Friday, November 28, 2014

Pink and green


Ubiquitous bougainvillea used to be invisible to me, but after living in a cold winter climate for so long, now it pops. This one makes me long for the Jacques Torres strawberry and basil sorbet in a cone that I loved so much in Dumbo, two summers ago.

This beautiful courtyard planting is at The Cellars-Hohenhort, a Relais en Châteaux hotel around the corner from m parents' house in Constantia. Today I'll be walking and talking in the gardens. Nice day at the office...

7 comments:

  1. Gorgeous. I love bougainvillea, even sweeping up after it. In this garden, it seems to add the perfect amount of riot to the order of the clipped hedges. No technical terms there, as I'm not a gardener (darn it), but a lot of appreciation anyhow. The perfect office. ;-) Mary

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  2. Nice day at the office, indeed! My bougainvillea, brought back from a trip to Florida as a $2.50 sapling is still flowering in the sitting room of my parents' sitting room here in Michigan, but with the low light of this time of the year the bracts are a pale, washed-out salmon rather than the deep pinkish orange they are meant to display under tropical skies.

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  3. Pity such a landmark property has to resort to exotics, Surprising there is not frangipani to be seen as well.

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    1. Agent Fynbos, is that you?

      Ja nee, it's a long uphill struggle, the one for indigenous. But as I've said here before, I'm not a fundamentalist about it. If it's not a noxious invasive...

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  4. Ah, gorgeous! My favorite garden color combo.

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  5. I never saw a bougainvillea until I was in my 20s on my first visit to Southern California. I fell in love with them (don't we all love plants that won't grow in our climate) and also thought they'd make a great "fence" due to those thorns.

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  6. I love that planting. Are the balls Lavender? And the citrus clipped? I'm trying to imagine how it would work in VA. Which trees would I choose and which grass. All theoretical of course - much too formal for my garden.

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