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We are launching Newsletter

Hello my dear readers, followers and fellow bloggers! I am very excited to share that we are coming up with e-newsletter starting 3rd June 2021. After creating two gardening courses, writing two ebooks and several blog posts, this newsletter is something totally different and I love it! I am sure you’ll love it too!!

Here’s what you can expect from the newsletter:

  • ‌Engaging, Insightful & Simple (3-4 min read) article every Thursday in your inbox starting 3rd June 2021.
  • ‌Different topics from what’s in vogue to in depth analysis of gardening practices!
  • ‌No bias, No preaching.. Just facts! We will lay out the pros and cons… You decide!
  • ‌Learning about different aspects of gardening which you would have never thought of looking for!
  • ‌Interactive: You can reply to emails and we would love to discuss the topics in detail with you!
  • ‌Money Back Guarantee: If you’re not happy with the content, you can unsubscribe anytime during the month of June 2021 and we will refund the entire amount! No questions asked!
  • ‌One year subscription – Rs. 99/- Subscribe Now!

Click here to subscribe!

Kindly subscribe as soon as you can! We are enrolling only 1000 subscribers only. The reason being, I want to curate the content for the subscribers. Hence, the limit. We have always been communicating here and you know the kind of content I put out. I feel we should take our communication to next level, hence the limit of 1000 subscribers. I know, it’s a month’s time to 3rd June, but please do subscribe as soon as you can.

If you have any questions, you can drop them in the comment section below or write to me at info@reemasgarden.com or whatsapp me on +91 7045323927. Thank You!

Love,
Reema.

Indoor Plants

We have often talked about flowering plants and most of the people do gravitate more towards the flowering plants like bees, and understandably so. But can we give it a moment for our lovely foliage special house plants for a minute here?

They are so unique, there’s almost other worldly feel to them. All plants have different needs but indoor plants are especially different. A lot of them are sturdy and low maintenance and an absolute pleasure to have in your indoors.

There are a few plants which are flowering and will be happy indoors, like anthurium or peace lily and cactus flowers but the exceptional foliage on them gives any room they are in a unique look, a different vibe.

What are your favorite indoor plants? Let us know in the comment section below!

Gardening is Magic

There’s some magic that happens when you are working in your garden, whether it be indoors or outdoors… For me, it’s a trance like state, almost meditative when I am aware of everything and yet, of nothing else. There comes a point, after which I don’t think about what I am doing, all the work happens naturally, in the flow…

After a minute or two, you can feel your body temperature rising, beads of sweat forming and dropping into the garden, almost making the garden sweeter. You don’t have to sweat in your garden so to say, but for me, it is a sweet experience. It helps me calm down, helps me focus and yet, let go.

The textures on your hands, the pulled muscles from doing some work, overall heat, various scents, be it sweetness of flowers or tartness of the soil and compost, may be even earthy smell of vegetables or the citric fruitiness from any fruits you may have in your garden, all of these surrounds you like a cocoon, filling you with warmth, love and positivity!

So it is safe to say, gardening for me is a magical experience…
What are your thoughts?

Clematis

Clematis is a genus of about 300 species within the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. In this post, we will be discussing about Clematis flammula (or that is what I think is the closest to the species I am going to describe. Kindly correct me if I am wrong. However the incorrect identification of species won’t affect the content of this post as all the care, maintenance and other suggestions are based on personal experiences and I know they work well. 😀 ). So let’s dive into it!

It is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant in gardens. The woody vine bears fragrant white flowers and small green achenes. When the flowers are newly opened they have a strong sweet almond fragrance. (I just wrote almond fragrance and I have written vanilla scent in the above image. How do we decide on the name of fragrance? Anyways, you can buy this plant, smell the sweet scent and then call it whatever you like) The vine grows in a tangled mass that is heavily sprinkled with flowers throughout the warmer months. It is popular with gardeners as a decoration along fences and trellises, or as ground cover. If the vine has no other plants or structures to climb on, it will climb on itself, forming a large, densely tangled bush. The plant sends out many shoots and can reach over five meters in height.

