a greener and cooler home

It took months before we finally decided to buy plants. Major reason is we can't bring it to the Philippines and it's really no joke to buy plants here in the UAE. It's unbelievably expensive. Last weekend, we went to this garden center to complete our "greening" and we went home silently thinking how it was so easy to spend AED2,000 + here, where in fact we could never splurge PhP20,000 for plants if we were in the Philippines. Or if we do it will already be a grand landscape in our small yard back home. Oh well, as my husband loves to say "this is how it is to live in a desert. 

So now our home feels like a real home. It really makes a difference to see some greens around. When I look at them, I imagine inhaling fresh air instead of our airconditioning inside. Somehow, it takes me back home.

Our first plant is the bougainvillea. They were infront of our yard. Actually, I think all houses here have bougainvillea on their gates and fences, in all colors. This is ours, in our frontyard. There is a long stretch of this plant at the side of the property. 

Also I planted gumamela yesterday, just before our entrance

I hope she withstands the heat of summer next year so that I can enjoy the flowers during the winter.

This is my jasmine, a variety of this is our sampaguita. I have two and they are starting to crawl on the arch of the entrance. Like sampaguita, those tiny white flowers smell good.

I don't know how it is called, but it is for our lanai. They come in two also. So leafy and so green.

See the taller plant? It's my tomato. Let's see if I could harvest later :)

There is a smaller plant beside the tomato, the name I don't know, but I love its flowers. So I bought two for my lanai. I still need nicer pots, though.

Calamansi. The center of the universe :)

That small plant out there bears fruit already :)

Parang ginto ang calamansi dito. That's why I prefer to buy lime and lemon. But nothing compares to

our calamansi. So I planted my own :)

Look also at my flowers around the calamansi plant. They were planted when we moved in but after that cruel summer, more than half of them was gone. So we planted new ones, but still there are vacant space.

My indoor plants

A table plant which bears yellow flowers.

this is on the platform halfway to the the second floor

upon entrance inside

At the corner of the dining room

 


at the corner of the family room

So who says living in the desert is less fun than being in the tropics? You just have to find ways. Yun nga lang dagdag trabaho ang pagdidilig sa akin. But it's alright.