My Saturday morning garden stroll revealed that spring comes early in South Florida. The scents and sights are promising tropical fruits and flowers later this year. To participate in the blog phenomena Six on Saturday and tour gardens around the world, visit Jim’s blog and follow the links in the comments.
A new arrival in the mail greeted me yesterday – a nice rooted cutting of ‘Gardenmeister’ Fuchsia. This will have to be a sort of a reverse house plant. Outside in winter and indoors for summer. Summer heat and humidity will kill this outside. Should be an interesting experiment.
Buds on the Graptosedum.
Buds on the Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet). I am hoping for flowers next week. This is the only ginger I have any luck with. It is over five feet tall.
The back garden smells wonderful. The scent is from the Rangpur lime tree flowering more prolifically than it ever has.
Thai dessert mangos (Nam Doc Mai) setting lots of fruit.
That’s all from South Florida. I hope everyone is seeing signs of spring.
The Shrub Queen 
Mmm, citrus flowers smell so sweet and nice. Your mango looks pristine, I should try that ginger – I definitely don’t have much luck here with them. tzgarden.blogspot.com
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The other gingers just don’t get enough water.
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Hi, I understand you are the Bromelia Queen. I need some advice, please. Fred tells me you have success. 🙂
I never thought about bringing my fushia inside in the summer…
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Ha. Bromeliads are easy here because of the climate. What is the question ❓
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So, I just bougt one and then another.
At the moment it is an indoor plant.
Night temps at moment down around 12C Can it go outside? What care. I am terriefied I kill it
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The lowest temperature I have had here 38f..3 c? No problem.. however it’s going to depend on variety as some are much more tropical. I bought most of my broms at garage sales etc. as they are very expensive otherwise and they are less exotic types.
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I just got the photo. That’s a Vriesea..I have one and it lives in the shade.. very well drained soil. The flowering ones probably need dappled light no West sun and humidity. A lot of them don’t last long..the Vriesea
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I have just discovered – flaming sword.
gutted. Once it flowers it dies!
https://houseplantcentral.com/bromeliad/vriesea-bromeliad/
So once it is finished flowering I will plant outside and it has two chance.
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Yes that is the best thing to do with those. The highly bred broms rarely make pups.
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gutted!
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I bought this from a german supermarket in Portugal … yeah … weird. I don’t know variety. Looking at this it does seem tropical. Maybe I do an image search to see if I can identify.
Cheers. 🙂
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Do you shop at Aldi? I do.
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Yes. And Lidyl. All my initial succulent collection came from there. at half the price of garden centres. 🙂 I also like to trade plants with neighbours and local.
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No Lidyl here. Love Aldi though I never buy plants there. I think Neoregelias are probably the easiest broms to grow, just not the hot pink ones.
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What caught my eye this week was the alpinia flower bud. 5 feet tall! I still have to wait, because my plant is 2 feet, but I don’t give up hope of seeing a flower one day, even if I know that it is almost impossible in mi latitudes. Conversely, growing fuchsia is much easier here. This one has very pretty foliage!
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The ginger is big this year, we have had a lot of rain so I am looking forward to seeing the flowers. The fuchsia is going to be an interesting experiment.
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I had to look up the fuchsia as it looked different from the hanging pot types, but I think I have seen the kind you have. Can you plant it in the garden? My Shell Ginger froze to the ground again.
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It is surprising the variety of fuchsias, I have never had one and read this was a good one for Florida then missed the vital clue – in the winter. The heat and humidity of summer will do them in. I am going to try it. It could be planted in the garden, how long it would survive is another question.
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Oh no. I know we can’t grow “regular” fuchsia in the hanging pots. Someone once suggested putting ice cubes in the pot, but I never even see them in the nursery.
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They would probably last like a flower arrangement. I hope this lasts longer.
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I would love to be able to smell my way around people’s gardens, your’s sounds lovely.
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i have that same thought quite often.
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Fuchsias are not keen on our heat here either. I have one in a shaded position on my front veranda, which seems to last for about two summers. I fear I am up to replacement time again as there isn’t a spot of green in sight after all the heat we’ve had this summer. But I do love fuchsias, so I preserve. I can imagine the beautiful fragrance of your budding summer fruit trees now.
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That is the same thing I have heard about fuchsias here. Short lived, but they seem worthwhile. I probably should have started it sooner.
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I love the smell of citrus flowers, but sadly, I’ve had no luck growing them. No surprise there!
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Same here. I had friends in Atlanta who grew Meyers lemons and wintered them in a daylight basement. It always mystified me.
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Gads! It must get very warm there. ‘Gartenmeister’ fuchsia enjoys warm and humid greenhouses here. I never noticed one to be displeased with warmth, and greenhouses can get quite warm! I always thought that they would prefer to be within a warm and humid greenhouse to be out in arid warmth. They can get crispy.
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It is very warm in summer. I have never seen a fuchsia here. We will see.
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I am interested to hear how the Fuchsia experiment goes Amelia. I often see plants you grow outside sold here as houseplants, and have frequently wondered what YOU grow as houseplants! Wish I could smell your lime flowers… is it a similar scent to orange blossom?
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I have one lone houseplant – a Prayer plant someone gave me a few years ago and I haven’t killed it. The lime is probably less sweet smelling than orange but very pleasant. The Sweet Almond bush is also flowering so it smells pretty wonderful.
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Love that idea of a reverse house plant, it’s probably something I should do! 🌸💞 That Lime does look fine!
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