Dill is a cool season herb in South Florida. I usually have several plants in pots, this year I have really enjoyed the dill and there is no foliage left to eat! Long Island Mammoth Dill is my favorite variety, the current plant is producing seed heads and I have been enjoying them in flower arrangements and will save some seed for next year. I usually don’t like the seed for eating but have recently learned to make sandwich bread, so I am going to give a dill seed loaf a try. Everything else I made from this plant has been Dillicious. Including this herbal sweet scented concoction in my mother’s crystal rose bowl.
My dillicious vase this week includes:
Fireworks in this vase are from dill seed heads and flowers in chartreuse and orange tubular flowers from the Firebush (Hamelia patens)
Another delicious flower appealing to a different sense is the white Tropical Gardenia (Tabernaemontana divaricata). These flowers lend a heavenly scent to the garden at night. They are sometimes called the Pinwheel Gardenia, there is a flatter flowering variety that looks more like a pinwheel.
That’s all from SoFla this week. To traverse distant gardens and visit via vase follow this link to Cathy’s blog.
Happy Gardening.
The Shrub Queen 
A good way to use the dill flowers. Do the flowers also feel like dill?
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Great title and wonderful seedheads, Amelia! A spherical vase is great for this sort of arrangement, giving the whole arrangement such an appealing shape. I want to get back in the habit of making everyday bread again too – it’s easy to let the habit slip…
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Thanks Cathy.. that’s funny.. I bought a book called everyday bread and I have been working my way through the sandwich bread .. honey oatmeal wheat is the current favorite.
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Enjoy your experiments!
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So pretty! And that overhead photo is gorgeous. Those colours go so well together. I love dill too – both foliage and seed. I should make bread more often too.
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Thanks, Cathy. I am becoming a bread fanatic.
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Simply beautiful, Amelia! I’ve been wary of dill due to its reputation for rampant self-seeding but it’s undisputedly lovely in a vase, as well as useful in the kitchen.
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Thanks, Kris. I have never had one reseeding! The soil here is not conducive to dill I think.
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Your arrangement is most dillicious indeed Amelia. I’m now wondering if I’ve left it too late to sow dill this year. Nothing beats home made bread 😋
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Thank you, Anna. My dill was planted late and I ended up with less foliage and more seed? No idea why. Once you start baking bread you get hooked on it, store bought tastes terrible..
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I, too, love dill (as a dressing for fish, and pickles, yum), and it does make a dandy floral accent. I like the orange and chartreuse combo!
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Thanks, Eliza. I guess you are planting dill?
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They self-sow every spring… all I have to do is thin them. 🙂
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Never had it happen here. I think the soil is too sand. I have to grow them in pots.
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I love how you used dill in the vase with Firebush. Fireworks!
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Thank you.
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Love the dill and gardenia combo, I can imagine it’s a treat for the nose as well!
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Thank you. It is a treat.
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The fireworks of the dill and hamelia combine so well! I grew hamelia in Phoenix, as it takes even a dry heat well, and it was one of the few sources of fall color. And now you have me searching for cape jasmine too–that’s one I’m not at all familiar with. 🙂
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Thanks, the crape jasmine is very tropical I am at its northern limit. Though they are very drought tolerant.
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These look beautiful together, how creative. I love the smell of dill. Does your bread recipe have dried onion in it? I have a recipe from my mom that combines the onion & dill seed and it is lovely, maybe because I grew up with it.
Love the gardenia as well.
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Thank you. No onion, though I do like those onion hamburger buns! We tried everything bagel seasoning bread and the seasoning overwhelmed the bread.
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A beautiful, perfectly balanced design. So lovely. The dill seed heads are awesome. Glad you’re having fun exploring different breads. I haven’t baked it in a long time. Hmm, should remedy that.
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Hey, I may have actually seen Tabernaemontana divaricata, although from a distance. I wanted to get closer, but had something to attend to. Rhody and I are in Arizona presently, and went to Mesa today.
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That’s interesting, one of the girls from Arizona said she wanted one. It doesn’t take frost at all. I didn’t think it was that warm in winter?
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Phoenix can supposedly get as cool as San Jose during winter. I must have misidentified this. Does it tolerate aridity?
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No idea, from the South Pacific I think.
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So, unlikely. I should have investigated whatever it was that I saw.
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Well I am at the northern limits zone 10a
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Oh, so it is like here, . . . and at home. Both Phoenix and San Jose are supposedly in Zone 9b and 10a. Of course, that is debatable, and likely more relevant to chill and frost than anything. I know that Phoenix is more arid and sometimes much warmer than San Jose. Aridity could be a limiting factor, especially for a tropical species; but if it is, I would expect this species to be even more rare in Phoenix than in San Jose, and I have never seen it in San Jose. (Technically, I do not know if I have ever seen it in Phoenix either.)
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I have found from blogging 10a in Florida and 10a in California are entirely different.
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The humidity is very different, but is the temperature also different?
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Yes, hotter in summer here. I think.
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Well, of course. I worded that wrongly. Is it as cool in the winter?
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Yes never below 40
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Now I am curious. If it lives here, and seems to perform well, it might perform well at home.
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I had a teacher in college that kept a topiary pair in fishbowl planters.. houseplants they were fabulous.
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Well, that is too much work for me. If I can not grow it in the garden, I would prefer to do without it. I do not mind providing shelter from frost, but that is my limit. I should ask Brent about it. I will be there on Saturday afternoon.
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I agree..I was amazed to find people will bring bougainvillea in for the winter..
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Perhaps they are from climates that necessitated that. I was annoyed to see that bougainvilleas were available near Portland, but realistically, some people who are intent on growing them do not mind bringing them in or sheltering them for winter. They are surprisingly popular on those decks on houseboats on the Columbia River. Those houses are quite small, so sheltering large bougainvillea vines would be a bit of effort.
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Yes it is popular in the DC area..I would not lug the sharp thorny thing in and out..
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I grow a few species that I brought back from Beverly Hills, even though I know I should not. I keep some of them small so that they are portable. I allow others to get frosted back only because I know that they will regenerate from the roots. I would not recommend such techniques to others though.
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Lovely! Does your dill host any Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars? Not sure if they are in your part of the country.
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Thanks. I usually get swallowtails on the dill, but I haven’t seen any cats . however, there are many butterflies in the garden I have a wild lime I think they are hosting on that.
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