Cuba 2014 – Part 5 – Flower Power

Those of you who know me know how much I love flowers. Flowers are one of my favourite symbols of life and resurrection. Flowers constantly remind me to open my eyes to see and cherish the beauty all around me. Even in the depths of winter when several feet of snow cover the ground, I can still feel, pulsing deep within my own soul, the miracle slowly unfolding deep beneath the frozen earth. I experience the keen instinct for hibernation that our northern winters force on so much of nature around us, and the long waiting (and yearning) for Spring to arrive when those tulips and daffodils once again begin to unfurl themselves back to life.

In Cuba, there is no snow, so the gardens can grow all year round. This year we saw more flowers in our family’s gardens then ever before. While the tomato plants and various fruit trees (banana, orange, mango, lemon and almond to name a few) provide welcome sustenance for the body, the flowers provide another sort of sustenance for the soul. We were treated to a constant feast of colour and beauty this year, which I tried to capture on film…but I could never quite capture the pulsing joy that my heart felt seeing these gardens flourishing in places where we had not seen them before, in barren-looking places which I would never have thought COULD be so hospitable to such beauty.

It inspired hope…speaking to seemingly barren parts of myself in need of colour and beauty…but that’s another journey for another day…

Here’s a glimpse of what I did manage to capture. (Click on the first picture and it will take to the gallery where you can click through the rest of the photos).

While I was taking a picture of this plant, the children were running around behind me…

…then they redecorated the plant for me, lol

The purple Wandering Jew was so pretty against the red brick

I don’t know the real name, I just called them the caterpillar plant because they look like caterpillars.

We saw these everywhere, most of them were covered in red flowers, but this one was a bit barren because the children kept picking the flowers to give to us as gifts

I love these trees, but this was the only picture I took of one…most of these trees have no leaves, only the flowers at the very end of the twigs. Very distinctive.

We saw these everywhere too, they were so beautiful!

This seems to be the preferred way to grow orchids here, grafted onto other trees. We saw this everywhere.

We saw this groundcover many places, and it was always different. So beautiful, full of purples, reds, pinks and gold all mixed together.

This particular garden was gorgeous, a beautiful feast for the eyes!

I forget what this is called (Bougainvillea, thanks Ruth), but those little white dots in the middle are like eyes that follow you everywhere.

Lots of eyes following us here!

These were always a beautiful sight

I love the pink and purple together

These dainty little roses were tucked into all kinds of obscure corners.

More caterpillar flowers

Two beautiful flowers in one shot!

Colourful hostas splashed their reds and pinks against the grey cement

Damisela setting the table with beautiful food and beautiful flowers – and beautiful friendship!

Damisela, Sharon, Yanilka, Andre and Miriam – and the beautiful flower centerpiece.

Can you guess what these flowers are made of? It’s either squash or pumpkin, we never did find out.

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Copyright © Sharon C. Matthies, Meanderings (blog), 2014. All rights reserved.
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