A Tender Bloom – ©JK.Leahy
Blooming succulent
Tender is her child
Radiant a beauty within
Softness is her skin
A spirit of iron built-in
Petals bruise at touch
Yet, in arid menace
Where dew is languished
She steals her solace
And thrives defiantly
I photographed the Coleus up close today. The coleus has always been a favourite of my mother and I. My mother has propagated several varieties of coleus at a time around our house and in all the food gardens where I grew up. We used coleus for singsing (traditional dancing).
The flower is also called the painted nettle and poor man’s croton. They grow fast and survive better is partial shade. I am fascinated by the way nature combines the colours in coleus.
There are so many different colour combinations on this flower and the colours are surprisingly complementary. For example, the lime green and the pink in the pictured leaf above and the green and purple in the young leaf pictured below.
I love coleus especially because I can get natural dyes from some of the varieties for my art. See previous post.
Even when the leaves get a little older in this variety, the orange is added to the green on the picture below. Again, another complimentary colour to what the plant already has. It is almost as if to say that the Coleus knows how to dress – she is very fashionable. She does ‘read’ the colour chart very well.
This pictures were taken with a Nikon D5200
Photography can be easily addictive as most of you that take pictures know. And, when you have an interesting subject of beautiful colours, it is hard to stop shooting. I have been shooting aloes in my garden with the Nikon D5200 and thinking of ways to make the pictures more interesting because the flowers are narrow and tall.
I find the aloe itself fascinating for many reasons. The most important reason is that it is a medicinal plant and we all have come across the Aloe Vera commonly eaten, drunk and used in skin products. I used the juice when I was pregnant with my boys for skin-care and digestion. These days, we use the aloe vera for cuts and itchy skin. Aloes are part of the Liliaceae family. There are about 500 species of aloes in the world. They are a perennial succulent and their medicinal uses are traced back to 1500BC where it was known as “plant of immortality”. Read more here.
Aloes are very hardy plants and like the cactus – they can grow in very tough conditions. The amazing thing about Aloes are their beautiful flowers, many are intricate and often not what you expect to see.I have a few varieties and each one of them have their own unique bloom. See other colours here.
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