New York City, where I live and have an amazing garden, has been under a tremendous heat wave. I’ve already lost my delicate looking Creeping Thyme to the elements; my Heuchera (Coral Bell) variety is struggling to pull through the trauma she feels; and I’m praying that my Larix leptolepsis (Japanese Larch) lives! At the moment, I’ve placed her in what I lovingly call the “intensive care unit” within my garden. I discussed this on TLLG’s Blogger Pages, which you may refer to @ http://bit.ly/NZLhxt as well as @ http://bit.ly/NZLq3S

But my oxalis beat the heat by remaining closed (or napping) for a number of days, as evidenced by the first tree images included with this posting. They finally opened up —  a bit — the other day and allowed me to snap their picture (image #4 in this entry), before closing up (and returning to their nap) again to protect themselves from the heat.

“A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter, he who finds one finds a treasure; A faithful friend is beyond price, no sum can balance his worth …”  

And nothing could be truer of the friend that I have found in Victor B, my dear friend who grew up in Trinidad, Land of the Hummingbirds.

It was fitting then, that Victor B helped me “install” three hummingbird feeders last evening in my urban (NYC) container garden. A feeder (each one made of recycled glass with a red top), can be seen in each image accompanying this entry, and please click on  a given image to see a caption and detail.

Victor and I put up the feeders because Juan V saw a hummingbird when he was here this past Monday to help me with my gardening.

Juan V’s observation prompted me to investigate what might lure more humming birds back to my garden; and I was told by various sources, that by tying red ribbon in various places in my garden, the hummingbirds would be sure to come.

Was this red-ribbon advice a quasi Field-of-Dreams-if-you-build-it-they-will-come; or if I tied red-ribbon in various places in my garden, would the hummingbirds come visit? I posted this question to my LinkedIn discussion groups including Garden Writers and Rooftop Gardeners, and I want to once again thank the folks who weighed in on my question by sharing their suggestions.

As of this posting here on tumblr, these folks include Mary P, Athena M, Thomas O, Sara C, Mary C, Lisa W, Arleigh B, Maureen L, Mark K, Lee K and Thomas R. I do not know any of these people personally, so I am especially grateful they weighed in on my question, and now my hope is that I’ll have hummingbirds singing praises in my lovely garden.

And yes, I tied a bit of red ribbon throughout my garden.