Category Archives: Floridas best summer flowering trees

Six on Saturday – The Last Mango

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There it is. The final perfectly tree ripened Thai dessert mango of the summer. I am not sure who or what ate it, but it wasn’t me. I will count my blessings. We had a wonderful crop of three varieties of mangoes from May to July and I have learned to make a new dessert, Mango Coconut Cream pie. I will confess I have been shopping for a Keitt mango to extend the season through September…the pie.

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Now for some pretty garden images:

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This is a Vriesea bromeliad. The botanical name has been changed to Goudaea ospinae, it used to be V. ospinae cv. gruberi. Maybe it is not a Vriesea anymore. These are planted primarily for foliage, the color really lights up the shade garden. It is reported to have a yellow flower, but I have never seen one.

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This is a Buttercup Bush (Turnera ulmifolia) – I think. These grow wild here and it popped up to replace an Angel Trumpet that didn’t grow here at all.

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This is a Golden Dewdrop (Durant erecta). This rarely flowers in my garden and the butterflies are really enjoying it. I am wondering what inspired the flowers. The Dewdrop is a bit of a mystery to me. It is supposed to be a large shrub to a small tree sized plant. I would guess it has been in the garden for 8 or 10 years and might be two feet tall. More puzzles to ponder.

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A Royal Ponciana (Delonix regia); also called Flamboyant tree. My neighbor has one and a seedling popped up in the garden, so I potted it, coddled it and waited for the rainy season to plant it. In a few years it will be covered in flowers like this. Flamboyant is a good name! Hopefully.

That is all from South Florida. The rainy season continues….

To see more SOS posts, follow the link to visit Jim’s blog Garden Ruminationshttp://garden ruminations.co.uk.

Six on Saturday – Treats in the Trees

South Florida gardens provide some interesting treats from trees. I was looking up during my garden tour this morning and took note of the flowers and fruits on the trees. Some are treats for me, others for birds and bees. To see more SOS garden treats visit Jim’s blog, Garden Ruminations.

The Thai dessert mangoes are tantalizing to me. Every morning I walk out to see if they are changing color yet. This morning I noted a slight peach haze on the one on the far right. I’m waiting with baited breath.

I like palm flowers. Talk about different. These are Dwarf Pygmy Date Palms (Phoenix roebellini) flowers. They need a male and female tree to produce dates and I have one, so no go on dates in the garden.

Another palm flower. The Christmas Palm or Adonidia merrillii. Most people cut these off so they don’t have to deal with the fruit. I use them in flower arrangements and enjoy the fruit. It looks like Christmas ornaments.

Flowers on the White Geiger tree (Cordia boissieri). I enjoy this little tree, though it is a puzzle to prune.

Fruit on the White Geiger tree. These eventually turn into good sized white berries and the varmints eat them all. I am told they are edible but not tasty.

The Gumbo Limbo (Bursea simarouba) is currently the bee magnet in the front garden. The entire tree is buzzing with bees pollinating the flowers.

Happy Gardening!!

Summer Color in Tropic Florida

The snowbirds are home cool and safe in their beds while visions of winter gardening in Florida dance in their heads. (not quite an original poem)

The rest of us are basking in the steamy weather post Summer Solstice in South Florida. Summer can be wonderful here, traffic slows as does time. Days are long and comfortable time spent outdoors occurs early in the morning or early in the evening.

Our plant life puts on a spectacular show during the summer. The show is a must see for any gardener.

Poincianas are in full flower and the Mango trees are filled with cascading boughs of fruit.

Many shrubs here flower year round, but once the rainy season kicks in the flowers go into overdrive. Especially on the Hibiscus, Ixora and Allamanda.

Dwarf Red Ixora
Yellow Allamanda

Our native Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) and Beautyberry (Calliocarpa americana) are flourishing:

On the tropical side, Heliconias and Bromeliads are budding and blooming, I associate these with later in the season but some are going already. Yes, I cut most of my Parrot’ Flower (Heliconia psittacorum).

