Summer Garden Update

I realized that I have not showed  the summer blooming in my garden for quite some time now while busy working on my new playground.

For places up north, August may mark the end of the summer, but here in South Florida, we still have several months more of hot and humid summer weather agead.

Agapanthus africanus, or Lily of the Nile is almost coming to the end of the season.  Bees love buzzing around its beautiful blue flower cluster.

Just like this skipper can not have enough of the blue Porterweed...

My rose corner has been looking sad under the south Florida's summer heat.  Occasionally they also bloom, but the buds are smaller than what they are in cooler weather, and quickly wilted even before fulling opening.    I am very happy to see some of flowers actually open to a good size, and stay there for a couple of days recently.  Thanks for the recent rainy days that brought the heat down a little bit.

Three different colors of Siam Tulip or Summer Tulip (Curcuma alismatifolia) were purchased right after I came back from China.  How delighted I was when I saw they were sold at the big box store since I have been looking for this for a while!  I currently put them in an almost full sun area.  I just read on the Internet that if they are planted in a partial shaded area, the flower could hold up to three months!  Sounds like I should move them soon!

This Datura metel (Devil's trumpet) has been flowering one after another in my newly opened side flower bed.

This Variegated Canna Lily 'Pretoria' has grown taller than me, and the new flower spike keeps shooting from the center of green/cream stripped leaves.

This milkweed still blooms beautifully even its leaves are the constant Monarch caterpillars' favorite food.

More flowers are thriving under Florida Sun... This dwarf Allamanda is almost growing like weed that I have to keep trimming all those branches that go over the boundary.

Vincas (or periwinkle) is another plant that don't mind Florida Heat. 

So are these zinnias... Zinnia is such an easy summer plant. Even it is considered as annual plant, but it self sows easily and the seedlings come back every year.  Except the first one that was given by my younger son this year, all others are coming from last year's volunteers.

Oh, take a look at this!  Looks like we will have some papayas ready to harvest soon!  This tree's leaves all became crispy brown after our January freeze, now it not only bounces back, and also bears the fruit.  How wonderful the nature is!

Summer is a wonderful season for the plants. even this gardener may prefer the cool weather.  I still enjoy what summer has to offer to bring the different colors to my garden.

Left For A While, Garden Gone Wild

Having come back from my three week vacation in China for three days, while still adjusting the 12 hour time difference, I have started working, both on my daytime job and garden...

When I arrived home from the airport around mid-night, the first thing I did was examining my garden!  :)  Of course, I really could not see things clearly in the dark, but overall I knew the garden looked fine in my absence.  After a good night sleep, I headed back to the garden again the next morning.  All I can say is my garden just gone wild!

All ornamental sweet potato vines grew so much that extended to the ground beyond the container or the bed border, even I trimmed them to almost the base before I left! 

I have love and hate relationship with these sweet potato vines since they do add very nice color and textures into the garden, and very good to fill the blank space too, but meanwhile they sometimes could get out of control. However, they are very easy to trim, so I think I still love them more than hate :)

The dwarf Allamanda just had several buds before I left, now they are in full blooming.  Obviously I planted the lantana bush next to the allamanda too close (no surprise to this gardener) that lantana is not growing very well.

This devil's trumpet (Datura) was just two feet tall before I left, now it doubled the height, and already had about five blooms. Too bad those blooms are already fading, but I see several more buds there, so I guess I will not miss the beauty when they are in their glory peak.  I started the devil's trumpet early this spring from the seed, and once it sprouts, it just took off so fast like weeds!  (Speak of weeds, do I need to mention how many weeds I found in my flowerbeds?)

Here is the zinnia that my younger son gave to me, which I showed to you before I left.  Now it is really thriving.  I love the color, and especially because it is coming from my boy!

This is another type of zinnia that came from self-sown seedling of the last year plant.  This type has larger size of the flower but not as prolific as the small type.

The marigolds also spreaded so wide that almost took over my Agaves/Bulbines flower bed.   The below picture is just one marigold, which will give you an idea how big this plant could grow, and I planted five of them in that small flower bed!  I need to do lots of trimming to recover the agaves and bulbines hidden under them.

