Six on Saturday – Florida Garden Fun

I’m joining the SOS gang this week to share some recent happenings in my garden. Spring has truly sprung here and the pollen has been in full force, my sinuses cannot recall a thicker more long lasting coating of pollen. I think the February freeze inspired the oaks to flower. To travel the world via SOS – visit Jim at GardenRuminations

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Artemis blasted off over my garden on its way to the moon. My husband was squealing in the back yard. It was quite a sight. We are a few hundred miles south of Cape Canaveral.

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A totally different flight landed in the front garden. This is a Great White Egret easily four feet tall.

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The Sweet Begonias (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’) have been very sweet this spring.

I have been picking tomatoes for a week or two. Here is a lesson in open pollination. I saved seed last year thinking I would get large yellow pear tomatoes. I got some! And some much larger pink campari style tomatoes and small red cherries. Fortunately, they are all delicious.

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This is a bud on a White Bird of Paradise (Strelizia nicolai) This has been in the garden for 7 or 8 years, is at least 12 feet tall and this is the second flower! I keep going out to see if it opened yet.

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Spring snow is starting on the Hawaiian Snowbush (Breynia disticha) The foliage gets a bit whiter and then goes back to green. This is a bit of a garden thugs and difficult to pull up.

That is my garden update. I’m wondering if this is the first garden rocket in SOS?

Happy Gardening!

In a Vase on Monday – Ta Da, Spring!

Spring is asserting itself in my garden. Warmer weather and a few showers have brought the more tropical plants back to life. I usually have Shell Ginger in February, but this year it waited until late March to produce flowers. I enjoy these unusual flowers and am happy to see them again.

The flowers and foliage in this vase are all from the most protected part of the garden. These plants weren’t even burned, surprising me. The Strangler Fig that stands sentinel over this area took the brunt of the cold weather and has almost replaced its foliage. The tips of the branches are still naked, there is still time for a full recovery. Fingers crossed.

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A closer view: pink flowers are Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet). This is an interesting ginger, edible roots, but apparently not as good as culinary ginger (I can’t grow that for some perverse reason) the leaves are used to wrap fish and vegetables and then steam them. I rolled up the excess leaves and put them inside the vase to hold the heavy stems – they smell wonderfully gingery.

The tropical leaf is from a Split Leaf Philodendron (Philodendron selloum). The windy sticks are from Asparagus Ferns. I cut these to get them out of my way as they are sending up shoots that are very thorny. I liked the way they looked, so they were added to the arrangement and the trimmings were stacked in front – for a horizontal line. Just for fun.

That’s all from my garden this Monday. Happy Gardening and thanks to Cathy for hosting – follow this link to her blog RamblingintheGarden.

In a Vase on Monday – Celebrating Americans

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I’m not sure what possessed my garden to produce red, white and blue flowers this week. Perhaps a quiet celebration of No Kings on a floral scale. I’ll take it! I was astonished to see some 9 million fellow Americans staging peaceful protests yesterday. Just Wow.

Spring is progressing and the landscape is slowly recovering from the February freeze. The resilience of plants never fails to amaze me. Many things that we grow here are labeled not frost tolerant – it seems maybe they are! The truly tropical plants like Frangipani are gone, the insides of the trunks look like a black dessicated cord, I have never seen anything like it. The cold weather inspired some other things to flower, I think.

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The Red Amaryllis in the vase appeared from the cosmos. I have never planted these and suddenly there it was. I decided to cut the stem because it was too windy for the flowers to last long.

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Spilling over the edge of the vase are Sweet Begonias (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’) a stalwart here. The red, white and blue flowers are from a bromeliad, Billbergia vittata, these last longer in the vase than in the garden and have been flowering off and on for two months. My new Salvia, Mystic Blue, is having a good run and I am enjoying cutting it. The foliage in the vase is a chopped up frond from a Cabbage Palm (Palmetto sabal) I trimmed the frond and stuffed what I chopped off around the edges, not sure Martha Stewart would approve.

That’s all from my garden. Happy Spring Monday to all. Many thanks to Cathy for hosting. Follow this link to her blog to see more vases. RamblingintheGarden

In a Vase on Monday – Scents of the Sugar Belle

My South Florida garden continues tutoring me in the finer points of growing things. Today I learned about black citrus aphids. The hard way, discovering the new growth on my Sugar Belle Mandarin orange tree covered in tiny black bugs – who knew aphids were black?

