Category Archives: Tropical gardening

In A Vase on Monday- Corsage Ready

20180909_153340-1Gardenias always remind me of corsages. My mother, for some inexplicable reason, wanted a Gardenia wrist corsage when I married-unfortunately, it was April and no Gardenias could be found. She settled for Orchids. Non wrist at that.

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These are Tropical Gardenias (Tabernaemontana divericata). The fragrance is not as strong as Gardenia jasminoides, but similar. This particular one is about 10 feet tall and I have been slowly reclaiming it from the blob of plant material that separates me from my favorite neighbor. The blob is a professional term I learned while in design school at The University of Georgia. One of my professors is probably feeling a really bad vibe right about now.

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My favorite neighbor also shared her big white Cattleya Orchid with me. Never one to struggle with convention, I installed it on a tomato cage hoping for an Orchid tower in the garden outside my Living Room window. I have been rewarded with three huge buds and am hoping for another corsage ready vase next week. Wrist band optional.

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In A Vase on Monday – Gift Bag from Zeus

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Zeus, I am told, is the Greek God of Rain. He gifted my garden with several gentle showers this week. I, in turn, was rewarded with flowers from my thirsty garden. The glass handbag was a thrift store find I happily filled with flowers.

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The white flowers are Bridal Bouquet Frangipani, made especially happy by the rain and flowering in earnest. I cut these to use in arrangements as they are very prolific, but a bit different in form from other Frangipanis that tend to be small, deciduous trees. These are a little more than a foot wide and planted to screen my neighbor’s fence. The fragrance is subtle, first thing in the morning when the dew is burning off the flowers – the scent (in front of my garage) divine. The foliage is also semi evergreen.

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The rest of the flowers are:

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From the left side: in red and yellow Parrottflowers (Heliconia psittacorum); in orange, Mexican Bush Honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera); pink are Rain Lilies (Zephyranthes, no clue on species, but another Greek God); red flower, Miniata Bromeliad (Aechmea miniata, from last week). A few of my favorite indestructible ferns for accent.

Happy Gardening and I hope Zeus is kind to all gardens this week.

In A Vase on Monday – Summer Surprises

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Every gardener gets a few surprises. Some are better than others. I have been doing a lot of design work lately, hence the funky picture.

My summer surprises have been the good kind and primarily pink this week.

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The Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet) is in the pink champagne bottle a friend left after a holiday celebration, these are reported to flower three times a year – this is the first year for a second flowering, surprising me.

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In the grey round vase, it seems the Garden Gods have rewarded me with a Pink Cactus Dahlia, not.  My Dahlia quest continues.

This is one of my ubiquitous $5 garage sale finds. No one knows what the Bromeliad is or where to plant it, but one can be had for $5. For five bucks I got a wonderful surprise and there are pups. I think it is a Aechmea ‘fasciata’  variety- please let me know if you recognize it.

The leaves are from a nearby Sweet Begonia ( Begonia odorata)

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The third vase has the survivalist pink and chartruese Alabama Sunset Coleus I had lost hope for and pink and white (yes) Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea). Another surprise.

My biggest surprise this week was the hatching of the rare Atala Butterfly in my Coontie (small shrubby palms)

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In A Vase on Monday- Fruitless Effort

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The big leaf in this vase is from my Papaya tree. Papayas are easily grown here, the time from planting seed to picking fruit can be as little as 9 months. But, it’s always something in the garden. I like Hawaiian Papayas, smaller like pears, pink flesh and sweeter than their bigger cousins from the Tropical Americas. I planted some seed last year from a Hawaiian Papaya I had eaten, numerous seedlings came up and I selected three to plant in the garden. Hurricane Irma took out two and I was left with one reasonably good looking tree. I was elated when it flowered recently and then nothing happened, raisin like bits fell out when the flowers were finished. Turns out seedling Papayas can be male, female or both. This one is female, so fortunately I was able to buy a self pollinating Papaya that should pollinate both trees. Next year sometime. Maybe.20180708_104558-1

Joining the Papaya leaf in the arrangement are: in white, lower, Bridal Bouquet Frangipani (Plumeria pudica); in white, upper, Sweet Almond (Aloysia virgata); orange tubular plants are our native Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens); in red and yellow, Parrottflowers (Heliconia pssitacorum); at the top a few stems of Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea).

A closer view:

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Here is the Papaya tree:

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To view Papaya free vases from the world over, visit our hostess, Cathy at https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/.

