Time for Six items of interest from my garden on this first Saturday of 2021. I am seeing signs of good things to come in my garden. First, the Tropical Hydrangea (Dombeya wallachii) is flowering and has many buds.
A closer view of the flowers, they are 6 inches across and have a honey scent.
The native cycad of Florida, Coontie is producing cones, here is a female cone that has been pollinated – Coonties are pollinated by beetles. Wildlife eat the seeds and disperse them, I will be interested to see where they come up.
And the male cone:
The Papayas are ripening.
And I shall have tomatoes from the garden soon. This is a Yellow Pear tomato.
That is my six. To see more interesting items from gardens around the world visit The Propagator at http://www.thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com
Happy New Year and Happy Gardening.
The Shrub Queen 
A little exoticism is good at the start of this year and especially with this very wintery weather in northern Europe.
Wonderful dombeya flowers…😍
Thank you for sharing and happy New Year to you
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Exoticism? I love that, thank you.
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There is nothing like flowers in the winter. How big is that male cone?
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Winter flowers are wonderful, I have some weird Bromeliads budding. The male cone is 4-5 inches long – one of the plants have several male cones.
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https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/78460723/posts/3116645016 this is a link to a post about butterfly host plants in TX, hope it works
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Thanks!
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Oh, I love that tropical hydrangea! Could be right out of the Garden of Eden!
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Thank you, I really enjoy it.
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All fabulous and so very interesting but I adore the Dombeya!
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Thanks, Paddy – I adore the Dombeya as well…trying to propagate more!
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I had no idea that Contia is native there. Florida really is an odd place.
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I mean ‘Coontie’.
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You know Coontie???
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I think that there was one in my garden a long time ago. My colleague brought it from Southern California. Whatever it was, it was unusual here. Sadly, it did not last, and was ultimately buried by road excavation. I do not remember what species it was, or if it was a Coontie.
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I love to view all your exotic plants, such a diversion, and it also encourages me to plan to visit a tropical hot house maybe at Kew sometime in the future.
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I would like to join you at Kew!
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Love that you have tomatoes ready for picking. I noticed the netting, is that to keep away critters?
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