Let’s talk about care and maintenance. But before we do that, here are a few common names of clematis.

This plant is very easy to care for and requires very little time and effort. Once you have trained the vine to grow thee way you want, rest everything is pretty simple. I have trained my jasmine vines, but not this one. I have let them grow straight up vertically with the support of a wooden stick. Remember, as i have mentioned earlier, if the vine has no other plants or structures to climb on, it will climb on itself, forming a large, densely tangled bush.

Here’s how I would like to sum up this post!

‘Fern’tastic Garden

Especially where I am from, Fern isn’t a common name that wouldn’t pop up in my mind when we start talking about plants in our garden. When I first came across Fern, a Boston Fern to be exact, I was a little out of my comfort zone since I had never had the plant, neither had I seen it in my friends’ or relatives’ garden.

Now, looks wise, I had to agree that it was absolutely beautiful and agree that getting it home was indeed a good choice. The plant sat nicely near my Pothos, both of them giving amazing “pinteresty” vibes with their different, yet vibrant earthy colors. It was amazing how easy fern is to have in your indoors, and it will grow beautifully wherever it is kept.

So, after having it on a shelf, hanging basket, table, or window, I came to the conclusion that fern was, a very ferntastic plant and that ferny puns too are awesome! 😉

Click here to read more about Fern!

Vermiculite

What is Vermiculite?

Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which undergoes significant expansion when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently, and commercial furnaces can routinely produce this effect. Vermiculite forms by the weathering or hydrothermal alteration of biotite or phlogopite.

Advantages:

1.      Very light in weight

2.     Helps with aeration inside the pots.

3.     Helps with better water retention.

4.     PH neutral (or close to neutral)

5. Great for germination mixes.

Disadvantages:

  1. Has minimum nutritional value
  2. It’s a nonrenewable resource. Hence we need to use it wisely.
  3. Cannot be used independently. Has to be used with other soil growing mediums.

Cost Benefit Analysis:

Where the native soil is heavy or sticky, gentle mixing of vermiculite—up to 15% of the volume of the soil—is recommended. This creates air channels and allows the soil mix to breathe. Mixing vermiculite in flower and vegetable gardens or in potted plants will provide the necessary air to maintain vigorous plant growth. Where soils are sandy, mixing of vermiculite into the soil will allow the soil to hold the water and air needed for growth. Vermiculite is also not very expensive and can  be bought easily. Vermiculite is definitely better than perlite when it comes to water retention. But like perlite it is also a natural non renewable resource and needs to be used carefully.

Flowers (Part 2)

There are so much variety when it comes to flowers that bloom on the surface of this planet that I am awestruck at the abundance and uniqueness of it! Now, being in a tropical region, I have come across a lot of perennials and annuals that bloom around here indigenously or otherwise.

For me, I definitely love our usual yet, refreshing outdoor flowers, whether it be hibiscus, champa, gerbera, chrysanthemums, canna, passion flower, rose, and so many others which; if I start naming individually, will take up all of the post!

Flowers need not be scented for me to like them, I like them either way, just as they are; absolutely perfect. They bring color in our lives and some newness in a relatively mundane routine…

What type of flowers do you like? Let us know in the comment section below!!!

Flowers

I was writing about colors last week, cup of tea on my desk, blank screen waiting to be filled out, my desk succulents and a color out of the window caught my eye. A bougainvillea blossomed with pink flowers swaying in the afternoon breeze. And was it a sight!

I wasn’t head over heels for bougainvillea as such, but looking back, just passing by a bougainvillea tree that’s maybe poking out of someone’s compound or just growing all by itself on a road side gives us such a freshness!

It is a break from the greys of urban areas and the neon of embellished greys. Flowers in general are so incredibly beautiful that words can rarely do it justice. Just like plants, these flowers have their own personality! Happy ones, melancholic ones, the blues, the whimsical, sun-lovers and nocturnal, the bold ones and the shy. Do you think any particular flower suits your personality?

