Garden Shots for PAYS

Each of my loved ones has special talents--most of have many special talents, in fact--and John's Mom (P.A.Y.S.) has a true gift for gardening.  Her backyard looks like something out of a magazine, and she provides all the sweat equity to make it that way.  B.J.S. helps, too.  Their back yard is amazing.  She is also fearless--moving plants from pot to ground, repotting, splitting, using natives, trying out non-natives, maintaining incredible rose bushes.

John certainly inherited some of this skill, and as soon as he got to Doha, he started working to improve our tiny back garden/yard. When he got here, it was patches of spotty/dying grass.  He has worked with one of the compound gardeners, a gentleman named Guru (who also has folks that work for him), to get our oasis underway.  Guru knows magic, too--he does things like splitting off bougainvillea and moving plants from one area of the compound to another.  John has spotted a small palm  growing outside the compound that he's going to try to talk Guru into digging up and potting.  I know my place in all this machinery: stay out of the way and watch the cool stuff happen (taking some extra photos along the way).

Here are some gardening photos for Pat and with thanks to Guru, Guru's guys, and John.

John under the table and umbrella he wrangled.

The view from John's chair.  He's standing in the kitchen doorway.

The view from the opposite side of the yard.  Under the two trees (one large, one small) is flowering yellow Dahlia.

Another worker, Samuel, had just washed the brick.  Everything here gets a coating of fine sand dust on it.  I can't imagine the labor involved in keeping this compound (in fact, the whole city) from being ruined by the sand.

Back yard flower hedges and vines (and close-ups below).

Bougainvillea in a pot on the front porch.

Flowering tree in the back yard. 

Flowering small tree/large shrub in the front yard.  It's not a Magnolia--John thinks it's native here.

Potted plant on the front porch.

You may recall John's post on the work ethic here.  These (mostly Filipino) men take enormous pride in what they can accomplish with small budgets/water and big smarts/work/sand/heat.  I think we're pretty lucky to witness the outcomes.