Urban Oasis: In your face RED ....

An in your face attempt at an arty shot of Hibiscus tonight. This particular one is called Brilliantissima, and is a Chinese variety (e.g. not hardy here!) in a pot out on the patio area. The hardy ones will start strutting their stuff probably about middle July.

Back sometime later with less red, since picture taking was good to me tonight.

Transforming one urban corner, one season at a time

Welcome to our little corner of the Plant Universe!

I started Urban Oasis almost three years ago with the intent of both chronicling the seasonal changes of our gardens, as well as to serve as a kind of "rough draft" for a gardening book I've been wanting to write for about six years now. Well, the book remains unwritten, but readers will still find in these pages, the seeds of what it may eventually become when I'm gifted with adequate time and resources to really apply myself to writing it....

When we moved into our house in 1998, (affectionately dubbed Casa IVG), it was a practically barren garden canvas just waiting to be reborn. Our urban transformation project began in earnest in Spring 1999, and continues to this day, with some major changes occurring along the way (such as the boulder beds in 2003) ... and the evolution continues to this day.

Urban Oasis itself has evolved too, from its original exclusive focus on the plants to postings on some of my other more personal interests, such as Politics, International and Independent Cinema, and one of the enduring passions of my life: our dogs. 2008 was a year of many transitions for us, the saddest of which was the loss of our beloved Pepa and Rolly in December.

But, as in any garden worth its petals, we are now experiencing a joyous renewal with the recent adoption of our new pup, Hanna, who will be appearing regularly here as the seasons progress. She'll never truly replace Pepa as the official "mascot" of the blog, but she's an eager "intern" who will go far in filling the enormous paw prints left behind by her predecessor ... and fill them well, she will!