Rudbeckia 'Tiger Eye Gold' is still growing nicely, although some dead-heading is needed...

Several more flower clusters showed up on my Agapanthus africanus...

I do have several casualties though...

Two pineapple plants that I started from store-bought pineapples last year died from crown rotting.  I think the water coming from my daily sprinkle system in addition to the rain was just too much for them.  Well, it is okay for me since I always can buy more pineapples and plant the heads again.  For some reason, pineapple is always so easy to rot, these are the forth and fifth pineapples died on rotting even long after they were established.

My only daylily also died (sobbing...).  Actually it was not looking good even before I left.  The leaves turned brown, but now the leaves are completely gone.  I am not sure if it is normal summer dormancy, or it is real dead?  Anybody can tell me?

I have been doing lots of trimming and weeding in my garden these three days, and now the garden looks back into the order, with some empty space left.   I also have been to the garden center twice, and bought six new plants already! ( I will show you later.)  Since I could not buy any plants in China (it is illegal to bring plants oversea), I just could not wait any longer to visit the garden center! Then of course, I won't come home empty-handed :)

I am glad that now I am back to my garden.  It just felt so good when walking around my own garden even I have visited so many beautiful places in China.  Nothing can be compared to my own garden.    I know that you all understand this statement, don't you?

Big "Thank you" to my friends who hand-watered my plants that sprinkle system can not reach or the sprinkle turns out not sufficient!

Thanks for all the comments that you made to my three auto-scheduled posts during my vacation!

I have taken lots of pictures in China, and will make several posts when I get my life back to the normal.


Have a great weekend!

Cool Blue

I love blue in the garden. Especially in the hot summer days, blue keeps me cool...

I have some blue flowers blooming right now in the garden. 

Blue daze, Porterweed and Mealycup sage are the ones that almost flower the all year long, maybe only stopped for a couple of coldest months.  I can count on them to add the blue into my garden. 

Blue Daze (Evolvulus)

Porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis)

Mealycup sage (Salvia farinacea)

Every time I pass by this new Tropical Lilac, I just can not help touching its velvet leaves, and smell its wonderful scent. 

Troipical Lilac (Cornutia grandifolia)

This year I moved some African Lilies from a deep shade area to a partial sun area.  The plants in the new spot are growing fine, but have not set the buds yet.  The following is the one that was left in the original spot, but got more morning sun than the ones I moved.  I hope next year I can get more of these beautiful flowers in my garden.

African Lily (Agapanthus africanus)

This plumbago has the true sky blue color, which is quite rare in the plant world.  Don't you love this beauty?  It is new to my garden. 

Plumbago auriculata

I planted blue and purple verbena intermingled in the front yard.  When they all bloom, it just looks so lovely.

Verbena

Hope you are all having a good summer sunday, and keeping cool...

A New Gardener's Confession

For those who visit my blog regularly, you might have noticed that I have not posted anything for about one week now.  Although I can not say this won't happen again, at least it is not very common since I started my blog about four months ago.   The only thing I can say is that I am feeling a little down about the garden recently...

While almost all other gardeners are celebrating the leaping growth that the warm weather brought to their gardens, my garden seems not happy with the South Florida hot humid weather.   When I do my daily walk through my garden, there are hardly something that can catch my eyes in an exciting way.  On the opposite side, I often find something disturbing...

Now when I muse it over, I think most of these disappointments come with my new gardener label... Lack of experience, planning, knowledge, and patience are four things this new gardener is not shy to admit.

Before I started my love affair with the planting one year ago, I hardly had any experience. The little experience I had was growing some vegetables and a handful of flowers in the containers when I lived in my previous house.  Among those flowers, I managed to kill several orchids by over watering and putting them under the direct sun. During my younger years in China, my family lived in small apartment in the city with no land at all.  The only time I had more close touch with the land was when visiting my grandparents in the countryside during the summer vacation.  But even then, I never personally grew anything.

