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 husband may be wondering about my summer bromance (probably not). July is prime time for a Vase of my favorite summer bromeliad flowers, Aechmea miniata. To say this is a striking flower is a bit of an understatement. The flower is a nearly foot long panicle composed of what looks like red hot cinnamon candies accented with cobalt blue tips, it is a sight to behold. The plant has deep olive leaves with purple backsides and thrives in dry shade. I love it. Definite bromance here.
The plant in the garden:
A closer view:
An overhead view. The foliage accents are trimmed palm fronds from Sabal Palm seedlings (Palmetto sabal). The vase was repurposed from the florist.
Happy Summer Monday to all. To see more vases, follow this link RITG to visit Cathy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I begin to more fully appreciate the occupants of my garden near the front door as summer embraces my garden in full heat and humidity. Embraces may be too delicate a word, bringing the hammer down is more accurate. I enjoy these two ladies growing near my door in the garden and in a vase this Monday.
Miss Alice Bougainvillea in white and Lady Di Heliconias relish the heat and don’t even break a sweat being beautiful in summer. Both of the ladies have the ability to flower year round but seem to enjoy the summer most for showing off. I did not realize Miss Alice was a big bract (?) Bougainvillea until I was researching who Alice might be.
Miss Alice in full glory. Who Miss Alice is remains a mystery.
We were hoping for some rain this week in Central and South Florida after a droughty spring. If the predictions are right we will have a full season’s worth of rain this week. Seven to twelve inches is forecast. I guess I can put up the hose for a bit.
Lady Di Heliconias (Heliconia psittacorum) in red and yellow are nestled in a frond from a Sabal Palm seedling.
Miss Alice Bougainvillea bracts and true flowers with a few sprigs of charteuse coleus. The vase was inherited from my mother.
That’s all from South Florida. We will be frying, steaming or sauteing in the garden this week. To see more vases visit Cathy at ramblinginthegarden
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.
Summer nights in South Florida can be wonderfully fragranced in the garden. I collected a vase of fragrant flowers to scent my house. Frangipani and Gardenia are two of the most popular and have been in my garden for years. I am thinking of adding a night blooming Jasmine.
I learned recently about the origin of the name Frangipani, the yellow flower above. It seems there was an Italian nobleman named Frangipani who made gloves. One of the features of his gloves was their scent, bitter almond. The gloves scent reminded many people of the scent of the Plumeria (Frangipani) and that became its common name. The botanical name, Plumeria, is in honor of King Louis XIV’s botanist, Charles Plumier. Plumier was a monk who traveled the Caribbean collecting tropical plants. Plumerias are native to Central America and the Caribbean. I always thought they were from the South Pacific and Frangipani was a Hawaiian word, not so much.
A closer view:
The yellow flower is Frangipani (Plumeria spp), I wish I knew the variety name, this one is very common around here as a pass along plant and develops into a nice small tree – if you know how to prune them, and I haven’t quite figured that out. Pink flowers are Giant Dianthus, I am expecting these to rollover and die any day now from the heat, but until then I will enjoy them. A chartreuse coleus leaf drapes over the edge of the vase along with Tropical Gardenias (Tabenaemontana diviricata).
A miniature pineapple adds a tropical punch; the white spikes are Sweet Almond Bush (Aloysia virgata), adding more fragrance to the vase. Asian Sword Ferns provide greenery.
No more fun facts from my wonderfully scented house. I actually picked the scented plants because I was cleaning the oven and things were getting smoky. The oven is beautifully clean now and all is well. Visit Cathy at ramblinginthegarden to see more vases.
It was a stormy Sunday morning, I dodged rain showers while collecting flowers in the garden. April is frequently the driest month of the year in my garden, desertlike this year. I was happy to see the rain and noted the change in flowers, the spring flowers are slowing down and the summer blues are appearing. This seasonal interlude is reflected in the vase.
This is another nicely fragrant vase. I have learned to appreciate basil flowers in arrangements this winter. Cutting the flowers adds a nice touch to vases and invigorates the plants to produce more foliage. I read recently that it is a good idea to cook with the flowers, but have not tried it. Dill flowers add another herbal note blending with spicy Dianthus and Agastache fragrance.
A closer view. The purple flowers are Agastache, which surprises me by growing here and seemingly in everyone else’s garden. This is my first year with them and they are in a container happily flowering. The smaller pink flowers are Heirloom Pentas (Penta lanceolata), which are common here and are a short lived perennial, usually available in pink, white and red and an excellent butterfly plant. The bigger pink flowers are Giant Dianthus, a cool season annual, beginning to bow out. Blue flowers are Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) a very common trailing shrub that just keeps creeping along and will grow up into trees. White spikes are basil flowers and chartreuse flowers are dill flowers. The silver goblet vase (with ample patina) is another odd heirloom from my mother. It leaks like a sieve and has to have a repurposed yogurt container inside to hold water.
I’m hoping for more rain this week and the outlook is promising. Unfortunately, rain brings humidity. On the bright side, the orchids will love it even if I don’t.
The Shrub Queen 