Category Archives: Perennials

Winter Containers for South Florida

Here comes the Work Shop

Here comes the Work Shop

My husband likes to work with his hands, when we moved to South Florida there wasn’t enough room in our house for a workshop so we had one craned it. The picture is the shop being lifted over the house..I’ll get to the containers in a minute.

The shop ends up looking a bit like a trailer but with some landscaping and a porch it fits in. These sheds are fairly common in South Florida, I have never seen them before – they are even built and attached to the ground to resist hurricanes.

The whole adventure left me feeling a bit like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Maybe in reverse.

After all this, my husband who has clearly been living with me too long decided he wanted some flower pots (containers if you are a landscape professional) on his shop porch. I put some containers together with the usual suspects last year sometime – yes, the annuals last that long here. It seems crazy to me as well. They last so long you get tired of them. When I lived further north I always did the containers twice a year, changed the colors with the seasons and enjoyed the variety.

Imagine my surprise when the old summer reliables, Bronzeleaf Begonias, rolled over and died in the summer heat. Time to revise thinking to plants that live in say, the Sahara. Pentas and Lantanas. I had gotten bored with Lantanas in Atlanta and really still am, they just smell funny. If I want fragrance, that is so not it.

The Lantana and Pentas were pooping out so I was trolling around in our yard to see what I could find to replace the spent annuals. One of the fun things about living in Florida is you never know what you might find growing in the yard. Boston Fern grows wild in the side yard so I dug a start of that and then found some Purple Wandering Jew (Zebrina), a Burgundy Bromeliad and an unknown groundcover Bromeliad (from a garage sale) that needed to be divided  and added them to the ‘Florida Friendly’ (this is a Florida Extension Service sort of approved plant) chartreuse Sedum that was already in the pots. As an aside, who ever heard of a sedum that does well in partial shade – this does. Whatever it is.

Groundcover Bromeliad and Sedum

Groundcover Bromeliad and Sedum

Voila, a purple and chartreuse themed container garden. The Bromeliads seem to be perennial in containers – the big Burgundy one was divided from a container I have had on my front porch for a year or so – I started with one and now there are three in there. You just never know what you will find growing outside…

Newly planted containers

Newly planted containers

 

Advertisement

Bromeliads in the Hood

Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss

I did my weekend garden touring at the McKee Botanical Garden in Port St Lucie, Florida. This is a surprising gem of a garden located on 20 acres in a suburban neighborhood setting. One of the interesting things about this garden, it is maintained almost exclusively by volunteers and  is beautiful. And they have lots of Bromeliads. I have no clue what that is above but Dr. Seuss almost certainly would have loved it.

McKee Botanical Garden

McKee Botanical Garden

This is an island in the driveway at the  McKee Botanical Garden, the tree is a ScrewPine underplanted with Blanchiata Bromeliads and Green Island Ficus. Pretty cool.

More Bromeliad pictures from my travels:

Burgundy Bromeliad

Burgundy Bromeliad

I have seen numerous Burgundy Bromeliads around here. Guess what, the foliage is Burgundy and people will tell you they need some sun. Some being the operative word. These are, as far as I am concerned, in nearly full shade and flowering. I have some slowly frying in my front yard, am going to move them.

 

This is a bromeliad currently blooming in my neighbor’s yard. I think it is a Quesnelia-please comment if you know? I keep calling these Quesadillas and it is making me crave Mexican food…

Quesnilla?

Quesnelia?

Tropical Ranch

I went on a mini garden tour yesterday to the Tropical Ranch Botanical Garden in nearby Stuart, Florida. This is a two acre garden owned by a local couple who are Master Gardeners; they live in the garden and open it every month or so.

The garden is beautifully maintained and available for events. Here are a few plants from my meander through the garden:

'Queen Emma' Crinum

This is a ‘Queen Emma’ Crinum – this plant is 5 or 6 feet tall.

Blanchietta Aechmea Bromeliad

Blanchetiana Aechmea Bromeliad

Another enormous tropical in bloom,  these are very popular around town and are available in Lemon, Orange and Raspberry. I am not sure which one this is but, I am guessing Lemon as the leaves have a yellow cast. The flower is almost 5 feet tall and out of this world. I have had these for a couple of years and mine refuse to bloom. One of the owners told me they used to have cows – maybe that is the secret.

