Lake Fred

Lake Fred is an actual lake located in the flat pinelands of southern New Jersey. It is also one of my knicknames acquired while I was at college. There is (or was) a Lake Fred Folk Festival in the springtime.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Hibiscus Time Of Year



I'm back in the New Orleans area and last night was the first time I was able to do anything substantial with my hibiscus as I repotted eight of my 2005 seedlings into slightly bigger pots. There is much I need to do around the house as Katrina's effects have lasted much longer than imagined and will last a long long time. This weekend we drove into the Ninth Ward and viewed the damage from the Industrial Canal levee breech. It was horrible. The destruction was beyond one's worst nightmare. We drove into St. Bernard Parish, where we saw houses still attached to their foundations now resting in the middle of streets. The scope of this disaster is overwhelming. The New Orleans area we remember will never be back fully. Areas may rebuild and individual homeowners may rebuild, but many will never come back and I fear the damaged houses will remain behind for years and years.

Back to hibiscus: my tinkering in the garden may help me psychologically to escape to a peaceful activity that rewards me with beautiful flowers. The photo is of the 2004 Hibiscus of the Year winner Royal Treasure. It is a beautiful cup and saucer bloom. This particular photo was taken on June 4, 2005, one day before the New Orleans Hibiscus Show. It bloomed one day too early, as it could have won a head table ribbon. This shot is taken from above with the potted plant sitting on a park bench. The next local show this year is May 7th in Baton Rouge. My potted plants have been mostly ignored since Katrina and are not blooming. My bushes in the ground are blooming nicely, but I think they would enjoy some rain as we are in a drought right now. I hope to have some blooms to enter in Baton Rouge in a few weeks.

1 Comments:

At 3:40 PM, Blogger Trini Peach said...

The hibiscus is my absolute favorit flower. I grew up with it in Trinidad adn remember as a child carefully plucking each petal to lick the sweet nectar off its base. Thank you for loving it too.

 

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