January in South Florida is not summer, it just seems like it today. The air conditioning is running; despite the fact this is the dry season, rain showers are making above 80 degrees (F) weather steamy and not conducive to gardening. My reward is flowers and vegetables in the garden. I have ripe tomatoes and Papayas; my second planting of green beans and first lettuces and spinach have come up. Some interesting flowers are also gracing the garden.
The Blue Willow teapot is a favorite of mine, bought with my mother on a long ago antiquing adventure (she referred to this as ‘Going to the junk store’).
Zinnias grown from seed continue to boggle my mind – not sure what they are at all. These are much bigger than those in the smaller vase and have longer stems. I’ve added pink and green Dombeya (Dombeya wallachii) flowers. The green are the buds, the Dombeya itself is huge and I don’t mind cutting some buds, though I feel the bees would disagree. The flowers have an amazing honey fragrance and I have never seen as many bees on a plant. A closer view:
The white flowers are Sweet Begonias (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’), another subtly fragrant flower and the spikes are seedheads from Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea)
This vase, another ‘junk store’ find has Dombeyas and Zinnias, just the shorter-stemmed version. The green seed heads are from the Sweet Begonia. I like the seeds as well as the flowers.
I have both vases in my foyer; the Dombeyas tend to be ephemeral in vases, not lasting more than a day. The fragrance from the combination of Dombeyas and Sweet Begonias is ethereal, I can imagine angels in flight leaving this scent. Worth every moment and curing the Not Summer Blues. Back outside tomorrow.
The Shrub Queen 
The scents sound wonderful. I never heard of a sweet begonia with a scent. Of course, there are many plants I don’t know. 🙂 Isn’t it nice to enjoy fresh veggies from the garden in winter? I need to start my second batch of lettuces.
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Sweet Begonias are common here, perennials in the garden. I have never seen them elsewhere, it is amazing to me they will grow in pure sand. I am enjoying the veggies, just picked cherry tomatoes.
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I love zinnias and for the reasons demonstrated by your lovely flowers in today’s vase! They come in such a glorious range of colour and tone! Scrumptious! We have a miserably cold, wet and windy day today here on the east coast of Scotland. Nothing like your summery weather today! About this time forty two years ago my husband and I returned home to the UK after living on the Bahamian island of Abaco (recently almost swept away by a hurricane) and I remember that the week after we left there was snow in Florida! Imagine that today while you enjoy the sunshine!! Amanda https://therunningwave.blogspot.com/2020/01/in-january-vase-on-monday.html
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Thanks, Amanda – the snow anniversary was widely reported on the 40th anniversary. I live not too far from Winter Beach, which supposedly has snow frequently.
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Oh that teapot is gorgeous and the zingy zinnias look great against the dark blue. Good to read that you have fragrance today as well – I haven’t seen any bees here for a couple of months, but I am sure there will be a few around on mild days even in January
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Thank you, I would love to catch the scent of the Witch Hazel!
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Sorry I can’t senr it to you!
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“I can imagine angels in flight leaving this scent.” I love that, so descriptive of the divinity found in the garden.
I bet the tourists are digging the heat before they have to go back to winter. 😉
The weather this past weekend broke records (which of course were only last set in 2017/18). Nice to walk out in the warmth (upper 50s here), but unsettling to view the weather worldwide going to hell. 😦 An exercise in acceptance, I guess. I’m doing what I can to reduce my carbon footprint, but I guess it is going to take a lot more.
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Love that, Eliza, divinity in the garden. Yes, I think most of Massachusetts is here and New York. Odd the weather. Keep planting trees, that is what we can do.
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Great teapot and lovely colours! I cannot imagine your January temperatures
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Thank you, Dorris. The temperatures seem weird to me!
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I think the temperatures are weird everywhere. Winter is wet and mild here so far.
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If I ever had illusions about any similarities between Florida’s climate and SoCal’s, your winter posts have managed to dash these. Yes, we’ve occasionally hit 80F in winter but not in recent memory and those temperatures never come with rain. I’m still amazed by those Zinnias.
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Maybe the humidity grows the Zinnias? I planted another batch in the ground, always an experiment.
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How wonderful to have zinnias in January and such beauties.
I love your willow pattern teapot. Beautiful arrangements and fragrance too. Enjoy your fragrant angels.
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Your zinnias are such bright stars today. Just gorgeous. And the arrangement with the two vases is perfect. Have a great week.
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Lovely vases. Two of my neighbors have Dombeyas in their front yards but they have not started to bloom. You are so right about this not being typical weather for winter in Florida…I wish it would be a few degrees cooler.
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Thanks, Karen ..I think we are going to get some cool!
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This time, the vase on the left got my attention more than the flowers. The dishes in my kitchen in college were ‘Red Willow’, with is the same pattern in red. They are still out there somewhere, and apparently quite valuable now.
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