 

Hala

Hala 

Hawaiians call this Hala, it is used for everything from hats to huts, not native to Florida it will grow here. Floridians tend to call this Screw Pine, not sure why, it seems odd – when I first heard the term I thought it was some weird tropical version of a Japanese Black Pine, not so. I have one in my garden, it is about 12″ tall, unlike this beauty.

And last but not least, another favorite, the Heliconia. I think it is some variety of Lobsterclaw. Another thing I am waiting for a flower from; I read the other day these shouldn’t be pruned or you cut the flowers off. That could be my problem – excessive pruning. But, the plant is seven feet tall. Gardening teaches patience, right?

Heliconia

Heliconia

Bromeliad update – Matchstick and Aechmea idon’tknowwhatitis

Pink Bromeliad

Pink Bromeliad

This is a close up of an Aechmea Bromeliad I bought two years ago. Totally pink and as weird looking as these things are sometimes. I used this in a an article that never got published. Being a cooperative plant it put out a pup and the mother plant died after hanging around for a while. I waited for the thing to bloom again and set in the ground in a relatively shady, sandy bed with some Bromeliad friends.

A month or so ago,  it started sending up a stalk -yes, it looked like a girl power corn cob.

Second Generation Pink Bromeliad

Second Generation Pink Bromeliad

I am calling this Aechmea idon’tknowwhatitis because the guy I bought it from did not know either. And there are a zillion of these things and from this I guess that they are not clones from the mother plant.

Here is a close up of the flower from Second Generation

Pink and Yellow Bromeliad

Pink and Yellow Bromeliad

Curiouser and curiouser, this flower just stays pink and yellow and has been around for a couple of weeks now.

An additional Bromeliad note, the Matchstick Bromeliads I planted in nearly full sun have all burned up with the exception of one that looks great. So, take the ‘this one likes the sun’ advice with a grain of salt and try a little shade.

Spider Lilies – Hymenocallis latifolia

CAM00329

There was this clump of what I thought was overcrowded Amaryllis in a planter in my front yard that the landscaper dug up for me. The bulbs were so crammed in I couldn’t dig them out. So after Jon gave me a bucket full of bulbs, I separated them and spaced them out at 2′ on center in the front of a long bed in my backyard sometime last summer. There are probably at least 50 of these now.

I have been waiting for two years to see what kind of Amaryllis I had found in my front yard; come to find out it is not an Amaryllis at all! This spring I kept going out to check because I was waiting for a gigantic mass of color from the Amaryllis. Then June came around and I decided maybe the bulbs hadn’t been in the ground long enough. When I spotted this flower in my backyard, I recognized the genus from having Peruvian Daffodils in Atlanta. They were not quite cold hardy there, but similar to this with a creamy yellow color. Not quite sure what I had blooming, research was started on the plant, I found that this is a Florida native hardy in Zone 10 and 11. The advice was given to plant a single bulb 3 or even 5 feet apart so the clump would grow together. The next bit of advice I encountered was that the Dreaded Lubber Grasshoppers loved to eat them:

CAM00333

The Lubber was dispatched shortly after the picture was taken – 5 of his friends had been in the Lilies before and had eaten the first flowers..I may be having a Spider Lily sale soon as I planted at least twice as many as I should have.

The Sustainable Garden: Perennial Thoughts

I perennially have thoughts about flowers. In terms of sustainability I am not sure the native ones are always best. Many of the natives are simply weeds with attractive flowers or characteristics we like. I have a deep respect for Black Eyed Susan from a previous experience – as in being nearly overrun by them. I used to live in their native habitat and had bought some “improved” Goldstrum Variety and they bolted back to their native selves and then ran amok on a well drained sunny hill. A recipe for landscape disaster. As beautiful as they were in full bloom, it took a long time to get rid of the Black Eyed Susans. I could not cope with their joyful abundance anymore. So easy on the natives and seek those that do well in your climate without too much water and too much abundance. Easier to take care of and maintain.

