Rajiva Wijesinha

The pond around the temple flower tree, against the south wall of the garden, abutting on the tortoise enclosure, is also full of white Malavi, many of them born here so they are of varying sizes. Amongst them is one pink tetra, though I do hope there may be at least one other, of the three that were originally there.

The pond is full of platies and guppies, which have been there from the start, and keep multiplying. There were also several grey gourami there, but I have described previously how they all died away. However the three I put there a few months ago have all survived, though I must confess I count them anxiously every morning, as I count the red tetra in the ehala tree pond.

The first picture here shows three Malavi and two gourami, one of them disappearing downward into the bright patch of light on the water. Then there is the pink tetra, with a Malavi by him, and one gourami and one Malavi above. Both those pictures also have plenty of dark guppies, but the third shows some platies, along with a Malavi and a gourami dramatically streaked with sunlight.

On the other side of the little wall is the pink bath tub from the upstairs bathroom at Lakmahal where Kavi has had his big gourami for the last eight or more years. It grew bad tempered and he was told to find a companion, and as I have mentioned his uncle gave me a pair of large black fish which have survived companionably for well over a year now. That tub gets dirty soon, but when it is clear it is a pleasure to see the enormous gourami with the black ones. One is wary and rarely darts out to the space the gourami occupies, but the other is bolder and crosses the tub.

The fourth picture shows the gourami in the biggest space between the cross bars that keep the netting down, for he can jump powerfully. And in the cornermost space, which is near my seat on the other side of the wall, you can see the smaller of the black fish who has crossed over to feed on this side.

And finally I show a pond I never have before, for it is the pool built for Henry the lame tortoise. But it needed little fish to stop mosquitoes breeding, and I enjoy seeing the little ones, notably two delightful sari guppies, feeding of a morning. And recently I caught a group of them in the sunlight that had hit the back end of the tank as the sun rose.

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I wrote last week of the driveway to Lakmahal, and the greenery I have been trying to replace against the wall where there are several trees, which were preserved when the lower part of the driveway, near the road, was tarred to facilitate parking.                                                    

Just how many trees there are I did not realize until I started on this record. When
I took pictures, I found a pink flower on a little bush in the second circle on
that side of the gate. That thrilled me but, and it turned out to be just a
temple flower which had fallen from the cluster, a cluster I showed last week,
promising then to explain it. I show first that bush with its flower, along
with the tree from which I thought it had fallen.

But that tree has yellow flowers, or rather predominantly yellow flowers which you
see beyond the bush. The second picture makes it clear that there is in fact
another tree in front of it, a slender one that is the home of the pink
flowers. You can see then why it so easily gets lost when the two trees are
taken from lower down as in the first picture.

The third picture shows them from the other side. In front of them in the picture I
show is a little bush I placed there. Behind it was a taller tree which died
when it was transplanted, but I have now put there against the wall a taller
tree which I brought down from the roof garden.

That tree has predominantly yellow flowers, with a white edge which stands out when they have fallen. They contrast with the flowers on the big tree on the other side of the gate which are white, with a soft yellow centre, separated from this one by the slender tree with the pink flowers and also the ehala tree with
its host of yellow blossoms which is in the first circle on the other side of the gate.  I show that circle again this week, with the flowers from the other tree on the ground, but before that a spread from the other side of the gate with shows the relative positions of the trees.

Parallel to the tank in front of the ehala tree I spoke about last week, in the porch by the croton tree, is the upright tank Lohan gave me some years back. That has housed many different fish in the five years I have had it, but now it has just five, two catfish, one big carp, and two little ones. For ages there was equilibrium with seven fish, including four big carp, but three of them died, as did the goldfish. Before that two catfish had died, a black one and a white one, which is why I have this odd pair.

I got two little goldfish and two little carp to replace those that had died, but the goldfish also soon died. The two carp – which are in fact gold in colour – have survived, and provide a marked contrast to the darker carp which was the only one to survive of the original lot.

The first picture shows all five of them, with reflections also of the bigger fish, against the glass on the northern side of the tank. The third picture shows the two catfish almost kissing the glass on either wall so that reflections of face and body are seen, while you can see one of the smaller carp above the tail of the black catfish, which the bigger carp is just below. And then you see the three big fish together with I think a smaller carp next to the bigger one, and you also see here the horse in the tank though he has been knocked over. There are also two pedestals, though parted from their owners. Then you see the bust in this tank, at the bottom left, and the ubiqutious catfish, but only a little carp in the middle distance.

I move now to another tank with a bust, the one on the balcony outside the dining room. After disasters there to the white gourami and the Silver Dollars Dharshana gave me for Christmas, one of each dying, the surviving gourami seems thus far to be doing well. Of the four little carp added there, the gold ones died but the two red ones survived, as did two black catfish I placed there. And last month Kavi moved two white catfish from the pond by the garage, since he said they had got bigger and were muddying the waters there.

The fifith picture shows all seven fish plus the bust on the left with one black catfish swimming past him. The other is half hidden in front, with a red carp to the left and a white catfish to the right. But the counterparts of these last are clear on the right, above and below the white gourami.

