I love the sight of fire trees are in bloom! They always, always remind me of an Amorsolo painting. Also, when the trees are in bloom, I am assured by visits from olive-backed sunbirds, hovering and hopping from flower to flower. The almost leafless branches also make it easy for me to see the woodpeckers creeping along the trunks, pecking and trilling away.
Another sight I can see from my window is the golden shower, also in bloom at the same time as the fire tree. In the mornings, the dripping yellow flowers are a-buzz with bees sipping nectar.
Amorsolo didn't paint golden showers in his paintings, I suppose they are quite new introductions? Anyway, when I was younger, it would be golden shower flowers I would offer to Mary during the month long novena.
Sometimes I wish we also had space for a banaba tree, or had planted one across the street. And I always remember the palawan cherry tree at Albert Hall or those lining the driveway of the Manila Seedling Bank. The former lavender, the latter pink. Wouldn't that be a beautiful sight?!?!? Orange and yellow and lavender and pink all at the same time!
(Palawan cherry trees take ten million years to grow though I think, and there's no more space in my mother's garden for 2 more trees. I'd better think of a place to plant them all now, wait twenty or so years... and enjoy them in my old age!)
It has started to rain in the afternoons, a sure sign that summer will soon be over. Winds before the rain would send flowers falling to the ground, much to the delight of my niece.
The rains will soon strip my bedroom view of yellow and orange, and the colors will carpet our garden and driveway instead.
Until next May...