In South Florida irrigation is a big deal. We have a rainy season and a dry season. While there are many native plants this is a tropical climate and some of them can go wild. I have found some escaped houseplants in my yard going wild. Mother in Laws tongues is an invasive species. Many plants commonly grown here will not survive without irrigation. I chose not to irrigate my entire yard to save water and to save my sanity. The areas in lawn and vegetables are irrigated; areas with lower water perennials are drip irrigated and I have some unirrigated low maintenance areas that I still want to plant with beautiful perennials. I am just looking at things a bit differently. So, I am paying close attention to who I am inviting to live in my garden.

Beach Sunflower

The Beach Sunflower from Wikipedia

I am about to plant some Beach Sunflower in an unirrigated portion of my garden, I live on a sand hill and these are native to our area – I believe if I planted them in an irrigated area I would be overrun in short order. So, it is time for some more garden experimentation. The Beach Sunflower is going to look great with the existing Blue Agave, Red Martin Bromeliad and Painted Fingernail Bromeliad. Eventually providing shade is a native Gumbo Limbo tree; if that doesn’t get you in the mood for a Margarita nothing will. All these plants are extremely drought tolerant and will survive without regular irrigation. The Gumbo Limbo and Beach Sunflower are native, the Blue Agave is from Mexico, and the Martin and Painted Fingernail Bromeliads are Neoregelia type Bromeliads that originated in South America.

Painted Fingernail Bromeliad

Painted Fingernail Bromeliad

 

Martin Bromeliad

Martin Bromeliad

Blue Agave

Blue Agave

It seems strange to me that Bromeliads, in my mind a rainforest plant, would thrive in the sun with little supplemental water, but they do. The Painted Fingernail Bromeliad is a passalong plant around here and I have seen large masses of it planted around mailboxes on the side of the road. A great example of a not native plant working in a sustainable way. The result of my selection of plant material is an evergreen perennial bed that blooms or provides year round color while being very drought tolerant and using very little fertilizer or maintenance.

Sustainability is about more than native plants – it is about selecting the right plants.

 

 

 

Sisal Agave – Agave sisalana

I always enjoy learning a new plant. Especially an interesting one.

Sisal Agave
I see these huge, somewhat unattractive Agaves around and had been wondering what they were. While searching for an ID of another Agave a friend gave me, this one popped up. The Sisal Agave. The photo above is taken on an undeveloped lot. The Agave in nearly 5′ tall and wide and not very sharp, aesthetically or needle wise.

I learned this is the source of sisal; a common fiber used to make rope, twine, rugs, textiles and even dart boards. Sisal is named for the Port of Sisal on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. Botanists seem at odds over the origins of the Sisal Agave but Mexico seems the most likely place to me.

Reading further on the Sisal Agave I found that it was brought to the Florida Keys for cultivation in the 1800’s and like many other horticultural oops we have here it escaped and became an invasive plant. Hence its appearance on a vacant lot.

Sisal is picked a leaf at a time stacked and then processed with a device called a raspador, a rotating wheel of knives that beat the fiber out of the plant. This device seems like something that would be used in the plot of a James Bond movie. I can image Goldfinger with the raspador over James Bonds’ head, threatening him at a Sisal plantation hiding a secret Soviet installation.

Of course, James Bond would use the rope to kill Goldfinger and then escape by swinging over the river while saving a nearly naked glamourous nuclear scientist. 

I guess everybody needs a little Sisal.

Cure for the Summertime Blues

My cure for the Summertime Blues are the Tropical Blues. I have seen loads of photos of Blue Hydrangeas from further north; while I miss the Hydrangeas, I never had tremendous luck with them because I gardened in dry shade – which is only conducive to Oakleaf Hydrangeas. I do miss those Oakleafs. Here is my best Blue Hydrangea ever. Not very impressive.

Blue Hydrangea Bud

Blue Hydrangea Bud

Down here in the hinterlands, I have Tropical Plumbago:

Blue Plumbago

Blue Plumbago

This is an interesting shrub; it arches to about 4 feet, then drops to the ground and roots so it is sort of a creeping shrub. I used these in pots as a summer annual further north and underplanted them with Blue Daze:

Blue Daze

Blue Daze

Blue Daze Evolvulus is a perennial here. Which still seems weird to me. I have a mass of this in my front yard that blooms nearly continuously, but only in the morning.

