Early morning stroll on my balcony.
The sun has just risen, and the sea a little earlier, when walking with my dog, was steely blue with brisk wind and waves to match. Here on my balcony it is quite, whatnot a little gentle breeze whafting around.
The Passiflora wine bloomed its first bloom a few days a ago, and new buds keep forming. Its green arms are attached to a trellis and a curiously formed dried tree branch.
The herbs are growing with full gusto, mint mixed with peppermint, rose geranium, Luisa, lemon grass, lavender, rosmarin and sage. The herbs conveniently shade the little baby lotus that is living in a jug, and another jug in which little silvery fish are swimming. The lemon lime tree was transplanted a few weeks ago, and still it does not grow but appears contemplating of that time…
The dwarf lotus is pushing new leaves, which appear a pointed spear through the surface of water, and slowly unfurl to huge green dinnerplate of a leaf, rising high in the air. The leaves shaped undulating round and leafstalk in the middle, its soft green reaching to sunlight, it is so easy to realize why this plant is reverred in Asia. Me too I could contemplate the undulating roundness of these leaves – and we are not even talking about flowers!
The babylotus has its own different story. I started it last year from a seed, and it was a lot of fun. In the summerheat of June, I dropped the blackish-brown coated, smooth seed to water. Then, a few days later the nearly one inch seed started swelling, then plopped open – well I didn’t hear the plop but I am sure it happened – and the first leaves started pushing through, all in a jug of water. They grew in a longer and longer stalk, until the seed also created a bunch of white roots. At this point this whole thing was planted in soil in a jug again with lots of water.
The fish live with the lotus in a pot, and it appears have a symbiotic relationship, one benefits the other. The fish gets the water that houses the lotus, and the lotus gets the fertilizer from the fish. Somehow the presence of fish helps to keep the water healthier. And then I clean the water for both… While a couple of a spectacled bulbul, the bird with black head, yellow undertail and ability to sing, is waiting in nearby trees and in the afternoon hours have a full bath and joy in the lotus pot.
Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, is used for a varitey of purposes in Asia. Besides the beauty of its flowers, it is also a food staple as its root is used as a starchy vegetable; leaves can be used for wrapping food for steaming and as a dinnerplate; there are claims that the lotus leaf helps in bad effects of hot weather; tea can be made of its flower petals – actually you can buy it from the net; the seeds can be eaten after grinding, used in desserts, or made into tea and cookies; and the Chinese have references for medicinal uses for all parts of this plant.
However, here in my balcony mainly the fish and the bulbul couple fully enjoy the lotus.