The last picture shows just one white catfish, but clearly, with two black ones on either side, and the two carp above the statue. And I love the pose of the gourami, the questioning upward look that greets me of a morning if I am late with his food. For as the last of four I bought several months ago, I have a soft spot for him.

I have not previously shown the driveway to the entrance to my house, and indeed to the new building, but this too is a joy to look at. I show first the view from the little seat outside the new garage, which is one of the places for my morning coffee, giving Rocky his yoghurt and feeding the fish in the tank beside it.

I love the greenery that abounds on both sides of the drive, though now there is also lots of yellow from the ehala blossoms. That tree is the first beyond the gate, while on this side is the temple flower tree that was easy to climb when we were children, unlike the massive one on the other side which is in the section of the garden that went to my sister.

Unfortunately, though the workmen had been given their instructions, my brother in law in one of his Pavlovian moods told them to destroy those shrubs, and ignored them when he was told to ask me. So when I came down I found much of the greenery gone. So I have tried little by little to replace it, and can at least be proud of the bushes on either side of the ehala tree. They appear in the second picture here, while next is the croton bush which is two circles as it were down the drive, round a temple flower tree which has rich red flowers, almost purple.

There are hardly any of these now, but I show just a glimpse of one up above, nestled amidst the green leaves, in the next picture. And then I show a bunch of more pinky red flowers, on a tree higher up the drive, but explaining its position must wait till next week.

There are no Malavi in the next tub along, the pink one which was the first Nirmali gave me. It was set against the ehala tree, which is about parallel with the croton bush, so the tub is further north than the other one, and to the west.

I tried to have lotuses there, but failed as I have noted, and the mud there was removed. When that was done I put in several grey gourami, to go with the red carp that were there, and two white fish, a Malavi and what Kavi insists is a Mozambique. But the carp died, and we thought this might be because the Malavi had attacked them so we removed him. The Mozambique does chase the gourami, but this seems to be a game for no damage has been done, and all six of them have survived.

I did put in two little red carp when I got some more for other ponds, but one died. The other however grew, and is almost a match for the other seven big fish. And then, since there was one pink tetra in there from the days of the mud, I tried to get some more. But only red ones were available, so there were for some time just three of them there, along with the pink one. They ignore him however, so he sails blithely about on his own, while the other three are often seen together. He has better luck with some orange tetra I got later to supplement the red, though there again he is very different from them.

The first picture shows one of the gourami with the Mozambique and the surviving red carp, all three about the same size. That shows them all well, but the next one has the other two between netting whereas the one gourami there is on the bottom right beneath some netting.

Then we see a gourami with a small pink fish and a small red one, I think the tetra, while the next two pictures have a couple of gourami in each, first with the carp and then with something pink or white which could be the Mozambique, but is more likely the pink tetra.  

I have showed orange and pink roses on the balcony in the last two weeks and I move now to the red ones. The two bushes with red roses also did well in April. The little bush in the little bed against the west wall abutting on the staircase produced two blossoms together, which is unusual, and I show these first. Next there is I think the same plant with just one of those flowers, taken a week earlier when it was just blossoming.

The taller plant in the bed on the south east corner continues to produce many flowers though as I have mentioned before none is as large as those that were on it when it was placed there. I show first two blossoms together on the 1^st of the month, and then a single one near the front corner a few days later. After that I show another couple of blossoms towards the end of the month, one of them showing a surprising amount of white so that it almost seems multicoloured.

And then it produced another surprise early in May. Having started with only deep red roses, and then produced flowers of lighter shades as time passed, it has now generated a yellow rose, which I could scarce believe when I saw it. It is on the extreme right of the last picture here.

The yellow bath tub, from the downstairs bathroom at Lakmahal, which I wrote about last week is against the east wall of my little walled garden. At right angles to it, just outside the porch which leads to my drawing room, is the second bath tub which Nirmali gave me during the time of coronavirus, a green one which is beneath the croton bush, or rather tree, which is in the porch, peering out from the front in search of sun.

That pond is well protected, so I fear that there will be lots of netting too when I try to show the fish. Dominating it in terms of colour are the Malavi, as I still think of the white fish which began spawning in December 2022 in the waterfall pond. There were so many of them then that we moved some to this pond and some to the pond round the dead temple flower tree, against the south wall as is the waterfall pond.

Those put in there also spawned, perhaps because one of the pair I had put there, when the other pair I had spawned, was still around. And there they spawned again and again and kept most of the youngsters alive, unlike in the waterfall pond where there were two more sets of little ones though only one or two survived of those.

The four put in the croton pond grew larger and larger, though they never spawned, and a few more were added there so there seem to be about half a dozen in place. The other fish there are much smaller, several black mollies, and then guppies and platies. But my pride is a tiger barb, which I had forgotten putting there soon after that pond was commissioned. There were a pair, and they would lurk at the bottom, but suddenly a few months back I saw one flash up for food, and then the other did too.

