True Colours

If you ask many people to name a plant you see in Spain they will almost certainly say Bougainvillea, its brilliant magenta blooms are seen in town and country alike. We tried for years, without much success, to grow them on our Formentera terrace. The only one we had a little success with was a hybrid gold one but we longed to have the "true" original one.
When we bought our house here there was already an established one out back. We immediate set to to bring it back to life., it had been neglected for quiet a few years whilst the house stood empty and uncared for. So it was a case of cut back, prune and prune again. All the work has paid off in triplicate, for summer and now autumn. We have a truly beautiful plant that is starting ramble over the gazebo that shelters our newly tiled terrace (thanks Joaquin, nice job done).

Better give a few facts about bougainvillea before any expert gardener readers puts us right here!
To begin with its not a native European plant it originated in South America.It was brought to this continent by French botanist Philibert Commerçon who was travelling with Louis Antoine de Bougainville a French explorer in the 18th century. No guesses on how they named the plant.

Bougainvillea are evergreen if they have significant water and are in fact a vine. And here the interesting fact, the coloured "petals" we love to see are in fact bracts* not true flowers. The flowers are the tiny white part in the centre. You learn something everyday, if your not careful!

*A bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower. Bracts are often (but not always) different from foliage leaves, for example being smaller, larger, or of a different colour or texture.

I took the above picture yesterday, stunning colours I'm sure you'll agree.

A Mellow time of year

A slight chill in the morning is telling us Autumn is really with us, mind you its still very warm during the day. Morning are glorious at the moment though, golden and hazy with smoke as the local market gardeners light bonfires early in the day. All very atmospheric and mostly sweet smelling as long as its not prickly pear that's going up in flames. Can understand why its being burned, its so invasive. but oh the pong! It must be such a relief for those people who work so hard in the huerta when the weather cools down, its certainly far better for gardening. We are really pleased with how the garden is coming along. We had a trip to the local garden centre recently, only went to look of course, came back with a car full including a fine Buddha that now sits on the side of the pool. it was well worth the time we found a great variety of plants which are all looking nice and healthy in our wee plot. The guy who runs the place is really pleasant and presented me with a huge basil as a gift as we were leaving.
Although the front of the house is mostly patio there is a decent sized border of garden, problem has been the local feral cats, of which there are many had gotten used to using it as there litter tray. I know the whole campo and they choose the garden. We tried various method to deter them, lemons, cuttings from our rose bushes nothing was working. We have been reluctant to put in new plants because of this and then inspiration struck, rocks, of which we have many. We have gone for a Zen inspired look, lots of rocks with plants growing through. if we want to add more plants we can just move a rock and pop one in, perfect. We have seen a number of disgruntled looking moggies in the last few days though.

Its a Wild World

Before we moved to Spain we spent most of the previous 30 years living in the countryside. We loved to be able to see the changing seasons bring different flora and fauna to our doorstep. Moving to Blanca has been like coming home for us. As a family we are keen bird watchers, our daughter and family over from Australia were thrilled to see the Beeeaters which come here for the summer to breed, they have been a joy to see and hear all through that season. We know know there are wild boar in the area and would like to see them, from a distance! We did have a lovely welcome visitor the other day. I was busy in the kitchen preparing an evening meal,the layout of the kitchen means I can work away with a faboulous view through the sitting room window to the front patio garden and the surrounding hills. Imagine my surprise when a red squirrel leapt through the rejas onto the window ledge. I think it was just as surprised to see me. It looked for a moment and leapt down, hurrying to the window I saw it standing on the patio look around and then run up the cypress tree we have. Later that day whilst swimming in the pool Mr.(or mrs.) Tufty came over the roof and down on to the garden wall. What a treat we was able watch this beautiful creature make a dash for the carob tree that borders our back garden, no doubt intent on finding a hearty supper.

Follow on to Wierd Experience

Apparently there has been reports from around the world of meteorite showers, fireballs and large meteors in the last 12 hours, reports of green/yellow glowing balls and Red fireballs. When reasonably close, meteors are known to emit sound and also smells that can linger in the air. So most probably this is the answer to what happened and would explain the very short time span of my experience, This Meteor must have been really close to light up the sky and create the sound that i heard.

Wierd Experience

Around 3.00am this morning, i was woken by the dogs around the campo all barking like mad,then i heard the sound of what seemed like a very powerfull engine go overhead, i sat up in bed and looked out the window and the sky was a bright red which faded silhouetting the hills over Blanca. I jumped out of bed and went to the window but by then the red glow had faded completely,and there was no sound,(even the dogs had stopped barking). what ever it was moved very fast although the engine seemed like it was just idling, because this happened in no more than 5 or 6 seconds. Today we have been smelling a indistiguishable chemical type of scent in the air, Was the happening chemical spraying? was it a UFO?