That Tree at UTech…

There are many beautiful trees on the University of Technology (UTech) campus and one of the most beautiful is the iconic elephant ear tree in front of the Faculty of the Built Environment (FOBE)…

It is clear that the tree was taken into consideration when the building was designed…

Picture taken from FOBE website, 2022-2023 Orientation video

…which was very appropriate for a building that would house the Caribbean School of Architecture and the School of Building and Land Management.

The tree and the building are in close contact…

…on the upper floors.

It is a wonderful, spreading tree…

…with an impressive trunk…

…solid branches…

…and masses of such delicate leaves….

The pods under the tree show why these trees are called elephant ear trees (Enterolobium cyclocarpum). The oldest tree at Hope Gardens is an elephant ear tree that is more than 200 years old. I wonder how old this tree is.

A beautiful sight/site, whether you look in towards it…

…or out from under it….

That venerable tree at UTech must have been witness to so much change over time. May it stand for many more years!

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Once Upon a Sunset…

Leave me alone, please! Yes, yes, sunset photos are a dime a dozen. But watching the sun set is one of the things I love to do. Taking photos of the sunset sky is another thing I love to do. And sharing sunset photos is something else that I love to do. So…

Once upon a sunset, a woman noticed the evening light against a cluster of palms….

She grabbed her camera and climbed the stairs to the roof of her house. From that vantage point, she saw the sunset sky…

She smiled…and looked closer…click…

She played with the zoom on her camera and looked at the trees, the hills, the clouds, the light…

From speakers somewhere nearby, oldies but goodies were playing. John Holt was singing: “I love you, darling, and that’s no lie, oh-oh, Stick by me and I’ll stick by you…”

Once upon a sunset, on a roof in Kingston, Jamaica, life felt really good….

Clouds and Wires

I looked up at the sky. Clouds and a criss-cross of utility wires. Cupped by trees. Click.

Breadfruit Tree Takes Flight…Almost

The breadfruit tree prepares to join a bird in a fiery morning sky…

The Poincianas Were in Bloom

The day that I went on campus for my 2nd dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, back in July, the poincianas were in bloom.

I walked around taking pictures of them.

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I haven’t done that much this year…

…just wandered around places…

…taking photos….

So many changes.

But the poincianas keep blooming…

Green Banana: Nature’s Colours

This banana tree has taken its time in bearing, but now that it has…

…what a lovely bunch of green bananas!

I took these photos early one morning, when overnight rain was still on the leaves and the fruit…

…sun-kissed green banana!

An Act of Remembering…

Walking through the gardens of St Paul’s Cathedral in London recently, I noticed this bench…

…and the plaque on it. I don’t know who Sandra Archer was or who arranged for this act of remembering… family, friends or colleagues…

Our family did this recently, after my husband died. A plaque on a bench, under a tree at Hope Gardens…

An act of remembering…

 

Poinciana Tree!

This blooming Poinciana tree…

…Delonix regia…

…flamboyant fi true!

Tree in a Backyard: Minnesota

I stood in a backyard in St Paul, Minnesota, trying to take a photo of a bright red cardinal as it flitted from tree to tree. Such a beautiful bird, but it just wouldn’t sit still! Every time I moved slowly into position to snap a photo, the bird flew off to a new vantage point! So I got no photo of the bird….

This tree in the backyard, however, stayed still enough for me to take a number of photos, which I now share with you. If anyone can identify the tree for me, I would be grateful.

Here is its crown pictured with two other trees against a clear blue sky…

It had beautiful blossoms in abundance…

Here they are closer up…

The tree had such wonderfully rugged bark…

And if you look very carefully, up towards the right in this photo, you may see the branch on which the cardinal was sitting moments before I captured this image!

Pausing on Garden Boulevard, Mona Heights

Garden Boulevard is the longest road in Mona Heights, running from the intersection with Old Hope Road near the Hope Gardens gate all the way to the intersection with Mona Road, where the aqueduct leads into the Mona Dam.

As I turned onto Garden Boulevard at the Mona Road intersection last week, I noticed that some of the trees along the sidewalk had recently been cut.

It was the bright colour of the cut wood that caught my attention and made me stop, park and get closer, to take photos of the pruned privet trees. The only sign of those who had done the cutting was a red cap seemingly forgotten near one of the pruned trees.

Cut surfaces of different sizes and shapes.

 

And already, across the stump of one felled tree…

…something new had begun to grow….

Small details captured while pausing on a long road in Mona Heights one morning….

(And if you’d like to see the full length of Garden Boulevard, take a look at this video I found online- click here.)