Garden Flora and Fauna

Being from a part of the world where everything seems to die for half the year, the sheer, abundant exuberance of life in the tropics always fascinates me.  In our little yard, everything seems to have flowers on it, even in January.  Lizards scurry about helpfully scarfing down insects that might otherwise be annoying (they're busy 365 days a year too).

On close inspection, the red bits on the Bougainvillea aren't flowers,  they're leaves surrounding the flower which have changed colour from their more prosaic green neighbours. The flowers are tiny, little white things.  I suspect that they wouldn't attract enough pollinators without the colourful leaves helping to catch the eye.

At home, these are delicate house-plants.  Here they're a bush that flowers year-round.

Flowering hedge. 

Local exterminator making his rounds.

And of course, what warm, lazy afternoon in any garden would be complete without a refreshing beverage.  Belikin is a local beer, brewed and bottled in Ladyville, Belize.  Like other beers here, it comes in a smallish 284 ml bottle.  The bottle sports a Mayan temple on the ceramic label and is so heavy that it's hard to tell when it is empty.  Like this one.