Category Archives: Hamelia patens var patens

In a Vase on Monday – Torched!

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At long last our dry spell was broken last week. Locals swear that those of us who live on the limestone ridge (the highest point on the East Coast of Florida) are in the doughnut hole – a place where rain goes around us. Sometimes I believe this. This summer it has been true, the rain just wasn’t quite getting here. The garden gratefully soaked up all the moisture from the sky and promptly asked for more. This afternoon is looking quite promising for a rain shower. Things are looking a bit torched around here, so it seems a perfect time to introduce the Flaming Torch Bromeliad.

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Meet the Flaming Torch (Billbergia pyramidalis). These are very aptly named, when the sun hits them just right, they look exactly like that. Another common name is Hurricane or Foolproof plant. The peak of hurricane season is September 6th, so I can get that. As far as being foolproof, I have killed a number of these following directions that they grow in full sun. This is not true. Those planted in full sun were torched!

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The rest of the arrangement has Zinnias, in pink and orange. Firebush (Hamelia patens) is orange tubular flowers. Dark foliage and pale yellow flowers are from Bronze or Copper Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). The vase is a non heirloom florist vessel from somewhere..

That is all from my garden this morning. To see more vases, visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden

Really looking forward to FALL!!

In a Vase on Monday – Summer Berries

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It is still dry and scorching in my garden. Even the enormous Hurricane Erin seems to be keeping the precipitation to herself. She is forecast to pass about 550 miles away from me, the further the better. Fall berries have been forming in the garden. I have been baking, watching the birds enjoy it and cut a few sprigs for my Monday vase.

Last week I had Beautyberries in my vase. Native Floridians tend to be the only people who really enjoy the fruit, using it in desserts and for jam and jelly. I have been told many times the berries don’t taste like much, so I finally nibbled a few. It’s true, an astringent, peppery flavor emerged when I tried it. Then I cooked some down to juice, added sugar and a very nice berry flavor emerged. Voila! Lemon Beautyberry cupcakes:

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The berries in my vase this week are from the Gumbo Limbo tree (Bursera simaruba). These berries are best left for the birds, who love them. The numerous seedlings around my garden will attest to that.

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Firebush (Hamelia patens) in orange tubular flowers and red and yellow “Lady Di” Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum) round out the plant palette.

Visit Cathy’s blog RamblingintheGarden to see more late summer vases.

In a Vase on Monday – Here comes the Frangipani

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The scent of Frangipani at night is a blessing in the tropics. It compensates for the humidity. June brings Bridal Bouquet Frangipani flowers and fragrance into the garden. This is not the typical Frangipani. The growth habit is columnar rather than a rounded tree form and the foliage can be semi evergreen. The foliage is also an unusual shape, called violin.

I use these as upright hedges to screen my neighbors wood fence. Some winters I see more fences than others as semi evergreen is a very good description. Come summer you can’t get much more tropical than this.

A closer view:

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The white flowers are the Bridal Bouquet Frangipani (Plumeria pudica). Yellow and Red flowers are “Lady Di” Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum). Orange flowers are from the Firebush (Hamelia patens). There is a little charteuse Coleus in the back of the vase. The vase is a large crystal wedding gift from Tiffany’s.

That’s all from my South Florida garden. I’ll be savoring the scents of summer and ignoring the weeds.

Visit Cathy’s blog to see more vases this Monday.

In a Vase on Monday – Heat Wave

We’re not having a heat wave in Florida..yet. I am sure there will be one soon. I was somewhat amused by the heat wave in the UK, the forecasted temperatures there are a nice winter day in South Florida. We are in a bit of a drought with normal spring windy weather, even the bromeliads are a bit crispy.. I have had to drag the hose around, my least favorite garden task. I let the irrigation go when all the turfgrass was asked to leave the garden. Rain is predicted a week from Sunday! UGH.

A closer view: The hot colors have all been plonked into my mother’s old jam jar. She never made jam, but liked to use the jar for flowers. I do the same thing, no jam, just flowers.

The names of the flowers sound hot. Beach Sunflower (Helianthus debilis); Firebush (Hamelia patens) in orange; Indian Blanket (Gallardia pulchella) is snuggly in red and yellow. The white daisies don’t sound so hot..Spanish Needles (Bidens alba). These produce zillions of sharp seeds – supposedly used for needles by Floridian pioneers. They are maybe 3/4 inch long, so I have never figured out quite how that works.

That’s all from South Florida. I’ll be dragging the hose around… To see more Monday vases visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden.

In a Vase on Monday – Propavasing

Here’s a new word for you. Propavasing. This occurs when taking cuttings to root in water, followed by finding a few clean vases around the kitchen sink, plonking and fluffing the cuttings – voila!

The cuttings:

I left some chartreuse coleus in a few pots to dress up later for winter container plantings. Not a good idea – especially when combined with leftover moldy zinnias I let go to seed, hoping for some more hot pink/orange flowers next year. The seeds aren’t quite made yet, but the chartreuse coleus is definitely done. Hence the cuttings.

The vining plants are Turkeytangle Frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora). I have been propagating these and creating a lawn of curated weeds in the front garden. I am very happy with my ‘lawn’ and the butterflies are loving it. TTFF hosts three different types of local butterflies.

The flowers:

Orange tubular flowers are Firebush (Hamelia patens); red and yellow flowers are ‘Lady Di’ Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum); white flowers are Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea).

It’s still summer here. The fall colors are not making me feel cooler.

Visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden for a whirlwind garden tour via vases.

In a Vase on Monday – Light My Fire

I must have been inspired by Cathy’s “Hunk of Burning Love” vase a couple of weeks ago when the title popped into my brain. I admit to loving The Doors and their iconic song “Light My Fire” from (gasp) 1967. This song has been haunting my consciousness for decades. I guess it’s the organ solo. My garden seems to be reflecting the mood, producing fiery flowers as summer winds down.

Some close ups, sans Jim Morrison.

I have been enjoying cutting Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum) this summer in all their flaming glory; two varieties here – ‘Lady Di’ in red and yellow and ‘Choconiana’ in orange. The big leaf in the background is a Split Leaf Philodendron (Philodendron selloum).

Orange tubular flowers are, appropriately, Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens); red flowers with blue tips are Aechmea miniata bromeliads. The blue vase was a gift I have enjoyed tremendously over the years.

That’s all this Monday morning from scorching South Florida. Follow this link RamblingintheGarden to visit Cathy and peruse vases via comment links.

Six on Saturday – Summer Delights

My garden walk-around this morning produced photos of a few garden delights that followed me to the kitchen. I picked the last of the Thai dessert mangoes and am down to eight ripening on the counter. I have also been making desserts, plotting desserts, making salsa and chopping and freezing bags of fruit. The Zin Master Zinnias have been beautiful producing flowers and really attractive plants. I have had a vase of these by the kitchen sink for a couple of weeks. For an international garden walk-around experience visit Jim’s blog, Garden Ruminations and follow the links in the comments section.

This weeks mango dessert. Mango-Blackberry Coffeecake. Nice and not too sweet.

The bitter end of the mango harvest. These are all Thai dessert mangoes, Nam Doc Mai. I think the reason these are not found in grocery stores very often is they go from not ripe to emergency chop and freeze in a matter of hours. The one on top is hitting the emergency point.

We are still in the kitchen. Admiring the Zin Master Zinnias. Thanks to SOS, I now know how long it takes from seed to flower. About two months.

Foliage on Zin Master Zinnias. I have cut all the flowers!

Back to the Bromeliad garden for some July fireworks. These are very reliable July bloomers. Aechmea miniata Bromeliads.

Another hot summer flower, Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) I have grown to love orange in the garden since moving to Florida.

More fruit, Rangpur limes coming along. These are orange when ripe and the juiciest limes I have ever encountered. There are at least 50 on the tree and these are very perishable, so I could be having another freezer festival late this year.

Happy Summer Gardening!!

In a Vase on Monday – Shrimp with Zin

The title would make one think I had been eating seafood while imbibing in red wine. Oh, how crass! I have not. I am not a big fan of red wine and drink white regardless. I have probably now surpassed crass.

The shrimp in the vase are Red Shrimp Plant and the Zin, Zin Master Zinnias. The zinnias are supposed to be a mixture of cactus and other types of zinnias, so far they all look like these, disappointingly regular zinnias. For some reason, these are the best looking Zinnia plants I have ever grown – so, maybe the other flowers will be more spectacular. I think I have twelve or so in big terracotta pots under planted with Blue Scaveola and chartreuse coleus. Hopefully another garden miracle in the making. Seed mixes are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get. Paraphrasing Forrest Gump.

Red Shrimp Plants (Justicia brandegeana) are a sort of pass along perennial in Florida. A neighbor gave me one about ten years ago. I regularly forget about it and it just keeps on going and flowering without a care in the world. It occurred to me I should root some for other areas of the garden I tend to forget about. It also makes a great cut flower.

A closer view:

The ‘Zin Master Zinnias with a little Red Shrimp below and some Licorice plant (Helichryseum) tendrils above.

Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) are the tubular orange flowers in the arrangement. The vase is a bromeliad leaf wrapped pickle jar from a couple of weeks ago. I left it as I was wondering if it would dry into something attractive. It is looking a bit like wood now, not quite dried out.

This Monday the garden is in similar shape to the vase, not quite dried out. We have been getting regular downpours and the plants are very happy. Of course, all the weeds are ecstatic. Summer fun.

To see more vases from Cathy’s international entourage of gardeners; visit Rambling in the Garden and follow the links in the comments.

In a Vase on Monday – L’ Estate

Decades ago (no need to discuss how many) I spent the summer in Cortona, Italy with an Arts Studies Abroad Program. This time of year usually causes me to reminisce about riding around on a bus listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and eating pasta. For the life of me I could not remember the Italian word for summer – L’ Estate.

Summer has dropped its full load on South Florida this week. The skies are black with thunderstorms this afternoon and we have had ‘feels like’ temperatures over 100 F this week. No need to discuss humidity, my husband refers to this as ‘Africa hot’.

The vase was done in all hot colors in honor of the arrival of L’ Estate.

The close up:

In orange, Firebush (Hamelia patens) sets the tone for the vase. A few bits of Licorice Plants are the grey, fuzzy foliage. Chartreuse foliage is from an unnamed coleus, the gift that keeps on giving.

White flowers to cool things down are from the White Geiger tree (Cordia boisseri); varigated foliage is from Piecrust Croton (Codieum varigatum) and a few Lady Di Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum) are in red and yellow. The vase is a florist orphan.

Sitting in an air conditioned space listening to Vivaldi seems like a really good idea right about now. Maybe for several months.

Visit Cathy at ramblinginthegarden to see what other gardeners are popping into their vases.

Happy Gardening!

In a Vase on Monday – Dillicious

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.