republic just to name a few. I wish she gets well very soon. Can you please help me pray for her fast healing and recovery.

• Moving on to a New Garden - A few things happened and I had to move my plants from the Garden I used to show you at. It was sad at first but I thought I can't just leave my plants on a place they won't be cared as much so I thought of starting a new Garden on a spot at our rooftop. Excessive sun will be a problem but then I thought challenges are good and rewarding once you get to work on it and I even thought it will make me a better gardener if I learn how to take care of my plants in such extreme conditions like too much sunshine. Luckily, there's a cheap but good quality UV net available online and I was able to get one. So yes, I'm starting from scratch. Sounds sad to leave the old spot but also exciting to begin again from something bare.

A spot on our rooftop I'll try to make my new Garden

Net Arrived! Thanks to my Dad who helped me set it up yesterday.

Just in time for a strong rain this morning

I'll leave you my dear friends with these updates for now. I just really felt like writing and I really miss all of you and your blogs and also reading your heart-warming comments very much! Let us continue to pray for each other, and for the whole world. It's getting tougher and tougher as the days go by but we are still alive, still breathing, still have the power to see the beauty in this world despite all the ugly things happening in the foreground.

Leaving you with my happy Bromeliads. Moving to a new garden brought new perspectives, one of which is getting to see how beautiful these plants are when viewed from above them.

Never Stop Going Back to what you Love,

Stevenson

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This post is part of Betty's My Corner of the World

Antonia's Garden in Amadeo

Kathleen is a good friend of mine since College. She was my classmate all four years of my university life and after graduation, together with our other classmate Jayson, the three of us became professors at our University for another 5 years. All that time plus another 6 years of friendship beyond work and school, I did not know that they sell plants! It was just during this pandemic lockdown that I found out because she decided to do some marketing for their budding but strong family business.

Antonia's Garden

If you guys have been here since I got active again to blogging this year, you would know the story between me and plants. It was a story of healing and joy that I am still currently in and hopefully will be for the longest time. Knowing about my friend Kath's business I knew I had to support her and at the same time, get some plant babies for myself too!

Antonia's Garden is named after my friend's Grandmother. Almost all their plants are propagated and taken cared of by her father. They live in Amadeo, which is a big advantage for plant lovers because of its milder climate, all year round, due to its higher altitude. 

They sell a wide variety of plants, both for outdoors and indoors which are getting such a hype these days. Everyone here in the Philippines is starting to get crazy with such expensive plants that are grown inside their homes, I am not a fan of hypes and trends but I must say that this one in particular is something that I would even promote because of the benefits we can get from having plants inside our homes, plants are part of our families.

Though of course, just like pets, we should also know that having indoor plants is not the same as taking care of outdoor gardens. They require knowledge and for that, a lot of information is readily available on the internet on how to care for them, from watering, to pruning, and even on how you can propagate them. Just see to it that you take information from more than one source so you can be sure of the legitimacy of the information so that you can take the best care for your house plants.

Aside from normal potted plants, Kath's father is also gifted in the art of making Bonsai Trees. This one, I already known of for years because everytime we will visit Kathleen's house for fiestas and celebrations, I saw a lot of beautiful bonsai trees at their home garden.

There is always healing in plants. Especially in these times of the pandemic, a lot of us are having battles with anxiety, even for other who unconsciously have them, plants can be our very best friend. No matter how big your garden is or how small your room apartment is, there will always be a plant baby that you can take care of to take care of you. If we learn to love these plants at our home, we'll also develop a love for the environment at large - and that, is the best bandwagon we can always be riding at!

Sister Judy, Friend Kathleen, and Yours Truly (forgive my hair)

It's really nice to have life-long friends who don't just share memories of school and work with you but also hobbies that turn into life-long passions! Thank you so much Kathleen for having us. We'll surely take care of the plant babies that we got, and we can't wait to adopt some more in the next month.

Thank you also for my sister who did not just bought plants as well but also drove us to Amadeo because aside from my fear of being exposed outside (especially in our overcrowded city) but also because I don't know how to drive (there friends, another fact about your friend Stevenson).

