It seems I always find a few things I want to add to the garden – in July. Not a great time for shipping plants to South Florida. I managed to control myself (a little) and bought a few new plants shipped from nearby. July can be a good time to plant things due to copious rainfall.

My garden tour this morning revealed a few other new things in the garden – one has already been eaten! Please join other SOS bloggers and their six items of interest at Jim’s Blog (Garden Ruminations) for more summer fun.

The Yellow Dragonfruit is once again teasing me with a flower. These are pollinated by night flying bats and moths. At this point I am not sure I have any of those in the garden. Usually I get some flowers for a short (hours long) period and they fall off. I thought I would try the paint brush around the inside of the flower and then looked inside.

The flower was loaded with insects doing more than I could ever hope for with a paintbrush. I’ll know in a week or so if there will be fruit.

The homegrown pineapple (on the left) was harvested and devoured. These pineapples are usually much smaller than the grocery store varieties (on the right) I am not sure why because they are grown from the tops of grocery store pineapples? The fruit is sweeter and juicier than pineapples from the store. Delicious.

These are new to the garden. I bought the cuttings of Reed Orchid (Epiprenum radicans). These can be grown in the ground here and are used as a groundcover. This one has orange flowers that look like dendrobium clusters, but they come in many colors. I put it in a terracotta pot to keep the rabbits away. It should take and creep over the sides of the pot and fill in the bed.

Meet ‘Absolute Zero’ Crypanthus bromeliad. These are shade lovers and should have pink flowers. The common name is Earth Star. I intend to put these in the ground near the Epiprenums. After receiving the plant I realized the sun needs to go down in the sky a bit before I plant them. A little too much afternoon sun currently.

A locally grown coconut. I bought this to bake a pie, without thinking through the fact that power tools are probably needed to open it and it is the wrong kind for baking coconut. Green coconuts have coconut water and jelly. Brown coconuts have the grateable meat for pies. Sigh. Both involve screwdrivers and hammer prior to use. They can be sprouted and planted in the garden – but I am not sure which kind.

That’s all from South Florida. There is a heat advisory in effect for the next couple of days so all gardening has to be done before 9 am. I am done!

Happy Gardening