Planting Flower Gardens

Jai Ganesha!

Over the last year, Yogi Dayanatha has spent time gradually adding life and beauty to the area around our monastery's woodfire oven. He's cleared old, shaded foliage and replaced it with rock-encircled mounds of colorful flowers and decorative palm trees. The area now feels open, airy and bright. The array of flowers—which will eventually overflow their beds in polychromatic abundance—include Impatiens, zinnias, marigolds and roses. Aum.

Yogi shows us some of the pink zinnias which are currently blooming in our ideal weather

They are also a great flower for temple offerings, since they last so long without wilting

This area used to be much shadier and a little unkempt

Now it\

s well manicured and a joy to walk through'

The palm of choice here is the lipstick palm, a smaller bunching palm with a bright red top

Nearby Sannyasin Tillainathaswami (with some help from yogi) has planted an arbor of grape vines.

These are Isabella grapes, one of the few varietals that can thrive in our wet climate

Some nearby, purple and white impatiens flowers

The marigolds look great in the late afternoon light

Dayanatha had to move a lot of garden mulch to recreate this area

Some more stunning zinnias

They have flowers within flowers!

These recently planted roses are really happy

As are these miniature ones

The white spider lilies are blooming in abundance too

The whole area has a small stream running through it

The waters lead us through our jungle haven

Aum Namah Sivaya

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