My final suggestion for curing the Summertime Blues, the Blue Agave:
Blue Agave

This looks like a Tequila Agave but is not. I think you could make tequila or perhaps, Mezcal out of this plant, but it is a long and involved process and it really has to be done in Mexico. So, have a Margarita and toast the last month of Summer.

Orchids in the Orchid Tree – Cattleyas and Bauhinia

Cattleya Orchids in Hong Kong Orchid Tree

Cattleya Orchids in Hong Kong Orchid Tree

This is the current scene above my neighbor’s mailbox. A flowering Cattleya Orchid she installed in the crotch of a Hong Kong Orchid tree. A delightful welcome to the driveway or mailbox.

I would say the Cattleyas are probably 3 feet in circumference and nestled in the center of a semi multi trunked Hong Kong Orchid Tree. The flowers are pink and white, fabulous and slightly fragrant; it should be noted that there are some really fragrant Cattleyas that can be used in this way. The Hong Kong Orchid tree is looking as good as possible for a Bauhinia so the Cattleyas are the star of the show.

The iambic pentameter or whatever hadn’t occurred to me when I started this post – Orchids in the Orchid Tree. Where’s an English teacher when you need one?…maybe it is alliteration? In my experience, English teachers were generally offended by my writing so somewhere, somebody is feeling unhappy about comma faults – my specialty. I was nearly kicked out of the University of Georgia for my comma faults; my solution to stay in college – semi-colons! And it worked! I have a college degree and am still here offending innocent people with my punctuation. I can only wonder how many good, interesting writers were sidelined by English teachers. Carl Sagan comes to mind:Billions and billions. Ms. Ford, if you are still out there, I am published and somebody paid me!!

I digress, my neighbor offered a start of these Cattleyas to me and I enthusiastically accepted. I have a good sized Banyan Tree asking for some Orchid company. Research (and my neighbor) tells me that you need a rough barked area, then apply some sphagnum moss, add the orchid and tie it to the tree with string. Water until established and …Voila.

Orchids in the Orchid Tree…

Cattleyas

Cattleyas

Yellow Butterfly Ginger – Hedychium flavum

Yellow Butterfly Ginger

 

This is the Yellow Butterfly Ginger as opposed to Ginger Lilies or White Butterfly Ginger. I can’t recall exactly where this came from. I had some Ginger Lilies a very old lady gave me in Atlanta, but I was afraid of importing those to South Florida for fear of being overrun. So, I left the Ginger Lilies in my garden in Atlanta, I think the new owner built a pizza oven over top of them. This particular lady who gifted me the Ginger Lilies identified the plant by the fact that the root looked like an old shoe.

Back to Florida, this very fragrant plant started to bloom last week and to me it smells like a really intense Honeysuckle. Very pleasant. I had to search a bit to figure out what Ginger this is exactly. I finally decided it was Hedychium flavum based on the identifying feature of hairy leaves and yellow flowers. The flowers start out white with yellow centers, then the whole flower turns creamy yellow by the end of the day. I hadn’t realized the leaves were hairy until now.

The plant is about 4-5 feet tall and lives in the shade of a good sized Banyan Tree. Almost everything I have read about these says they require a moist site. I live on a gigantic sand dune so there is no really moist area here, this is the closest thing we have to moist and it is working fine so far. The Ginger has been in the garden for about a year and has probably doubled in size and was evergreen through the winter. The foliage is kind of grassy and makes a nice backdrop for Bromeliads or Ferns. The roots look like reddish culinary ginger, but I have not had the occasion to eat any – they do not remind me of old shoes at all.

Culinary Ginger is a Zingiber as opposed to a Hedychium. This can be grown from roots bought from the grocery store.  I have tried this and ended up with a plant about 18″ tall and enough ginger for my husband to use in a Pumpkin Pie. While I am a devoted herb grower, I find buying ginger at the grocery store is best.