Patio Diary

Bryn here. As I mentioned in my previous post, it's warming up rapidly here in Al Ain. Summer here is extreme. As far as gardening goes, the milder "winter" months are the growing season, and the summer is when most plants either die or shut down to a sorry state of shock until the autumn. We don't have a garden here (sadly), but I have converted our kitchen micro-patio into a garden of sorts. It has been so nice and colourful these last couple of months, but now things are starting to struggle. The colourful annuals have dried to a crisp (though the pansies have surely scattered seeds everywhere, ready for next winter) and the surviving plants need watering every day. It's like autumn back home, only the leaves are falling because they get so hot and dry! haha

Anyway, I know some of you are gardening enthusiasts, so I thought you might be interested in seeing what sorts of things we have flowering on our patio here in the middle of the Arabian Desert:

bitter melon

When Liz and I lived in Japan, we were introduced to a new vegetable called "goya". This was an Okinawan gourd which was usually thinly sliced and stir-fried with tofu and egg, etc. The dish was called "goya champuru". We later learned that "goya" was called bitter melon (or bitter gourd) in English, and that it wasn't a uniquely Japanese thing. They are also very common in India, it seems. They are readily available in grocery stores here. In Japan, they were grown in summer outside windows to act as a sort of sun shade (it's a fast growing climbing vine with long curly tendrils). I thought it might do ok here too, so I got some seeds from Daiso (the Japanese 100 yen shop, which is also popular here in the UAE). The seeds grew really well, and it wasn't long before the vines were overtaking my patio and needed severe pruning. It's great having big green leaves out there, and the delicate little yellow flowers are bright and pretty too. I now have several "goya" growing on the vines.

"goya" or bitter melon, almost ready for eating.

coleus

Back when Liz was working at the international school here, one of her co-workers brought tiny little baby coleus plants for each of the teachers. Liz knew I'd like to have another plant, so she brought the piddly little thing home for me. One of the other teachers at school didn't want hers, so she offered it to Liz. So then we had two tiny, sorry-looking coleus plants. We went to Ace and bought a third (dark red colour, you can't see in the picture but it's chopped back behind the green ones). I planted them all in one round pot, and boy did they grow well!! The leaves ended up growing to the size of dinner plates! Like, a foot long! The red one grew really well, too, and they looked very striking together with their variegated foliage. The red one flowered and so I chopped it back. It's coming back now, but you can't really see it in the picture. I'll be chopping the two green ones back pretty soon, too. They seem to love the heat here.

oleander

Some weeks ago, I went to Ace Dubai with some friends, and came back with a few plants. They were on sale (probably because summer is drawing near), so I couldn't ignore the bargain. This oleander has a great scent, but you have to get up close to smell it. It has been flowering steadily for a while now, so I hope it will survive the summer.

Arabian Jasmine

This plant smells!!!! in a good way!! You can smell the sweet scent of jasmine from quite a distance away. At the university they have many gardens filled with jasmine, and the whole campus smells amazing in the mornings and evenings. The boys will sometimes pick a jasmine flower and drop it into a cup of tea, or simply walk around holding it to their nose. I have had several students bring me a jasmine flower over the semesters. They seem to be very popular here in Al Ain, and when I saw them on sale at Ace, I grabbed one without hesitating. EVERY EVENING my patio smells amazing thanks to this wee fella. I often open the door and let the smell waft inside.

hibiscus

When I was a kid growing up in Brunei, my Mum had a beautiful big garden. It was mostly lawn, with many trees and bushes dotted all over the place. We had many hibiscus bushes. They grew really well in the tropical conditions. I remember pruning them regularly with Mum. We would chop them back severely and they would always grow back quickly and strongly. We had all different colours and shapes, and we had one just like this that I got on sale from Ace a few weeks ago. In the few weeks I've had it, it's had about almost a dozen flowers and has grown about 6 inches taller. I could have bought a red, sterotypical hibiscus (which I think is really beautiful), but this one just really reminded me of growing up in Brunei, so I really hope it survives the summer.

The main issue with the summer is that I won't be here. I'll be in Japan with Liz, so there will be nobody to water the plants. I have arranged to take them over to a friend's place so that his maid can water them for me along with his own. I did this last summer too (with another friend) but the person they paid to water the plants didn't do a good job, and I came back to find most of them dead. Fingers crossed this doesn't happen this time round. If it does, Ace is only a 1.5 hour drive away! haha.

Happy gardening!!