I've been feeling depressed lately. Events in Libya (the French Embassy bombing among other things) are enough to make anyone here feel depressed, but the weather hasn't helped as we've had days of sandstorms and dust so bad that it even closed down the airport for a while. I had a busy week too, but I woke up this morning and decided to tackle the dusty house.... but first I had a look around my garden to see how things fared through the dusty, windy hot weather.
The morning glories are glorious as usual. Nothing seems to get them down!
My succulents all seem to be thriving this year. Purslane seems to be growing in almost all of the potted plants. It's edible and many Libyans cook it in a tomato based sauce and eat it with bread or rice... it tastes similar to spinach. Nutrition facts about purslane: here
More cacti and purslane.
We've been trying to xeriscape as much as possible which means we are choosing plants that need as little irrigation as possible. So we've got quite a lot of cacti and succulents as well as plants that are native to the area (which most people think of as weeds!) We still need to water though. More about xeriscaping: here
Yep, this one is a weed, but it grows well and I love to put sprigs of the lacy flowerettes in flower arrangements.
We found these growing wild and dug some up and planted them in the garden, since then we've been reseeding. My husband loves yellow flowers and quite a few of the plants and trees that we have are yellow.
No garden in Libya is complete without mint and geranium to add as flavouring for tea. We've just started these in small bed in the side garden. We've also got some rosemary and sage. In the past I had loads of basil but this year I have none.
The honeysuckle vine that I got as a gift from OTE is finally starting to grow over the garden wall.
More cacti in pots on the front steps.
The climbing roses are doing well, just a bit dusty.
Ahhhh... how nice! A walk around the garden always makes me feel better.... now to get down to work and attack the dusty house.
