Perhaps this is my funkiest vase ever, I concentrated on unusual color and texture this week. One of my favorite aspects of planting design is combining different textures of plant material. Working with colors and textures enhancing one another. Tropical flowers are fun to play with as the textures of the flowers can be quite different. This is an array of unusual colors and textures from my summer garden.
The papery texture of the white Miss Alice Bougainvillea enhances the white parts of the Red Shrimp (Justicia brandegeana). The reddish Petunia exserta adds some color and reflects the color in the chartreuse and burgundy coleus. A few springs of Asian Sword Fern are always necessary.
My neighbor gave me the Red Shrimp Plant years ago. I gave her some Petunia exserta after reading about it from UK garden bloggers (Chloris?) and she grew some this year and returned one to me. The circle of gardening life.
More funky texture, pink fuzzies are a tropical groundcover, Dwarf Chenille Plant (Acalypha pendula). I grow this in containers as it tends to disappear in winter. This summer it is sharing a container with Medinilla cummingii, I am breathlessly awaiting flowers from both of them.
Happy Monday and Happy Summer Gardening. Thanks to Cathy at http://www.ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com for hosting IAVOM. Follow the link for more summer flowers..
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The Shrub Queen 
I love this fun arrangement Amy. I am glad to see you are still growing pretty Petunia exserta. That reminds me to grow it again next year. The seeds I thought I had saved of it from last year turned out to be snapdragons.
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Thanks, Liz..a snapdragon oops. I haven’t had any success growing them from seed though the petunias thrive here in summer. I have been cutting them back.
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One of the (few) benefits of reading these posts on my phone is the ability to click on one photo and have a slideshow of just the photos pop up. When I did that with this post I thought OMG she’s adding a white poinsettia! In July!!! Then I looked at the next photo and thought Oh! Not poinsettia, Caladium! Wrong on both counts !😆😆 Love it, and the interesting shaped petunias!
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That’s funny! The poinsettias do grow outside here but bloom in December. Thanks, those Petunias seem to tolerate our summer, native to cracks in rocks in Brazil.
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Nice mix of textures. I love that petunia!
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Thanks, Susie, a survivalist petunia.
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I love a mix of things and really do like your arrangement. I have regretted planting the red shrimp plant. One has become many.
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Thank you. I have one and only one for years..I think it is the sand. You have to root them to get them going here.
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I suspect you have done funkier than this, Amy – you are the doyenne of funky vases! As always, you include such an intriguing mix of blooms and foliage, and I love those pink fuzzies as well the bougainvillaea which I admired not so long ago too
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Laughing..I hope Vanity Fair writes an article about me. The pink fuzzies last in water, who knew?
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Nicely done, Amy! I like the sweep of the sword ferns on the upper left down to the shrimp and chenille on the lower right. Stylin’!
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Thanks, Eliza..funky summer stylin from FLA
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Love your funky wave, well done, always a pleasure to see your tropical vases. We did use our bread/pizza oven for the first time recently, both pizza and bread were rather smoked. I shall give your focaccia a try when we know how to better handle the oven.
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Thanks, Annette. I grow some mad flowers here. My husband has been smoking and cooking over wood for years. He says it take 2 hours to get the fire to produce non acrid smoke and well seasoned wood to get a nice flavor. We have done pizza but not bread.
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I do love that white Bougainvillea and really need to look around for it. I didn’t even recognize the pink flowers as petunias until I looked at your closeup shot of them. I’ve never seen chenille plant anyplace other than a tropical conservatory here but then we’re getting more humid with each passing summer so perhaps that will change…
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I think the white boug is called Singapore White on the west coast.
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Miss Alice is sometimes describes as blooming with double white ‘flowers’. Do you ever notice that?
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I mean, do you ever notice double bloom?
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No, I went and looked at them. Occassionally there is one with a purple streak. They have been blooming for a long time.
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That purple streak thing is weird. I heard about that from other sources also, in regard to white bougainvilleas that live near other bougainvilleas. When we get ours, they will be on their own. I am not aware of any other bougainvilleas in the neighborhood. Actually, I do not know if they will survive here.
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There is a related purple thornless variety called Silhouette. Have you seen Imperial Thai Delight?
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They are related? I think of Silhouette as a cultivar or hybrid of Bougainvillea brasiliensis. That could by why Miss Alice is thornless, or mostly so. I am not familiar with Imperial Thai Delight. I would remember a name like that. It sounds too fancy for my taste, but then, so does Jamaica White.
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Yes, check it out Imperial Thai, etc. very pretty I see them rarely and want one.
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I just did. It is . . . fancy. Wow, that is a bit much.
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I see them here.. pretty good.
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You have got it all in this vase… fuzziness, papery foliage, shiny leaves, feathery ferns, colour and texture galore. Great arrangement!
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Danke!
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There is something very attractive about tropical flowers artistically arranged, and you have chosen each element so carefully with the different colours and textures. You have devised a superb vase this week.
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Thank you, Noelle.
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