A simple summertime vase of tropical flowers. Step back and it looks like bunches of bananas. Or, depending on your flight of fancy, a flock of parrots. This is a mason jar filled with Heliconia psittacorum, common name, Parrotflowers. A favorite perennial in tropical gardens, these can run rampant when in their happy place – at my house beside the front porch suits them perfectly.
A closer view of the Heliconias accented with their own foliage. I covered the rim of the mason jar with a band of varigated bromeliad foliage – channeling my mother “because it just looked tacky.”
That’s all from the doldrums of summer dog days in South Florida. To view more temperate vases follow this link to Cathy’s garden.
My Saturday morning garden tours always bring a few surprises, happy and sad. I discovered my first Avocado! And I missed some bromeliad flowers. Oops. I found a few other things along the way to share with my fellow SOSers. Follow this link GardenRuminations to visit Jim’s blog for a Saturday morning world garden tour.
TaDa, the avocado. This is a Cuban or Catalina Avocado, a pebble textured, green skinned avocado. It should be the size and shape of a football (the American kind) when ripe towards the end of the year. Fingers crossed I get to eat it.. A friend grew this from seed and bought the seedling to me in 2016 – it takes a while to get fruit. A rare self pollinating, true to seed avocado, these are native to Cuba.
These are summer Florida avocados my neighbor picked at a friend’s house. This type is the result of many crosses between Central American avocados and available in several skin colors. The black ones are especially good. Guacamole is in my future. Food forests do exist!
Fruit on the White Geiger tree, These eventually turn white and are enjoyed by wildlife. Supposedly edible, but not tasty.
Another invasive lizard. The red headed Agama. UGH.
The Bridal Bouquet Plumeria (Plumeria pudica) hedge is flowering.
One of the most reliable summer flowering perennials in my garden. The Firecracker plant (Russelia equisetiformis)
That’s all from South Florida. Rain dances shall begin shortly.
The dog days of summer are definitely here. Sirius, the dog star, is reportedly in the sky July 3 – August 11 this year. Dog days last a bit longer in South Florida – through September at least. My dog, Fiona the greyhound, is enjoying baking in the sand until it gets too hot, then she looks puzzled. I am puzzled by how much she enjoys this!
I enjoy the small details in the garden that thrive in summer. Native Portulacas pop up everywhere. I keep some and pull many of them out as they are prolific reseeders. This one is called Kiss Me Quick (Portulaca pilosa)
Heliconias, true to their name, enjoy the heat. This is Heliconia psittacorum.
Our native Salvias (Salvia coccinea) flower readily with just a little water.
The Chicken Gizzard plant (Iresine herbstii) is showing its colors. I am wondering if I should cut it back.
The Zin Master Zinnias have been providing cut flowers twice a week. I have been enjoying these by the kitchen sink. Bringing the garden indoors is a Sirius pleasure.
That’s all from my garden this Saturday. To join the worldwide garden tour visit Jim at Garden Ruminations.
People do grow roses in South Florida. I just don’t have the stomach for it, imagining the black spot and fungal diseases is sufficient, thank you, no. I need plants that will beat the heat and humidity. The Zin Master Zinnias are in fine form this summer. I am cutting a few every day and admiring how long they last in a Vase. About a week.
Given the broad range of colors in the zinnias; I decided a simple treatment was best. A grey vase found at a thrift store filled with a rubber band secured bouquet of zinnias and a few sprigs of my inexhaustible supply of the invasive Asian Sword Fern.
The stars:
The zinnias definitely like to be outside more than I do!
I am enjoying my new crop of zinnias – ‘Zin Master’, planted in big terracotta pots. I have been cutting most of the flowers in hopes of getting actual long stemmed zinnias – something that has always eluded me, my zinnias are always very short in stature. These are the longest stems I have ever grown and have a wiry appearance that I like. I visualized this vase as a Zen Ikebanaesque arrangement with winding stems of zinnias intertwined with the Min – Miniata Bromeliads. It was not to be, the glass frog serving as a base was not up to the challenge of the weight of the flowers. I had to add rocks on top of the frog to keep everything upright. I ended up not having a very Zen flower experience at all. It is what it is. A soup bowl filled with flowers.
The Zin – ‘Zin Master’ Zinnias grown from seed started around the first of May. I am enjoying the color mix, but thought I would get some different types of zinnias. I guess these are semi-double something. I bought some Cactus Mix seeds this week to spice things up. I am not quite sure what will happen in mid July with seed starting. Always an adventure.
The Min. These are Miniata Bromeliads (Aechmea miniata). A reliable summer flowering shade perennial, if one can think of bromeliads as perennials. The tropical plants always twist my mind a bit in sorting out what they are – house plants, perennials, epiphytes, plain weird? The big green leaves in the back are from a coleus and the vase is actually a soup bowl.
That is all from South Florida this Monday. I’ll be seeking further garden Zen from Zinnias this week. Follow the link to visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden and see what’s appearing in other vases this week. Or soup bowls.
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.
This is the Fourth of July week and in celebration I decided to put together a red, white and blue vase with four different types of flowers. That might be too much math. It seems like something should add up to sixteen somewhere. Math was never my true calling.
July is being true to its nature. It is hot, humid and we are having frequent thunderstorms. The garden is well hydrated, I am picking mangoes daily and contemplating weeding. Not actually weeding, just thinking about it. As I was cutting flowers, I had a rather startling experience.