Summer

Yellow-browning drying leaves, gusts of warm breeze and buzzing bees… Summers show us the side of nature that ends a cycle, preparing the earth for a new one. The warm hues everywhere, overheated air and yellowing greens gives us some different vibes altogether. Like a glass of cool water after a sunny day, looking at a patch of green will also give our eyes and mind a much-needed break. May it be a small patch of lawn, a small garden, a single vibrant house plant or the colorful summer trees that we find every now and then on our roads. One such indigenous tree that sticks out is ‘Flame of the Forest’. One summer while traveling through the mighty Sahyadri mountain ranges, I saw a patch of red, and even through the summer heat, it was stunning! It was befitting the whole scenario. It reminded me that though summer may not be my favorite season by far, it most definitely had some peculiar, unique beauty to it!

How do we spend summers at home while isolating?

This question has been the bane of our life especially since last summer. Work at home is another thing, and then spending all our time at home later becomes something of a stretch sometimes. If there are children in your home, it becomes especially difficult to keep a balance.

In times like these, I would want to tell you to try to get your family involved in activities like home gardening. Getting to know the basics like watering, potting, repotting, soil, compost can be a fun activity which also teaches you something new. Gardening is something that needs no age limit. Giving your children some responsibilities of say, watering your plants some days of the week could be something that will help them in multiple ways as well as you. The beauty of gardening is that it has very few limitations so whether you want to garden alone or with someone, your garden can make your summer at least slightly better!

Since we are currently in the middle of the summer season, I thought it was best to talk about something related to spending summers indoors

Especially since the summer of 2020, we have been going through a lot of changes, and some of these have been getting to us without even us knowing. The complex and constant changing rules and regulations, disturbing news, odd mandatory confinement has started changing us on some level. Now that we know how we cannot be taking things for granted, I would like to share my opinion on something and I am not saying it just for nothing, I truly want you to try this.

If you don’t already have a garden, start gardening, start with a single plant. Especially in summers when the temperatures are rising and you are stuck in your home with probably odd people in there with you as your company, you need something like a plant to soothe your mind sometimes. To give you a different hobby, to help your mental calm, and to teach you to not give up ever!

So are you ready, because the best time to start something new is now!!!

Portulaca

You have heard about it, you have it or you probably want it! Here’s everything you would want to know about Portulaca! There are many species of portulacas. In this post, we are discussing mainly about Portulaca Grandiflora. The leaves are cylindrical, about an inch long and pointed on the tips. The rose-like flowers are about an inch across and come in bright colors like rose pink, red, yellow, white, and orange. Portulacas are commonly known as 9 o’clock flower or 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock flower, because they bloom at the same time everyday. The time changes based on region. In India, mostly it is referred to as 9 o’clock flower or “Naubajiya”. Many people also refer to it as “Chini Gulaab”.

Botanical Name: Portulaca grandiflora
Common Names: rose moss, eleven o’clock, Mexican rose, moss rose, sun rose, rock rose, and moss-rose, purslane.

They come in both single and double petalled varieties. Both are equally good and beautiful. If you have space in your garden, opt for one each. They are small and compact plants.

These plants are succulents with fleshy leaves & stems which means you don’t want to keep them constantly wet. They need good drainage. Water your kalanchoes well, let it all drain out & then water again when the soil is completely dry. That might mean you
water your portulacas twice or thrice every week. The frequency will vary depending on the temperature, light situation & the size of the pots.

Portulacas love sunlight. So you can go for it if you have a south facing or west
facing window. They need at least 3-4 hours of sunlight.

If they come potted, do not repot them immediately. Repot them after a month or two, that too, if required.

They are annuals. That means their entire life cycle is less than a year. So you can grow different colors every year. Also they are very inexpensive.

You can place them directly or in hanging baskets near windows that receive at least 4-5 hours of sunlight!

Do you like portulaca? Do you have it in your Garden? Comment and let me know! Do share your experiences with portulaca!

Also, if you like this post, don’t forget to check out my ebooks on flowering and indoor plants. Click here.

Happy Gardening 🙂