Pu-erh with almonds

The scent of this Vietnamese gardenia is intoxicating. Here she is early morn after a shower. 

In many pots I've planted snips of begonias as I don't want any  to go waste. Here is some b. heracleifolia and some b. U402 planted around a small bird-of-paradise trunk. There are some small blooms on the underside of the 402.

The small shrub-like begonia is a species from Venezuela- designated "U402" by Thelma O'Reilly as per the ABS website. It is a strong grower in rich soil and I've had good luck with blooming in smaller pots. It loves the humidity here and the winter sun, which is MUCH less direct than that of summer.

I replanted the b. Caribbean Corsair in a larger plastic pot. The rhizome seems to be spreading nicely, though slowly and the front had hit the side of it's pot. Generally it's fine to let this happen as it will crawl over the lip of the pot, but I want to try to give it a little extra space, hopefully to encourage more growth. Like many rhizomatous, it's root system is fairly fragile and when I eased the old pot off of the root ball, a good deal of soil from the bottom of the ball fell off. I packed it gently in it's new home- about 1/5 larger than old pot. I LOVE this begonia it's leaves have the texture of a fabulous Victorian stiff brocade. I hope I didn't over pot which can easily cause the rhizome to rot and die.

I'm drinking a cup of Pu-erh tea (mini Tuo-cha balls) that has an earthy, almost dung-like flavor. It is delicious. I recently bought a number of teas from Notting Hall . They have a good selection and ship quickly. I bought a Pu-erh sampler and several Darjeelings. I couldn't find any Darjeeling Tukvar second flush that used to be available at Fauchon which is too bad because it is a beautiful tea.

As I've written, I recently re potted a large bougainvillea growing alone the west wall. At that time I also split apart several bird-of-paradise and planted macho ferns and burly Marx philodendron with them in their new pots. Everyone is growing in. Notice the burly Marx cascading down. It's a great plant.

Burly Marx (behind bromeliad neoregelia johannis) busting out all over

Non dimenticare Katyna Ranieri