November in South Florida brings some sweet and unusual treats to the garden. When living further north I doubt I could have dreamed of finding something like this in flower this time of year. Actually, I am not sure I could have dreamed up the flower at all!
The purple flowers in the vase are ‘Candy’ Portea Bromeliads. I’m thinking they resemble Good & Plenty licorice candies, just not quite the right color. This is a good one to cut as for unknown reasons it flowers on the backside of the plant and can barely be seen. A pair of loppers accessorized with a suit of armor is a good ensemble for cutting these as the foliage is very sharp. The older I get, the less appreciation for thorns I have.
After some puzzling and tromping through the slightly storm ravaged garden (we had 50 mph wind gusts and I had not realized the volume of branches down, a task for another day) Here are the components of the vase:
Fan shaped foliage in the back is a trimmed frond of Cabbage Palm (Palmetto sabal); pink flowers are courtesy of the storm, Rain Lilies (Zephyranthes spp.); purple flowers are ‘Candy’ Portea Bromeliads; foliage is from Asparagus Fern (Asparagus sprengeri).
Dark purple foliage is Purple Queen (Setcreasea pallida) – I have a feeling some botanists changed this name, but am getting over it. The grey roses are Graptosedum succulents.
That’s all from my garden this week. I will be planting tomatoes and herbs I started from seed this week and starting seed for a few new varieties of cut flowers. And picking up branches.
Thanks to Cathy for hosting. Please follow the link to visit her blog and see more vases: http://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com
The Shrub Queen 
So beautiful, I love it! Pace yourself with the clean-up. 🙂
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Thanks, Eliza. the storm just took off the tips of the trees, Strange.
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Your bromeliads must be quite a sight with all those beautiful flowers blooming. The rain lilies must be on a different schedule than ours.
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They only bloom on the side facing the wall of the house? which is weird, so I like to cut them. Sometimes Bromeliads flower more as they age, so maybe these will. The rain lilies eventually go dormant during the dry season.
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Those Portea Bromeliad blooms are just amazing, thank you for sparing them from your garden to arrange in a vase to share with us.
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Thanks
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You’ve done a fantastic job mixing bromeliads and succulents into this arrangement, Amelia. How I envy you all those bromeliad blooms! I’m lucky if mine simply survive – I rarely get any blooms from them.
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Thanks, Kris. Friends in LA say Blanchetiana Aechmeas flower there! They are sharp and huge though.
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That’s a great title for the contents of your vase, and the bromeliad flower is such a glorious colour! I have no idea what ‘Good & Plenty licorice candies’ are, but perhaps Google can tell me… it does, and we have something similar here but I can’t remember what they are called (but ‘torpedos’ comes into my mind) 😉
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Thanks, Cathy. The flowers look more like Benadryl decongestants to me. Though I detest licorice.
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Oh I love the lines, color and texture of this vase….gorgeous!
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Thank you.
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Sabal palmetto, not Palmetto sabal. It took me a minute to figure out what was wrong with that. I know that dwarf palmetto is not a species of Palmetto, but of Sabal.
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So different from anything we grow outside here! I love those ‘Candy’ Portea Bromeliad spikes. A strong vase!!
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Definitely greenhouse material there! Thanks.
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That’s really pretty Amelia! I love the pink flowers combined with the purple foliage and succulents. Hope the garden clean up isn’t too gruelling!
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Thanks, Cathy – still looking at the branches.
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With those thorns and tendency to turn their backs to you the ‘Candy’ Portea Bromeliads accepted their fate and cooperated beautifully. You’ve created a gorgeous display!
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