I decided to plant an orange tree after reading that the new variety of mandarin, Sugar Belle, is reportedly resistant to the scourge of Florida citrus, Huanglongbing bacterial disease. This terrible sounding thing causes citrus greening, basically ruining the fruit. I planted one of these trees last fall. It is settling in very well and has too many flowers on it, so I liberated one for a Vase, cleared the bugs off and will give it a dose of Neem spray later. Fingers crossed that clears up the problem.

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Here is a closer view. The orange blossoms are in the foreground. The fragrance has permeated the house. It has a sweet scent and the range of travel is impressive. I am also enjoying my new Salvia plants again. In blue, Mystic Blue and the white is White Flame. I plucked a varigated leaf from the Pie Crust Croton and added some climbing Asparagus Fern for contrast.

Thanks to Cathy for hosting. To see more vases and celebrations of spring in the garden follow this link RamblingintheGarden

Happy Spring Gardening!!

Six on Saturday – Florida Freeze Rebound

Greeting to the SOS crowd from South Florida. I am pleased to report my garden is bouncing back from the historic freeze in early February. There have been a few casualties. I lost two out of three mango trees and a specimen tree form Firebush (It looks terrible in black – I did not know plants could turn black!) Otherwise, the skies are blue, the birds are singing and the citrus trees are setting fruit!

Citrus trees are more cold hardy than I imagined. This is a Sugar Belle Mandarin orange I planted last fall. It is setting fruit – there is a tiny orange on the right side of the photo. I will probably remove most of these as the tree needs to put its energy into establishing itself. The flowers have a wonderful scent.

The Rangpur lime is also flowering. The orange seems to have a stronger scent.

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I was very happy to see the Nemesis Papaya coming back from its roots.

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I found a surprise in the front garden. It looks a lot like an Amaryllis, though I never planted any Amaryllis. All will be revealed soon. I hope it is a Butterfly Amaryllis!

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I replaced some Salvia. These are Mystic Blue. A favorite.

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New growth on my one surviving mango. You can see the dead foliage still hanging on around the edges. This is a Glenn Mango. Some of the older mangoes on my street are setting fruit. Fingers crossed.

Happy Spring, Everyone! Things are definitely looking up here.

Follow the link to visit Jim at GardenRuminations and see what else in going on this Saturday in the gardening world.

In a Vase on Monday – Salvia – How Do I Love Thee?

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Oh yes, let me count the ways…heat tolerant, nonstop flowers, short lived perennials, thrives in sugar sand. Elizabeth, need I go on?

My love affair with Salvia continues. The freeze or drought or something lambasted what remained of the White Flame and Mystic Blue Salvia in my garden, so I replenished my supply. This involves meeting a friend for Thai food, then traveling to our local favorite https://pindersnursery.com and stocking up. Of course, a few other items were purchased…and in the vase.

A closer view:

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The white flowers are White Flame Salvia. Red and coral flowers are from the reseeding annual Salvia coccinea. The buds and bigger leaves are from Mystic Blue Salvia. Possibly my all time favorite. A few stems broke off the plants from the nursery, so I am hoping the roots continue to grow in the vase. And I will have more!

Purple flowers are new to the garden, Heliotrope. I am told these don’t like heat – we will soon find out about that. The fragrance from these plants is used to scent baby powder, reportedly calming. I have had these for a few days and can’t smell anything. Could be the oak pollen or perhaps I am calm. One never knows.

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The foliage is from Golden Dewdrop (Duranta erecta) with a few fronds of native Boston Ferns. The vase is from my florist collection.

Happy Spring Monday from my pollen infested garden. I am hoping the incoming rain clears the air. Please visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to see more vases.

In a Vase on Monday – Hong Kong Orchid

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I like a catchy title and the name of the biggest flower here serves its purpose well. The lavendar flowers are from the Hong Kong Orchid tree next door. The tree is actually my neighbors, planted by her grandmother in the 1960s, so it has been around for a while. I filched a few flowers that are encroaching. It’s one of those love/hate types of trees. In March the sight of this tree covered in these Lavendar orchid shaped flowers makes me sigh with gardening pleasure. Later in the year it drops a million pods and then the seedlings come up with summer rains. Then I am sighing from the effort of trying to remove all the little seedlings that seem to have suction cups attached to their roots.

