Gone are the days when I could spend hours soaking up the summer heat at the beach. Nowadays, I risk suffering from heat stress, as occurred on two occasions during a heatwave in July. To get out for my weekly chores meant leaving home after 4 p.m. when temperatures became bearable. Mind you, even then, I couldn’t forget my hat and a bottle of lifesaving ice-cold water. Worse still, I had to reduce my weekend gardening hours to just two hours from 5 to 7 p.m.

Thanks to an unusually wet winter, after several years of drought, our plants responded well to the excessive heat. In August, Tropical Storm Hilary also drenched us with two days of steady rainfall and cooled us down, if just for a while. The Propeller or Crassula Falcata succulent plant stole the show with its spectacular red blooms. A gift from a former neighbor who moved out last year, the plant (shown on the left) produced five blooms this year, compared to two last year. The Propeller plant, shown on the right in its early stage, is a young plant I bought last year that has flowered for the first time.

A new neighbor, who moved in last year, transformed his plot with a metal bench and added several potted plants. The flowers he planted for summer added joyful color to our garden. (See captioned photo.) How wonderful to have another garden enthusiast among us!

The garden featured below belongs to another neighbor and friend, a working mother of a seven-year-old daughter, who caught the gardening bug some years ago. In a once-neglected area of our courtyard, she has created a garden that changes colors with the seasons.

Located near the rear entrance/exit, her apartment is unique in having a two-panel glass wall, instead of a window, in her dining room area. As shown in the photo on the right below, she has taken advantage of the afternoon sunlight to set up an indoor garden. With its wide variety of plants, her garden is a delight to explore.