Gardening in Dubai

Gardening is sure a challenge in Dubai, especially if you stay in an apartment with a balcony. Everything has to be bought from stores, potting soil, containers and even plants. Most unlike home in kerala where a garden is started quiet easily, mostly with plant cuttings from neighbours, friends or even total strangers. Since everything grows fabulously in the good fertile soil and with abundant rain, gardening used to be a breeze.
In Dubai it is different, the summer temp can easily exceed 50 degree centigrade and getting the perenials to survive that is an art. I usually move everything inside into the airconditioned 
rooms,  away from the sun, but still manage to lose  many plants during the annual two month vacation. The people entrusted to water the plants kill some by over watering and some by underwatering. Well the vacations are approaching and I am experimenting with various plastic bottles hoping to develop a drip irrigation system that ensures my plants getg enough water till the person comes to water every week.

Getting ready to open

My dianthus bud has little divisions at the top of the bud almost like it is dividing, getting ready to open. So hopefully I will see the flower in a few days. I pinched off the tops of the other dianthus plants to promote more side branches. Hope it works.

Yellow Cosmos

The dianthus bud is still closed but the cosmos are in full bloom. I got the seeds from home in Kerala. There the cosmos plants are six footers, so I was not really sure how it would do here in a pot on my balcony. Well, I planted them in those Al Rawabi 2kg yogurt containers and guess what, they grew to a height of around two feet and then burst into flowers. They love the sun and look great.
But of late we have been having a red colored web-spinning spider like mite attacking them. I read somewhere the best thing to do is to give the plants a shower, which drowns the pests. Well so they are getting showers every two days. But these pests are persistent.
God knows where they came from; my guess is they arrived with the marigold plants I bought from a Jaddaf nursery. Well first they destroyed all the marigold plants and then moved on to the sunflowers and are now attacking the cosmos. All of them being from the same family seems to be the reason. They don’t seem to like the petunia as much, so those plants are being left alone.

Dianthus buds

My balcony is bursting with flowers of all hues.

A lot of Petunias in pots, in season right now in Dubai is, of course, the main feature. A huge red poinsettia given as a Christmas present also looks wonderful. But these are plants that were bought from shops in the flowering state.

My pride and joy are the cosmos and the dianthus I grew from seeds, agonizing over each causality and hoping and praying that at least one seedling would survive and bear flowers. Well God must have been paying close attention. The cosmos grew fast and are now covered in glorious yellow flowers while the dianthus is still growing, some plants have buds, which are likely to open any day now.

The dianthus buds are becoming bigger and bigger each day and in one of them I can see red shades just under the outer cover. Waiting for the flower to open is almost like waiting for the baby to come after the mandatory nine months of waiting. Each day first thing in the morning I check to see the plant to see if the bud is open.