By the way, here is the plant I bought from Antonia's Garden. My first Philodendron selloum. I got myself two, one for my bedroom and another on my bath. Since these species originated from Latin America, I thought of naming them Sergio and Thalia, both named after my favorite telenovela actors from Mexico!

Philodendron Selloum

Shown below are a few shots sent to me by Kathleen. She took these gorgeous photos from their garden one afternoon so she can post them on their Garden's facebook page. You can visit their Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/AntoniaGardenPH/ and also on their Instagram Account @AntoniaGardenPH. Aside from her full-time work on the banking industry, Kat is also a skilled seamstress and makes beautiful clothes specially for Catholic Saints. And yes, she also takes stunning photos.

If you are in the Cavite or Manila area and you are interested to get yourself some houseplants from Antonia's Garden. They have a good variety of plants that you can choose from. Plus, they also ship your new family members via Lalamove (delivery charge at your cost) straight to your door and they offer a variety of payment modes that will best suit your account availability including GCash, PayMaya, and Bank Transfers.

Never Stop Planting!

Stevenson

***

This post is part of my friend Jesh's All Seasons, Our World Tuesday, and Betty's My Corner of the World

A Therapy for my Anxiety

With the current COVID-19 situation where a lot of the world is on their own levels and modes of alerts and lock-downs, anxiety is very rampant especially to people who already have them even before this outbreak started, one of which is me. I have not been diagnosed with Anxiety clinically but it has always been a problem about me, especially when it comes to thoughts about health. I have type 2 hypertension so it also became an extra factor as to why I am having a hard time in this scary period of time.

What usually happens to me is whenever there are outbreaks like these, I start by the usual reading about what the disease or illness or virus is about, then I tend to get too immersed on reading more about its symptoms, until it gets to me very badly that I can;t stop thinking about it, most especially now that we are on lockdown and it's quite hard to distract myself that even if I have work and graduate school, the constant scare and thoughts just never leave. Do I have it? What if I have it? What if I become a reason for my brother or father or yeya to get sick? (Yeya is our maid and who is a family member because she has been with us for 32 years now, 2 years before I was born).

With constant thinking, it takes its toll to me and then I start feeling the symptoms physically which is very scary. This might be confirmations and manifestations of the virus, but of course I still start to think that 'it's all in my mind' especially that I never went outside our house for a month and a half now because we all are locked down at home and only my brother goes out to get our supplies because he also has to go to church and serve almost every day. It ran for weeks and weeks, symptom after symptom but the thing is, whenever I get successful in thinking that it's just all in my mind like the time when I felt so hot and scared that I have a fever (thermometer says I'm not getting beyond 37 degrees) and it was gone after a couple of days, another symptom will show up like difficulty in breathing, then once a new one starts, the last one will then be gone. The only thing that persists is my fear that words from my close friends that relieve me works for a time until my start woud automatically worry again.

As a Christian, I pray the rosary everyday and talk to God in my personal prayers which does help especially if I'm feeling very hopeless and needed some rest for my mind. But still the anxiety lives through. Then one day after prayer, I suddenly thought about an old garden here at our house terrace. As you see in my older posts I have a small garden of succulents and cacti on cups but I thought about what if I fix that side of the house and revive the beauty of it that was once my grandma's sitting place on late afternoons when she was still with us.

It took me three days to work on this garden into a better state, and you know what, it did help me with my anxiety. As compared just staying at my room almost the whole day since I also work from home at my room desk during evenings, having this garden not just as a project but as a growing place to relax at gave me peace and an effective means to stay away from thoughts of fear for bigger chunks of time on the day.

My Grandma's old terrace garden

Above you can see a photo of the Garden I was talking about. Most of the plants here were mine from about half a decade ago until I just left them to thrive and yeya to water everyday. Yeya has a green thumb and she even was succesful to make our Moth Orchids flower again for the third time since it was bought only as a decoration for my Mother's Tomb two All Saint's Days ago (Here in the Philippines, we visit the tombs of our loved ones during November 1st). But every thriving Bromeliad were left from my old planting stint. All I wanted before was to plant these plants but not really to make a garden with it, which I was hoping now.