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A little closer view. The Hong Kong Orchids are Bauhinia purpurea. The white flowers are from Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’). Blue flowers are Plumbaga auriculata. Burgundy spears are from Aechmea ‘Burgundy’ Bromeliad. Ferny bits are the creepy Asparagus Fern. The vase is from the Ute Indian tribe in the Southwestern Us.

It seems to have started raining again. The forecasters are saying our weather pattern is shifting to La Nina which means cooler weather, more rain and fewer hurricanes. This sounds good to me. I am slowly reclaiming the garden from the freeze of a month ago. One mango tree is dead, one is coming back and a third the jury is still out. I decapitated the papaya tree, so fingers crossed it comes back.

Happy Monday from South Florida. Visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to see more vases!

In a Vase on Monday – The Tropical Renaissance

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After a morose month in the garden, I am finally witnessing the rebirth of the tropical vibe. It is such a relief to find bromeliads and tropical begonias flowering and the not really cold hardy palm is so fine I filched a frond. I found some green sprouts on my terrifyingly brown mango tree. Fingers still crossed for the mango.

A closer view:

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Another shot, This is kind of a POW thing.

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The red, yellow and blue flowers are from Billbergia vittata, a bromeliad that is obviously cold hardy. I would like to know the variety, but have no clue! Red and black (yea, weird) foliage is from Pie Crust Croton (Codieum varigatum) White flowers are Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’) this is a very common winter bedding plant here. I usually have them year round and take cuttings for new ones as needed. The frond providing background drama is from the native Thatch Palm (Thrinax radiata). These are so slow growing it is laughable. I bought one about ten years ago – it is not 3 feet tall yet.

I am pleased to report it rained! And more is in the forecast. And I have tomatoes. Life is getting better in the garden.

Follow this link RamblingintheGarden to visit Cathy and hear about her garden and find links to vases from other gardeners celebrating early spring…

In a Vase on Monday – Simply Red

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The garden is coming back slowly from its first brush with Jack Frost. A hummingbird was sighted sipping nectar from basil flowers I had not gotten around to trimming. I left the flowers after seeing that and a few butterflies scouting for food. My simple, small vase was put together in the spirit of leaving flowers for the pollinators.

These sensuous, red flowers are from a Turk’s Cap Hibiscus (Malvaviscus penduliflorus). These are also called Sleeping or Nodding Hibiscus. I like those names better. These tend to pop up in the shady areas of the garden and flower prolifically in the winter. They are a sort of raggedy looking shrub, but difficult to get rid of, so I enjoy the flowers and prune them – a lot!

That’s all from South Florida this Monday. It has finally rained, so I am looking forward to more progress in the garden. Thank you to Cathy at RamblingintheGarden for hosting this weekly meme. Follow the link to see more vases.

In a Vase on Monday – Hidden Treasures

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One of my favorite things about gardening – the little bursts of joy along the way. Finding that first tomato, or mango, or anything edible that I have planted is a true joy. This week it was the hidden treasures that survived and thrived through record breaking cold to provide flowers for my Monday vase.

I have been hauling dead bodies out of the garden this week. Plants only! although I found some frozen invasive lizards; unfortunately after the dog (who was fascinated) did. The good news, I gather they were not very tasty or emerald green guts offend greyhounds, so I got my tongs and removed the offending lizards. I like our little native Anole lizards, but the invasives are sometimes a foot long, ugh!

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The most interesting survivor this week is the Graptosedum succulent. Flowering! I always thought these were tropical, but they are fine. There seems to be a microclimate where these were growing in a pot, uncovered. Another garden mystery to ponder.

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The tulips of South Florida are back again – pink flowers from Quesnelia testudo bromeliad. These Quesnelias are known for their cold tolerance. This one is common much further north of my garden. The flowers that were open burned to beige, but the new ones look great. The spiky stem in the back is a flower stalk from Dracaena reflexa. I am not sure what this was doing, there are berries on the plant, so it could be forming berries or just burnt from the cold. The ferny stuff is Climbing Asparagus Fern, a weed that pops up from time to time.

That is all from my garden this week. Hopefully, no more cold or lizard finds in the foreseeable future. Visit Cathy’s blog RamblingintheGarden and follow the links to see more vases.