So I knew there were two of them, but then a couple of months back one of them died. The other however continues to dart up, and I did manage to get a decent picture of him, which I show first here. You see him on the left, pirouetting downward, with a black molly by him and lots of guppies around. Then there was another, not so good, where you see him again on the left, this time with a plethora of platies, while next to him, from the brilliant tail, is I think a sari guppy. And a third one shows him above a black molly with a platy below, a delightful range of colour, with something pinkish or possibly white towards the right, which could be a smaller Malavi.

Oddly enough there are no Malavi in the first two  pictures, but you see four of them in the fourth one, with some platies, and one in the last juxtaposed against a black molly. These I should note also multiplied from just one or two pairs which I got initially, though they did not need to dramatize the protection of their young as angels and Malavis do.

And of course I need not talk about the way platies, a few pairs of which I got initially, and guppies, which arrived unannounced in the mud I got initially for the lotuses, multiply ceaselessly. 

Last week I showed the orange roses on the balcony, on three bushes in the first two beds I set up there. In between the two orange bushes in the long bed in the east, there is a small pink one, which has been producing blossom after blossom.

I last it in March, just after I had got back from Canada, but I included then a perfect blossom that had been there just before I left. And I now show first another perfect blossom, taken on the day I last posted, though this was not included then. A couple of weeks later there were two, in the middle of the bush, and two weeks later still another beauty near the edge. I show that flower again, three days later, with yet another blossom nearby.

Sadly the little pink bush in the original bed, next to the orange blossoms that change colour which I showed last week, had not had flowers during this period. But just when I thought I would have to pass it by this time, a little bud emerged and I am able to show it looking lovely last week.

I have that last, for before that is the white rose tree in the pot placed below it. That had wonderful white roses which I showed back in March, and it has done the trick again now. I show then two flowers, one blossoming on top with a smaller one below, and then immediately afterwards the two of them on the next day.

The upper one is again a perfect rose, though sadly the one lower down has a bit missing, though you can still appreciate its lovely formation on the other sides.

I have not featured recently the four bath tubs in the main garden, for now the fish in them are difficult to take pictures of, given the nets. But this is not so very different from the situation earlier, for those ponds were full of leaves so it was difficult to capture clearly the fish in them. And except for a few bigger ones, which I have shown, there is nothing very special about a host of little fish, with lots of guppies and platies.

But recently I tried to do something different in the first tub, the yellow one, where for many years pink lotuses flourished. That stopped over a year ago, and then several of the fish there, which I had shown, white gourami and red carp and grey gourami, died, and we realized there was something wrong with the mud. It had fermented, or whatever it is that happens to mud, with the heap of leaves that had fallen into it, and we cleaned it all out. Then I put in the more recent mud from the pink bath tub that Nirmali had given me a few years ago, for since no lotuses had lasted long there we decided it did not get enough sun and so we removed the mud from there and thought to have relatively clear water.

Mud was put in the yellow tub since I had hopes that lotuses would once again flourish there, and for that purpose I only put little fish in there, and just a few of them, to stop stalks being eaten. But the plant I placed there soon died, and what with the need for netting I decided to give up.

So that pond now has lots of little fish, of different types and colours. I found the rosy barbs I had put in the little pond on the balcony so attractive that I put in four of those, and added to them a range of tetra including a blue one, in addition to the usual pink and green and yellow. And then I put in a few zebra, pink and yellow, which dart around even more quickly than the other fish.

Initially I had put in a few black mollies and some tetra and they are still there, while Kavi then added a few smaller Malavi. So I have there a kaleidoscope of colour, and though it is difficult to catch, I did manage with a new camera on a new phone to capture something of the jolly movements I admire every morning, with my coffee and their breakfast. 

The pictures do not show well the splendour of the colours, but you can see several in the first picture, and the second has a black molly and a white malavi in addition to the smaller fish. There are then two from different angles, the latter showing losts of malavi, with the final picture showing I think glimpses of blue and red tetra in addition to the brighter colours.

Back now to the balcony, where the roses continue to fascinate. I have been particularly struck this last month by the shifting shades of the bush in the original bed at the south west corner of the balcony, where for years I had flourishing red roses. The current orange bush has lasted for some months now, whereas a couple of predecessors gave up, with one having been transferred since it had little pink roses and there was already a little pink bush in place in that bed.

Four weeks ago I showed two blossoms on that bush which were more yellow than red. But two days later the orange glow had taken over. And then, a week later, when a new bud was emerging, one of the earlier flowers had faded away to a still very attractive pink. The bud was in blossom two days later, its promise of orange fulfilled, which was in marked contrast to the pink and white of the earlier blossom.

The next picture shows these two again, a few days later, when the pink flower is fading. Behind it you can see the other flower that bloomed alongside it, still showing shades of orange.

The next picture is not of this bush, but of the one on the north end of the bed with three plants in it. That has not stopped producing flowers but of late they do not appear in profusion, and there has been just one at a time. This one, with no doubt about its colour, appeared just after the two yellow flowers in the other bed had turned orange.

And then, on cue for this post today, the plant at the south end of this bed, after a month of lying fallow, produced a flower which was in beautiful blossom this morning.