So I started by repotting the pups or 'babies' that you see growing on the mother plant's roots and sides. Some of the old mother plants are already dying so I had to take them out to give way to the pups to grow better. I said my thanks to every mother plant that I decided to take away, just like what I do before I throw away some old things that are not functional or not needed anymore, learned that one from Marie Kondo and it is a peace-giving practice for me at least.

In the next two photos, you will see a before and after. Old and dried leaves and mother plants with the thriving pups crowd the pots (left). The other photo shows a repotted version with 1:1 ratio of plant per pot(right).

For those that have more than one pups, I transfer them to other old pots here at home, especially the large ones, the smaller ones I converted into hanging plants. My larger variety of Bromeliads gave me two more large pups that I repotted also on the separate pots while the old mother plants were thanked and discarded.

This is how it looked like on Day 2 of my Garden project.

While I was here and there from the garden and on my bedroom, I saw an old wind chime that I got from an old grandpa vendor here in our city, which I only bought because I wanted the grandpa to have sales and then kept on my room with no use. So after all those years, now I knew why I bought it.

I then thought of an old brass bell I bought during my first international trip. I got it from a market in Ayutthaya in Thailand near the Wat Mahathat heritage site so it is both memorable and sacred. I had initial doubts whether to hang something so precious on my garden but I thought it is meant to be blown by the wind which never happens indoors so yes, it went to the bar with the other chimes and hanging plants.

I was still not satisfied because I thought that this garden would be a good place not just to visit and pass by, with the cooler afternoon winds, this place is a good place to stay at during hot afternoons inside the house. This terrace is facing east so the sun is already on the other side which tends to make it cooler a cooler choice of spot to be in on this lockdown summer days.

So I did a bit of further rearranging to give more space for a chair and a small laptop desk, and also perhaps for a small table where I can invite my cousins or friends when this lockdown is over. So here it is!

As of now, it's been 5 days since I started this garden project and I am beyond happy with the results. I even got recognition from my father and yeya who also helps me in things that I need for like pots and soils and things like that. Now I feel so happy that I have something to visit everytime I wake up. I talk to the plants and greet them good morning and that I will be back in the afternoon to join them, just as I am in here currently writing this blog post for all of you my dear friends.

I still have my anxiety visits and some symptoms that I still tend to feel whenever I have idle moments these days, but I can say that this garden has helped me a lot and hope this is just the beginning of my path to a better and more peaceful mind, because it really is true that whatever stresses our minds really shows in our bodies.

Aside from these plants, I also want to thank all the blog friends I have gained in the past couple of months since I went back to frequent blogging through this personal blog and my Cavite Daily Photo for you all have been so helpful for me in keeping myself sane because work and school alone has not done a good job in maintaining my peace away from this pandemic. Your comments and visits make my heart so happy!

With this come prayers for all the people in every nation who experiences the same anxiety that I suffer from and every patient and victim of this horrible virus.

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This post is part of "My Corner of the World". If you wish to see other points of views from across the globe, click on the image link below:

Never Stop Looking for Peace

Stevenson

Flowers at 124

White Phalaenopsis (Phalaenopsis blume)

Since I had a lot of fun taking photos with my old Nikon D3100, last night I thought why not take shots of every flower that we have in our gardens here at home? These plants are being taken cared of Yeya. Yeya is our house person and she has been with us now for 32 years, she even took care of my starting when I was born until now. 

This lockdown, I am very grateful for the plants that she took care of and the flowers that it blooms to make us happy and hopeful. Here are the flowers I took photos of this 10 in the morning on our gardens, these are all at our house.