I thought I am not too bad of a planner.  However, when coming to the gardening, I found the planning needs to be made and acted on one or even two seasons before.  Like for spring flowers, I should have sowed seeds in the fall.  For some perennial plants, I should have trimmed them earlier so that they can flush now.  For winter annual plants, I should have replaced them with the summer annuals before the intense heat hits. 
As a result, I ended having some bare spots in the garden after the winter annuals melted down to the ground, and some tired-looking perennials like the pink pentas in the front yard.

Or geraniums that might not be able to stand the summer heat even it is still blooming (barely).... The flower dries up even before fully opening.

I know all of these can be quickly fixed by a few trips to the nursery, and shrinking the wallet a little bit more.  But I do wish I had planned better...

Lack of knowledge is another thing that constantly hits me recently.  I realized that a gardener not only needs to know the plants themselves, but also the environment around them, which includes bugs (good and bad), soils, and etc. 

When I bought the milkweed, I only knew this is a plant that butterflies love, and I LOVE butterflies!  The thing I didn't know was  that the Monarch caterpillars love its leaves too!  So imagine how horrified I was when I found seven of these fat Monarch caterpillars nibbling my only young milkweed leaves!  Only this time, I learned  from the lesson of hornworm on my angel's trumpet, so I did not remove them.  After searching over the Internet, I quickly found out these are the Monarch caterpillars.  I decided to leave them alone, and only one day later, my milkweed had nothing but bare sticks!  Now those hungry caterpillars started chewing the stems!  I do hope my sacrifice can yield some beautiful Monarch butterflies visiting my garden.  The only thing I am not sure is if my plant will ever grow back, or even blooming again? 

Last but certainly not the least, lack of patience...(did I say that?) .  They say the patience is a virtue.  I know lots of my anxieties came from the lack of patience.  I expect if I did what the book told me to do, the plants should flower or grow perfectly just like what they show in the garden magazine.  Now I knew there might be so many failures before you can get to that stage.

Do you still remember not long ago, I was proudly showing off the new Princess Flower (Tibouchina lepidota)  I got as part of Mother's Day gift?  Well, I have to tell you sadly that it just died on me early this week after three week life in my garden.  It just happened so quickly.  One day I came home after the work, I saw it lost all leaves, and the branches turned to brown.  I tried to water more often, but there was no use. 

Oh, how I miss those delicate purple flowers!

I know the gardening is all about trial and error, especially for the beginners.  So, I won't let all these disappointments hold me down.  Like what they said: "There is always a next year!"  So this weekend, after I spit out this confession,  I will spend some time to do some clean up, and then move on with a new spirit!!! 

Here are something in the garden that brought the smile to my face ...

Hibiscus

I got this Variegated Devils Backbone (Euphorbia tithymaloides 'Variegatus') after our January freeze with good discount since it had some leave damages.  Now it recovers pretty well.  I planted it in front of the hibiscus.  The orange and the variegated leaves contrast quite nicely.  Don't you think?

Variegated Devils Backbone (Euphorbia tithymaloides 'Variegatus') with Hibiscus

I can not help snapping pictures every time I pass by this Double Delight Rose bush!

This Dipladenia pink is my all time favorite in the garden, never failed to add the color into the garden.

Dipladenia pink

Caladium bulbs start popping up out the ground!  Should have planted more!

Caladiums

These two double layer Kalanchoes are my delightful surprise.  I thought they are cold weather bloomers.  So, after they finished blooming, I just stuck them into a shady corner.  See what I found this week!

Kalanchoe

These purple/blue verbena flowers really bright up the front yard flower bed.

Verbena

My first African Lily (Agapanthus africanus) bud of the year!

First African Lily (Agapanthus africanus) 

More Needle Flowers are showing up from this little plant.

Needle Flower (Augusta rivalis)
Family: Rubiaceae

Garden creatures are definitely enjoying this weather...

Brown Anole flashing its dewlap

Dragonfly on rose bud

White Peacock Butterfly

 Have a great weekend!