My Roof Garden on top of the rest 54

Only the ambarella tree and the mango tree survived of the five plants I put in at the end of 2021, a most welcome Christmas gift. Both of them did well, though as I said I worried for a bit about the ambarella tree when almost all its leaves fell.

The mango tree moves more slowly, with spurts about twice a year when sheaves of green leaves emerge at the top, and add a few inches to its height. It will take a year or so to overtake me, but as a comparison between last October and this April shows, it is moving steadily upward. And indeed between the 13^th and the 23^rd, as you can see, it moved much higher, with a host of light green fresh leaves.

On the other side of the house the most colour is on the creeper that grows over the porch that leads to the old staff quarters. Janaki planted it there some time back, and every few months it bursts into flower and covers the tiles. It is a lovely sight from my study, the first window of which is directly opposite the gateway of the porch. It also looks good from the new building, though the picture which follows was taken last year, when there were few flowers.

My dining room, next to the study, also looks over that flowering creeper on the west. On the north, it opens onto a balcony where I have a large pot with a vibrant bougainvillea plant. Sometimes it has few or no flowers but in recent months there have been plenty, and April was a particularly good period.

But unfortunately the two bonsai plants I was given last year, a beautiful little ficus by Karu, the youngest of my former bodyguards, for my birthday, and a lovely bigger plant by Sabaragamuwa University, have both died. It was silly I think to have kept them in the dining room, for they did not get enough sun. I had tried the latter on the balcony of the new building, but there it got too much sun and began to dry up. I should then have kept it near my seat outside the garage and the ficus in the porch, but since there was still building work going on I thought they would be safer far away.

And so I lost them. But, not to end on that note, I show here finally, though I have shown them before, the white orchids on the dead temple flower tree in the main garden, which have lasted now for several months.