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Orchids are starting their summer season. My neighbors Ground Orchids (Epidendrum radicans) yes, groundcover Orchids! have been spectacular thus far, these are called Fire Orchids and there is a pink version

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Of course,  one of the real pleasures of the tropics in Summer is the scent of Frangipani in the garden. This white one has started flowering with the onset of Summer and I have a new one from a gardening friend on the verge of flowering- rose pink on the outside opening to pale yellow. I sited it near my screened porch for maximum smellability.

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I love the term ‘Tropic Florida’. To the best of my knowledge, it was coined by Frederick Stresau, in his book Florida, My Eden. This book, while titled like a romance novel is actually a really good manual of landscape plants for Florida. The tropic part supersedes the ubiquitous and perhaps American zone phobia. I think I live in Zone 10A, I am not sure anyone else would agree, but we can agree it is tropic. We have seen freezing temperatures here 4 times since 1980. That is pretty tropic.

Autumnal Thoughts – Flights of Forest Fancy

Seasons can be difficult to recognize in South Florida. You have to look hard to find fall color, last year I found some Red Maples with red foliage in the nearby swamp – long about December. I have learned to look to the Indian River for signs of fall, there is always a mullet run when the seasons turn and I am just starting to see the little fish jumping out of the water, I enjoy the mullet run – it is a sign that relief from the oppressive heat is close at hand.

Royal Ponciana Delonix regia

Royal Ponciana
Delonix regia

Another sign of fall is the Poncianas are slowing down on the flowering and producing gigantic green pods. The ferny foliage is still shimmery green, but the pods foretell a soon to be naked tree. Getting in touch with my inner plant nerd (not difficult) I did some research on the Ponciana and found it is native to Madagascar and rarely seen there anymore. Another Madagascar native that is popular in landscaping here is the Bismarck Palm. This one is planted unfortunately near a power pole – that is not fruit. This Palm has huge silvery fronds, costapalmate! and literally 4 feet wide. The fronds sound like big pieces of cardboard rubbing together. Fruit is borne in grape like clusters of 2 inch wide shiny mahogany colored nuts. I planted one a month or so ago and it is supposed to take more than 2 months for the seed to germinate and 86 degrees Fahrenheit is the required temperature. So far nothing on that front.

Bismarck Palm Bismarckia nobilis

Bismarck Palm
Bismarckia nobilis

Here is my Flight of Forest Fancy, both these trees supposedly occurred in Forests.

Just imagine these forests – the Palm and the Ponciana can get to be 60 feet tall.

Golden Shower – Cassia fistula

Some of Florida’s best summer flowering trees are starting to bloom. These Golden Shower trees are about halfway to full bloom. Everytime my husband hears the tree name he snickers, but who wouldn’t? The sausage like fruits are enough to make me laugh without hearing the name. Some of these tropical trees have peculiar fruit that tends to hang around and be fairly unattractive. The leaves on the tree fell off for the most part and the fruit turned brown. Here is the fruit last fall.

Golden Shower Fruit

Golden Shower Fruit

Here is the tree halfway into full bloom:

Golden Shower Tree

Golden Shower Tree

Closer
Fruit and Flower
Close up

The leaves are filling back in on the tree and it will be fully green through the summer and then produce another set of fruit. I am thinking at some point someone has to pick up a lot of this fruit. But I really haven’t noticed it as they have a good maintenance crew and it is not in my yard.

The first one of these trees I encountered was planted alternating with Rainbow Shower trees as a streetscape planting in Maui, quite festive and tropical. The Rainbow Shower trees flower has a literal rainbow of color on it. Quite something to see and a bit overwhelming. It took me awhile to figure out what the trees were. My first thought was “it’s a Laburnum”, nooo, not in Hawaii. One of its common names is Indian Laburnum and Pudding Pipe Tree is another. Apparently this tree has a few medicinal uses, treating constipation, skin infections, and people in India smoke it – for what reason I am not sure.

Native to Southeast Asia, the Golden Shower is planted as a street tree in tropical climates the world over. I am glad we have a few in front of our library.