In A Vase on Monday – Tropical Serendipity

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The rainy season is in full swing in my garden. Heat and humidity rule the great outdoors. The truly tropical plants love it and are starting their summer show. Two out of the four plants in the arrangement just appeared in the garden, I am not sure this ever happened in my previous garden, serendipitous shrubs and perennials placing themselves perfectly – garden karma. Patience rewards the gardener, I suppose. I rarely pull anything out unless I am sure it is not welcome.

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The white flowers in the arrangement are Bridal Bouquet Frangipani, the red and yellow are Parrottflowers (Heliconia psittacorum). I planted both of these and they are finally recovering from the double whammy of Hurricane Irma and mid thirties (Fahrenheit) temperatures in January. The other two just appeared. I have embraced the Asparagus Fern for use in arrangements, a better filigreed texture cannot be found and  it is the perfect foil for the coarser tropical flowers. It grows under some shrubs in my Rainforest garden. The red plant is a Java Glorybower (Clerodendrum speciosis), I cut one of these last year and dumped it out beside my front porch – where it rooted perfectly centered on an 8 foot peach colored blank stucco wall. If I had tried to do that it would not have worked. The shrubs grow about six feet tall and I am looking forward to seeing it in its glory. bower. There are Orange Bird of Paradise in front of these. Mother Nature is wise.

On the butterfly front, I have a chrysalis in my herb pot. The Swallowtails have nearly consumed the Parsley. In the picture you can see young and old caterpillars and a green chrysalis. It seems it take weeks for the Butterfly to emerge…

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In A Vase on Monday – In the Pink

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‘In the Pink’ seems to be a fairly old phrase, used by Shakespeare in ‘Romeo and Juliet’. As far as the color goes, I usually prefer deeper shades not being much of a ‘girly girl’.

These days I am feeling much more ‘In the Pink’ as I have finally recovered from too much surgery and my garden is feeling pinker as well.

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This crystal vase, a wedding gift from a dear friend is pulled out of safekeeping to hold the biggest, funkiest tropical plants from my garden. All these flowers have a bit of weight to them and need a heavy container to prevent arrangement failure. The arrangement is nearly 3 feet (one meter) tall.

The centerpiece yellow and pink woven plant is a Bromeliad of unknown origin, purchased to write an article about container planters (by request) for my usually ill fated ventures with our local media. I have vowed to cease this practice. The white, yellow and pink flowers are Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet). Foliage rounds out the vase with Asian Sword Ferns, long red leaves from Blanchetiana Bromeliads and a Banana leaf in the back.

Here are some progress pictures of my garden as it slowly works it way ‘Into the Pink’.

Just for fun, here is a before picture of the garden I am working on. I characterized the before landscape as ‘beach with weeds’.

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The pathway under construction

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Path (concrete stepping stones and crushed shell) installed. On left burgundy, silver and green Bromeliad border and irrigation going in. The right side is a mixed tropical border of red and burgundy with touches of pink and silver. Part of the idea for this garden is to place large leaved plants around the windows to create a view (from inside) into the tropical Rainforest. I moved some big Heliconias last week into the viewshed and they promptly turned yellow. Still fine tuning the irrigation.

Hopefully in the pink soon.

Sunshine Mimosa

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This Monday’s vase had two Sunshine Mimosa flowers in a tiny purple vase. Several people commented on the flower, so I decided to write a post about it.

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Sunshine Mimosa (Mimosa stringillosa) is a flowering groundcover native to Florida. A member of the Mimosa genus, it is sensitive to touch and closes its leaves when touched. It produces pink powderpuff flowers during the spring and summer months. The flowers are 4-6″ tall and rise above a green, ferny foliage that creeps along the ground on thick brown stems. I would characterize this as semi evergreen, the foliage fades a bit during the cooler months.

This plant is touted as a drought tolerant, native substitute for lawns and it is usually raved about growing beautifully in full sun. I have Sunshine Mimosa in two places in my garden. It is thriving in the area with partial shade and no irrigation, producing flowers that are a much deeper color. I have it in a larger area in my native pollinator garden – the butterflies do enjoy the flowers, but if this is what people think lawn should look like I will take the faux, recyclable lawn.

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This area is irrigated, mulched, and fertilized in full sun. I am hoping it fills in a bit more over the summer and am planting some other flowering annuals in the mulch islands in the planting. The Mourning Doves ate the first round of Cosmo and Zinnia seeds I planted, seems like they were gleefully gathered nearby looking for cocktail nibbles and spied me planting seeds. Another drawback to the plant is its growth habit; The foliage is borne on runners that are so strong they can get caught around your foot and trip you.

Especially if you been having cocktail nibbles in the garden.