Finally!

I love butterflies, and grow quite some plants that butterflies love.  But for some reason, up to recent months, I hardly saw butterflies visiting my garden.  The most popular one I saw was white peacock butterfly.  Even when I occasionally spotted some butterflies visiting my garden, I either did not have camera in the hand, or just not fast enough to got some good shots of them.

Fortunately, this past weekend, I had luck to see two butterflies in my garden, and out of more than a couple dozen of blurred pictures, I indeed had some worth posting.  Finally!

I started from one milkweed plant over one year ago. It serves as Monarch butterfly’s host plant, and often seen being chewed to the bare sticks.  Now this one plant has so many volunteered seedlings popping up from here and there.  I kept another four in the ground to let them grow since they are in good locations, the rest of them will be pulled out or given away.  I was excited to see monarch caterpillars on them early this year, and even more excited to see the monarch butterflies finally visiting my garden!  (Update:  Floridagirl pointed out that the below two images  are indeed Queen Butterfly, not Monarch butterfly.  Thanks, Floridagirl!)

This gulf fritillary butterfly actually landed on lots of my giant Zinnia flowers, but none of those pictures were coming out clear!  I ended only have this one on the hibiscus leaves.  Yes, I am asking too much, not only a butterfly, but also on a beautiful flower with a perfect steady pose for me??  I should not be too greedy!

Some other things going on in my garden. 

This desert rose (Adenium obesum) is always one of my favorites that requires little attention from me.  I often wonder why I don’t see many Florida bloggers post this plant since for me it is such a easy and beautiful plant, blooming almost year around, with Spring being its peak time.  I only brought them against the house wall in those below 40 days in the past winters, otherwise they are in the full sun all year long.  They really did very well in the past two winters even they are considered tropical plant.

The other day, I spotted two long bean-like things growing from the branch.  Those are actually its seed pods!  I actually already started some from seeds my friend gave me, and wonder how long it will take for them to bloom from seedlings. I will try to collect these seeds by wrapping a plastic bag around it, so that the seeds will not fly away in the wind when the pod pops open.

First Canna lily flower.  It is late this year, maybe I need give them a little more sun.

Several Dendrobium orchids are blooming again in my garden.  I often think I should have fertilized my orchids more often, but they still surprise me with flowers from time to time.  Maybe they will reward me more flowers if I feed them a little bit more?

I hang this one on the tree in the front yard, and now I can see four flower scrapes from far away every day I come home.

The following one was started from a cutting two years ago, and this is first time it blooms.  The original color is light purple, and I surprised to see now the flowers are in white with some purple in the center.

The one is called “Blue Fox Tail”, in my favorite blue/purple color!

Don’t you think these purple/blue colors are so soothing cool to the eyes in this hot hot summer days?

It Is Not Always Pretty

By no mistake, my gardening passion all started with pure admiration for the beauty. The endless beauty of the plant world gives me the great temptation that I can not resist.

With one short year of gardening experience, I also quickly learned that it is not always pretty around the garden, and that perspective is still the hard part for me to deal with. 

Like what I found on my new Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia) leaves...  I caught two of these in the act!  I used two sticks to grab these two big guys off before they could nibble away all the leaves. 

What is this?? Except eating the leaves, do they do any other harms to the plants?

Ugh!  The below one really grossed me off!!!   These are two leaves I took off from my Lantana.  There are more of these ugly leaves on the same plant.  

My fellow gardeners, please help me to identify this pest, and what should I do with it to save my lantana?

I experienced the same thing last year with the lantana planted in the same spot. I sprayed with fungicide, and seems did not do much good. The plant stopped blooming all the sudden. When this plant regrow its leaves after this past winter's freeze, I was glad that new leaves looked healthy, and it even quickly bloomed. I thought the freeze might have killed whatever that has bothered it. I guess I laughed too early, now the same nightmare came back again!

Ok, enough of the ugliness.  I need some beauty to help me calm down...  Here are some of flowers currently blooming in my garden.

Rose corner is still going strong although some leaves have started some black spots.  It seems not impacting  the blooms though...

Peace

Peace (with color variation)

Double Delight

Desert rose (Adenium Obesum) is blooming its heart out!  Some cluster contains more than 20 flowers, which made the branch so heavy that it bended down.

Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum )

These marigolds are the ones I started from seeds this year.

Marigold

These pink vincas are self seeded from last year's plants.  They grow like a weed without much care.

Vinca (Periwinkle)

New addition to the garden... Love the purple leaves and white flower combination.

Charmed Wine Oxalis

Ok, now I need to go back to think about how to get rid of those ugliness shown in the beginning...

Desert Rose -- Adenium Obesum

Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum)

I bought this desert rose in August last year, not long after we moved to the current house.  It kept blooming for months until the winter time. 

Here is how it looked like back in August last year.

August 2009

Some people grow the desert rose as house plant, but mine is in a full sun area outdoor.  It is said that it likes to be a little root bound, so I kept mine in its original 10 inch pot.  It seems quite happy in it even it has grown quite a bit now.  I then put the container in another decorative urn to hide the ugly plastic pot.

Here is how it looks like now.  I has grown about twice bigger since last August.  When it grows taller, the lower part of the leaves fall off.  The flowers then show in cluster at the new growth of the leaves, at the tips of the branches.

May 2010

The desert rose is an evergreen succulent native to the tropical regions of Africa and Arabia. It likes the hot humid weather of South Florida. 

I water it every other day in the summer, but maybe only once a week in the winter.  It should be brought indoor if the temperature drops to below 40.  This past winter, I brought it indoor only for those nights that close to the freeze point.  For other cold nights, I just kept it on the covered patio, close to the house wall.  It did just fine, and even started flowering as early as in February.

Now the weather has reached the optimum condition that this plant loves.  The recent heat and humidity has brought prolific blooming time of this plant!  Everyday I check it, it seems opening more flowers and have more buds on the way.

This is an easy plant to grow in Florida in my opinion. Except the water, I also put some slow released fertilizer in the container, that is about it. It seems have no pest problem so far. The only thing needs to be careful is not to over water it since it could cause root rot. I once tried to root a cutting. The cutting was able to grow one set of leaves, but it eventually died due to the root rot maybe because I watered a little bit too much than it needs, especially when the root system is not fulled developed.

I love the different shade of the pink on its flower petals, dark pink on the edge, and pastel pink in the inner side, and a touch of yellow in the center.  Sometimes it reminds of Chinese water color painting. 

Do you also grow desert rose in your garden?