It seems I always find a few things I want to add to the garden – in July. Not a great time for shipping plants to South Florida. I managed to control myself (a little) and bought a few new plants shipped from nearby. July can be a good time to plant things due to copious rainfall.
My garden tour this morning revealed a few other new things in the garden – one has already been eaten! Please join other SOS bloggers and their six items of interest at Jim’s Blog (Garden Ruminations) for more summer fun.
The Yellow Dragonfruit is once again teasing me with a flower. These are pollinated by night flying bats and moths. At this point I am not sure I have any of those in the garden. Usually I get some flowers for a short (hours long) period and they fall off. I thought I would try the paint brush around the inside of the flower and then looked inside.
The flower was loaded with insects doing more than I could ever hope for with a paintbrush. I’ll know in a week or so if there will be fruit.
The homegrown pineapple (on the left) was harvested and devoured. These pineapples are usually much smaller than the grocery store varieties (on the right) I am not sure why because they are grown from the tops of grocery store pineapples? The fruit is sweeter and juicier than pineapples from the store. Delicious.
These are new to the garden. I bought the cuttings of Reed Orchid (Epiprenum radicans). These can be grown in the ground here and are used as a groundcover. This one has orange flowers that look like dendrobium clusters, but they come in many colors. I put it in a terracotta pot to keep the rabbits away. It should take and creep over the sides of the pot and fill in the bed.
Meet ‘Absolute Zero’ Crypanthus bromeliad. These are shade lovers and should have pink flowers. The common name is Earth Star. I intend to put these in the ground near the Epiprenums. After receiving the plant I realized the sun needs to go down in the sky a bit before I plant them. A little too much afternoon sun currently.
A locally grown coconut. I bought this to bake a pie, without thinking through the fact that power tools are probably needed to open it and it is the wrong kind for baking coconut. Green coconuts have coconut water and jelly. Brown coconuts have the grateable meat for pies. Sigh. Both involve screwdrivers and hammer prior to use. They can be sprouted and planted in the garden – but I am not sure which kind.
That’s all from South Florida. There is a heat advisory in effect for the next couple of days so all gardening has to be done before 9 am. I am done!
Happy Gardening
The Shrub Queen 
Wow Queen. I got excited about the pie. We had an Ecuadorian friend who attacked our bought coconut mercilessly and gobbled it up. It was something to see.
Earth Star on my planet is a fungi in wet shade. Yours
is gorgeous.
I am giving away plants every time I come home. I did get to see Spider to Fly daylily blooms the eve of my arrival. The deer ate them by the next morning. I am so OVER fighting nature.
It has been 35 years of shoveling sand against the tide. I do not have the time nor energy to continue.
I belong in the mountains now.
That is home.
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I think we have Earth Star mushrooms here too. The mountains are great. I made a pie with coconut from Aldi. Plotting where to plant the coconut seed in the yard. I don’t have a machete for coconuts. Heal! and ignore the deer.
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Ah, I remember those orchids from the Los Angles region. I bring them back when I can, but they succumb to frost. I should be more protective of them.
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They are fairly common here but I have not had any til now.
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I have everything crossed for dragonfruit for you, if not the flower is lovely on its own. I’m very impressed by the grapefruit, I tried the top method once and it just rotted. Obviously not doing something right! Good luck with the coconut. Have a good week.
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Thanks, Gill. The dragonfruit is worth it for the flower. I would be astonished if I got fruit.
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Very tropical plants to go with your tropical day.
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It is very tropical.
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Thank you for showing us all of these tropical delights.
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Glad you enjoyed them.
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Do you only have one dragonfruit flower? Do you need several for pollination? I tried with the similar flowers of epiphyllum using a paintbrush and the moths in the greenhouse, but I didn’t get any fruit. Only one plant with 2 flowers; perhaps more plants would have been needed?
I would have loved to open your coconut, as I usually do. A machete is very useful every time… Given your climate, if you place it on the ground in your garden, it will start to sprout on its own in a few weeks or months, and you may have a beautiful coconut tree.
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Hi Fred, I really don’t know. I think this is a hybrid dragonfruit and have read there is a named variety that is a universal pollinator plant? I have had more flowers and still no fruit so I don’t know. The flowers are interesting anyway. A machete! LOL don’t have one. The top is turning brown so I am going to plant it and see what happens.
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Beautiful bromeliad! Take care in all that heat. We have had weeks of what I term ‘FL weather’ with only short duration breaks here and there. Yesterday, at last, we had a perfect ’10’ of a day. I hope we get more of those!
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A perfect 10 in July is something to celebrate. The deluge has stopped here for a few days so I am weeding early!
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Gosh! A homegrown pineapple!
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Fingers crossed for your dragonfruit Amelia. Must be wonderful to eat homegrown pineapple too. Stay cool in the heatwave!
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I made a coconut pie from a coconut one time. The pie was great but the work involved in opening and grating it…well, let’s just say that I only did it one time. 😊
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Lol my kitchen accessories don’t include a machete.. planting the coconut..
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