My Bougainvillea

One of the favorite plants on my garden at Mexico is my Bougainvillea. It is a beautiful bush/tree that blooms and continues growing all year round. Almost everybody compliments on it, and it has been one of the landmarks for our house.

My bugambilia in full bloom

Last time I came to Mexico, I had introduce it. But back then, because we had had some very strong winds that took down a lot of the flowers, I was not able to show it on its full glory. This time I was more lucky and got to take a photo of it on its prime.

We have around ten different plants on the garden. They started as little plants that we put around the outer fence. At one point they took over the whole front and looked amazing, but they grew too thick, so we decided to prune them in a tree form better. Also, at the beginning they had rarely any blooms. But, one time when we were at the garden, we (my father and I) said that it might be good to prune it away, because it didn't seem like flowering much. Since that time it started flowering like crazy to the point that my dad never ever wants to prune it at all.

The other bugambilias are also blooming nicely

The biggest bugambilia (spanish) we have are actually two different plants. They grew so big that they mixed together and made one big bunch. They look amazing all bloomed, we are so happy it decided to flower already. Other thing, after they started blooming so much, my dad started getting cuttings from them and planting more around the house. Now we have one on the sidewalk and others on the back. Even my grandmother has one at her house from our garden. They all seem to be growing nice.

It is a very beautiful plant to have, and I would recommend it to anybody with a big and sunny space to fill.

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My little garden in Mexico

As promised, here is a little tour around my garden in Mexico.

My little garden in Mexico a bit shaggy but full of life

First of all, my home city in Mexico is called Hermosillo, the city of the sun. It is located in north Mexico, It is the capital city of the state of Sonora. There the climate is mostly dry and hot, it is the middle of the desert, think Arizona in the US, It is the same region desert. Being a dessert the temperature varies considerably during the day, for example in winter it can be 0 Celsius at night and 35 Celsius during the day, this is considerate as normal. In summer it can get as hot as 52 Celcius, yes 52 Celsius, 125.6 Fahrenheit, that means you can literally melt plastic, get second degree's burns or cook an egg all on a car's hood, I know because I have done it (not the second degree's burn though).

However, as unbearable as it might seem, you do get used to it, and it is all ok once you learn how to hide from the sun on those terrible hot days. And of course, the plants also get used to it, they only need a bit of extra water or some shadow for those hot days.

My garden In Mexico is spread around the front and the back of my house. Over the years it has had many different plants. Including a mango, an avocado, agaves, nopales, beans, melons, watermelons, radish, chillies, papayas, lemons, oranges, petunias, geraniums, snapdragons, palms, nochebuenas, callas, marigolds, daisies, and many other trees and flowers. It also has a lot of wildlife growing including many little lizards, bees, a lot of butterflies and birds, an also almost every year some hummingbirds that make a nest there.

We always have hummingbirds on our garden

The front garden is usually covered with flowers and many other beautiful plants, but on later years, with me living away and my parents starting to get more involved in other projects, it has been lacking some proper care. My father is the one that continues to care of it when he can, so at least it continues to live although a bit shaggy.

In there now the little plants are mostly desert plants, my father loves them and they take care of themselves so they thrive. We also have a chili plant that is quite big and full of flowers now and a red rose, but this last one got attacked by ants, so no flowers for now. The big ones we have are a big "arbol de brasil" giving a big shadow in the middle and a bunch of bougainvilleas.

This aloe is in a pot, but its offspring took completely over its surroundings

In our garden we have several landmarks that are always complimented by everyone that visit our house. But the one that gets the most every time is definitely our Bougainvillea. This is actually several plants, they have been there almost since the house got built around 20 years ago.

It has very few flowers because of a hurricane took most down before I went, but it continues to grow happily

We struggled with it for years since it hardly ever flowered. That until one season, while looking at it in the garden my father and I, we decided to prune it away once the last flowers of the season had fallen. Since that year it has not stopped giving flowers all year long. It was almost as if it had heard us. Now is almost as tall as the house, probably around 6 meters tall and continue to flower like crazy.

The bougainvillea on the other side also have some bald branches but is recovering fast from the strong winds

We have many desert plants on the front, they all reproduce like crazy and my father doesn’t have the heart to throw any away so now we are a bit overpopulated. We have a bunch of aloes, nopales, choyas, and many many others.

A very small part of my dad's desert plants collection

I think the one we have the most is the offspring of two gigantic maguey (similar to an agave) we used to have. They were two meters wide each and both gave a huge 4 meters tall flower. Each flower gave hundreds of tinny sprouts that just covered all around with little baby magueyes. This kind of plant dry out after flowering so the big ones are gone, but we will probably have more judging by the amount of babies around.

Finally for the front garden, although technically not ours since it overflows from the neighbors garden, there is this huge lemon tree that is older than our house. It gives tons of very juicy lemons year round and is the official lemon provider for half the houses of our street.

I even suspect this lemon tree is older than me

I will continue the post next time so it doesn’t become too long, but there are still a lot of plants on my garden in Mexico that I want you guys to meet.