(Top) - Welcome Plant / Zanzibar Gem (Zamioculcas)

(Middle) - Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii)

(Bottom) - Fuschia Bonggavilla (Bougainvillea)

(Right) - Rosas de alas Diyes (Portulaca grandiflora)

(Top Left) - Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii)

(Top Right) - White Bonggavilla (Bougainvillea)

(Bottom Right) - Black Mustard Seed - (Brassica junsea)

(Bottom Left) - Desert Rose (Adenium obesum)

(Top Left) - Rosas de alas Diyes (Portulaca grandiflora)

(Bottom Left) - Yellow Bell (Allamanda cathartica)

(Right) - Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii)

Wherever you are, no matter how big or small your space may be, there will always be room to grow a pot or a plot of plants. Make sure you have at least or two that blooms with beautiful flowers for it gives so much joy to a lonely heart. Just as they say, no matter where we may be, make sure you "bloom where you are planted"

Never Stop Blooming!

Stevenson

Pocket Gardening

Since the lockdown a month ago, I got so bored and has a conversation with my cousin Caren via messenger and we both thought about gardening. I have been helping Yeya on her vegetable garden on our rooftop while Caren has started her own pocket garden of succulents. She wanted more info on planting Peppers and I also wanted some ideas on how I can start my own collection of pocket garden plants.

So after our chat, I went to our garden and saw an old Dish Garden pot that I used from decades ago and decided to start from there. There are also a lot of untended but thriving cactus plants on our terrace garden which I thought would be a great start through re-potting.

The one on the left photo was my first dish garden that I worked on two weeks ago. That big chunk of cacti head has roots on it already and I just re-potted it here also the tall 'snowman' looking cactus at the back. But all the other small heads on the left part of the dish are made from cuttings and honestly, I don't know if they are alive.

You can see on the above photo, on the left part are four little pots of different types of cacti and succulent plants. They were given to me earlier by a good family friend Ate Lanie. Thank you very much Ate Lanie, you made me so happy and encouraged to continue with my Pocket Gardening.

I have re-poted the topmost and the leftmost plants and they are made up of many small plants on a cluster and using my old mugs, I placed them all one by one. But the larger aloe looking plants (please help me name these plants) have been placed on a new dish garden on the photo before this one above.

Here are some shots of my humble but growing Pocket Garden! I am blessed to have people like Ate Lanie who are very supportive of my new found hobby during these times which I will continue on as long as these babies live. I'll do my best for them of course!

Aside from seeing these beautiful plants grow, it also makes me happy to give these old and unused mugs that we have here at home a new life! Since I can't drill holes at the bottom, I line up a third of the mugs' interior with pebbles of different sizes from an old aquarium.

***

HELP! Can you please help me by naming these species of cacti and succulent that I have? It will be very much appreciated!

Keep on Growing!

Stevenson

Reviving my Bromeliads

It's been a couple of years when I asked my cousin Judy to take me to Silang to buy some plants for a mini garden project. Well for those who know me, I have a lot of hobbies which I tend to juggle each time, but guilty as I am, my interest levels fall out whenever I think of new hobbies. A good thing though is that it may take time but I always get my interest back with each of them, and of it is gardening.

My Bromeliad plants

I don't have a green thumb but I love plants and flowers! So I asked my brother Erson, who is a great plant grower (he loves plants and plants love him too) for advise on which plants I should take care with minimal supervision and thus he suggested Bromeliads. These kind of plants will just grow and grow and make new pups, even out of neglect. But of course I will not neglect them on purpose but due to my busy schedules at work, I tend to do so.

My bromeliads rehabilitated from neglect

But now as I try to look for things to do on my free times, I realise they are just upstairs on the rooftop and waiting for some caring so last week I decided to repot some of them and earlier, I repotted more and now they look alive again (though some had a little munching from our dogs).

I have a few variety, well three to be exact as of now. I don't really know what kind or name these variety this have but here they are. If you guys know their names, kindly help me by posting on the comments section, it will be much appreciated.

Beautifully colored leaves and spiky ends

This one is truly what's left of it's kind. Hope it grows stronger

I have read that this one is called the blushing variety.

I am excited that there is just another hobby I can revive, and plants to love and take good care of. Wish me luck that this will be a serious hobby this time for I have always wanted to beautify and rehabilitate our old rooftop with beautiful mini gardens on all its corners.