This is a good, non venomous snake. I am not sure if it is a Black Racer or an Indigo snake. Both eat all kinds of bad things including venomous snakes. I usually see them scurrying away. This is a first – one hanging out in the shrubs and waiting around long enough for me to get a picture. I am hoping he or she was eating invasive lizards.
The red in the arrangement is from the seasonally appropriate Firecracker Plant (Russelia equisetiformis); White flowers are from Bridal Bouquet Plumeria (Plumeria pudica).
Blue spike flowers are Mystic Blue Salvia and the white spikes are Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea). The airy flower buds and varigated foliage are from Dianella tasmanica or New Zealand Flax. A trimmed palm frond is in the back of the vase. The vase is a florist orphan.
Happy Monday from steamy South Florida. Visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden to visit less steamy gardens and see what has been plucked and plonked into a vase this week.
June has actually been very pleasant, all things considered. I am suspicious July will not be, the wet blanket of sweaty humidity has arrived and the second tropical storm of the season is predicted to form next week. High Summer in South Florida has arrived. The good news, we get great tropical fruit and flowers. The bad news, we have to leave the air conditioning to see them. For a grand summer (or in some cases winter) garden tour follow this link GardenRuminations to Jim’s blog and visit the comments.
I am picking mangoes every morning. So many that I have started freezing them and giving them away. I’m currently waiting for a ripe one to make mango blackberry pie. There are 3 different types of mango here – Nam Doc Mai, Thai dessert mangoes, long and green; Pickering mangoes are peach colored; one Glenn mango in the top middle. Mangoes should be picked as they start to change color and easily come off the tree and then ripened on the counter.
Tropical or Florida Gardenias (Tabernaemontana diviricata) are loving the summer heat and rain.
Turkey Tangle Frog Fruit (Phyla nodiflora) “lawn” is flourishing and flowering.
Sea Grapes (Coccoloba uvifera), a native tree that seemingly will grow anywhere is making tons of fruit and dropping it everywhere. I like the tree, but wish someone would come up with a fruitless one. This is food for wildlife, the fruit is edible and I am told it tastes like figs – but, it is mostly seed. One of my numerous greyhounds was the only household member to enjoy it.
Silver Urn Bromeliad (Aechmea fasciata) is almost in full bloom.
That is all from South Florida this Saturday. I went out and looked at the weeds, plucked a few, and came back inside.
It’s Saturday morning, as I was finishing my coffee hatching plans for my SOS post it started pouring down rain! After checking my trusty (ha!) weather app on my phone, it was suggested this was going on for quite a while. So, this Saturday we have views of what can be seen in my garden from the front and back porch without getting too wet.
The kitchen seemed like a good place to start. This is my first Thai dessert mango of the year (Nam Doc Mai). It is not quite ripe. It should have a fully developed peach color and floral fragrance before peeling and eating. I am finding it is a bit of a trick to pick and ripen the perfect mango. Sometimes they fall off the tree and it is okay, sometimes not. If picked too soon they don’t ripen at all.
Mango blueberry upside down cakes (pineapple as well) These are made with Glenn mangos from my other tree.
I am still at work on the Coleus tree. I pruned it back again this week. I think it might need a harder prune to develop a nicer top.
Turkey Tangle Frog Fruit (Phlya nodiflora) lawn is finally growing in. ‘Bossa Nova’ Neoregelia bromeliads in the foreground.
I have been waiting for this flower. Grown from seed. This is a Zin Master Zinnia. I thought it was going to be bigger! The plants are just huge and beautiful.
King of Siam Croton (Codieum varigatum). A new addition to the garden this spring, finally showing its coral spots.
That is my Six for this Saturday. Visit Jim at Garden Ruminations to see more SOS posts. I will be in the kitchen contemplating more mango desserts.
I put this vase together on Father’s Day, so it was very appropriate to use one of my parents wedding gifts as a vase this week. My parents married in 1950, I think these teapots must have been popular at the time. I remember this teapot sitting on the kitchen counter very frequently as my mother used it to brew tea for iced tea year round. A pink plastic pitcher of iced tea was a constant presence in my childhood. If you grew up in the Deep South, iced tea is the beverage of choice for lunch and dinner (or if you are really Southern, lunch is called dinner and dinner is supper)
The flowers in this vase wouldn’t make a tasty brew. I am fairly certain the Tropical Gardenias are toxic, but it might smell pretty good.
A closer view:
I have accepted a few (guffaw) wild grape vines as a fact of life in my garden. These are muscadines (Vitis rotundifolia) I think it would take a small thermonuclear device to get rid of all of them and then I would have to start over. Not happening. So I cut a few here and there, add some to a vase, make a wreath and feed wildlife. The Gardenias are Tropical or Florida Gardenias (Tabernaemontana diviricata); our massive rain event this week produced a wonderful flush of flowers.
Pink flowers in the vase are the bitter end of the winter annual Giant Dianthus. I am puzzling over what to do with it. Put it in a shady place and hope for a miracle or consign it to the compost heap? It is a dilemma. Light blue flowers are Blue Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata); deep blue spikes are Mystic Blue Salvia, the spikes are oddly shorter due to dry weather earlier in the summer. A few sprigs of chartreuse coleus and fuzzy grey Licorice Plant (Helichrysum) add color.
Thanks to Cathy at RamblingintheGarden for hosting this weekly event. Follow the link and find more vase enthusiasts from around the world.
The Shrub Queen 