Early blooming of Daylilies and Other Things in the Garden

Since this is my first post of the year, let me first say "Happy New Year" to you all !!! Wish you have all the fun of the gardening in this new year!

Every year, from early Spring through the summer, I admire those beautiful pictures of Daylilies from other people's blog, wondering when I can own some of these beauties in my garden.

For some reasons, Daylilies are hard to find in South Florida.  Occasionally, the big box stores have some for sale.  I brought two home in two different times, and both died after the initial blooming.  I did some researches, and found out that among thousands of Daylilies, there are three foliage types: Dormant, Semi-evergreen, and Evergreen.  For people live deep South like me, Evergreen is the one that will survive our long-lasting hot weather.  No wonder I failed twice since those two were all Domant types! Then why they even sold them in the store since Daylilies are not supposed to be a one-time thing in the garden?!

Anyway, since I did not find any local nurseries to buy Evergreen Daylilies, I looked over the Internet.  I ordered 5 bareroot Evergreen double-fans from http://smokeysdaylilygardens.com/, and they arrived at the end of last October.

This week, two of them are already blooming! I am not sure if it is only because they are the early bloomers ( 'Lavender Silence' is labled as "Extra-early", and "Whooperee' is labled as "Early-mid" ), or also because of the mild winter we are having in South Florida.  Nevertheless, I am excited to see these beauties are finally finding a home in my garden!  If they all perform well after this summer, I think I will order more this fall.  With a small garden, Daylilies are the ones I can find some space to squeeze in.

Whooperee
Evergreen, early-mid, rebloomer, 6.5" flower, 24" scape height,  fragrant, recurved

Lavender Silence
Evergreen, extra-early, 6.5" flower, 22" scape height,  ruffled, fragrant, recurved

Other things going on in the garden...

This Rex Begonia is in a shady area, and recently started shooting up the flower scapes.  I bought it last year.  After one year, it has been growing nicely.  I have separated it into four plants.  I think after a couple of years, I can expand them to the whole border that surrounds the air conditioner area.  Even when it is not blooming, I love the texture of this plant.

Begonia

Love this combo in this part of flower bed.  White Vincas,  Orange Indian Blanket flowers, pink Pentas. That purple leaf plant with white dotted flowers is Alternanthera dentata 'Purple Knight'.  Some says 'Purple Knight' is kind of invasive, but I have not found it is a big problem for me.  It does have some seedlings, but only a handful I found so far.  I can easily pulled them out, or give them to the friends.  In the winter, they are full of those tiny white flowers, brighten the winter garden, and give us Floridians some snowy touch :)

Another combo I like:  White Angelonia angustifolia, colorful coleus, and blue Lobelia erinus Techno Heat.  This Lobelia is supposed to withstand the hottest summer temperatures while blooming nonstop.  I will see if it holds true to Florida heat as well.

My front entry is quite colorful this winter.  I removed some copperleaf bushes in the front, and put two cast iron cranes statues there together with some bromeliads.

This philodendron 'moonlight' behind the cranes statues started as a 3-in house plant from the big box store.  Oh boy, how much it has grown!  Wonder how much bigger it will get if I put it in the ground.

philodendron 'moonlight'

and I did not know it blooms as well!!!

philodendron 'moonlight'  bloom

Snapdragon flower is one of my favorite winter annuals...

Pertunia is perfect for containers.  Red is used to combo the white.

Purple petunia is in this container I have just redone, together with Flax lily and purple Verbenas.

Red and  white petunias are in this pot with 'Red Star'.

My most favorite red-white stripe petunia is in this container.

Orchids that are currently blooming...

The first is a Cattleya orchid gifted from my friend this Christmas.  Love this soft yellow.

This Moth orchid is reblooming the second time for me since I bought it one year ago.  I have special thing for any orchid flowers with dots. 

I recently purchased this Mini Oncidium Equitant from a big box store.  It has five flower spikes.  

It looks so pretty and fits well in the pot that my husband brought for me from China last year.

I am really enjoying my winter garden.  I have to say I am spoiled by this year's Florida winter.

One Year Blogversary and A Rain Splashed Garden

The 14th day of this month was my one year blogversary day.  I started a post draft a few days before that day.  The day came and went, and I did not get time to finish the post for the day.  Actually, struggling to find the time has always been the common theme in my one year experience with the blogging.  With only 79 posts to the day, obviously I am not a prolific writer, but how glad I am that I made it to my one year blogversary!

We had a good day of rain several days ago, which was much needed in my area.  I would like to present you some foliage and blooms in my rain splashed garden along with my one year blogversary rambling. 

Delicious Cordyline fruticosa 'Kiwi'

Hawaiian Ti is showing its bright pink new leaves of the season

As lots of my readers might have known,  English is my second language.  I know most of my blog friends can  flow their thoughts naturally through their flying fingers without the need to think about the grammar, spelling or the organization of the sentence.  For me, I need to look up the dictionary to make sure I am not saying something I didn't mean to. Not to mention the grammar, spelling or a common English saying. Although I tried to check as much as I can before I click the "Publish" button, I am sure there still have been lots of mistakes in my writing. Thanks to all my forgiving readers for the encouragement you have given me over the past year by reading my blog and leaving the comments!  I still could not believe my blog got nearly 7900 visitors from all over the world, and more than 21600 hits within one year.

Christmas Cacti

Together with the writing, it is also a year that I learned to take pictures of plants. I use a Cannon EOS Digital Rebel XTi as my viewfinder. I have to admit that I still have not read the manual yet. All of my knowledge about this camera are from my husband, who is the real owner of this camera since it was gifted to him several years ago. I really need to take some time to read the manual since I believe there are still something about this camera I am not fully taking advantage of. 

Snapdragons  (saved from the distressed rack in the big box store)

I never took so many pictures in a year, and 98% of them don't have people in it.  Thanks for the invention of the digital camera.  It made it possible for an amateur like me to choose a presentable picture out of numerous blurring, not well-exposed, or unbalanced pictures for my posts.  My family is now used to seeing me rushing out in the morning before work to capture some flowers in the soft morning sun.  Sometimes, I wonder what my neighbors think about me when they saw me in my apron taking pictures in the front garden during the late afternoon time. That was when I had dinner cooking on the oven, and wanted to take some pictures before sunset, and forgot I am still wearing apron!



Various bromeliads, one of my favorite collection in the garden!

Of course, the main driving factor for me to start this blog is to record my garden progress I started around the time we bought our house about one and half year ago.  It helped me to record my gardening lessons and fun as a beginning gardener. So many of you have endured my whining since very beginning, and shared the excitement and joy with me every time a new bloom was unfurled, a new plant was acquired and a new garden bed was opened. Thanks for all the tips and plant identification help you have given me along the way.  I guess many of you are now used to seeing me asking the questions in my post!


Loving this swan container full of double impatiens blooms!



Lemon Lime Warneckii is now blooming




Angelonia angustifolia

 Now one year has passed, and I definitely want to continue my blogging fun.  Please bear with me when I could not post frequently, response to all the comments you have left, or visit your blog and leave the comment as much as I would like.  I do enjoying reading every single comment you have spent time to write.   I felt I have made so many friends in this blogging world, and learned so much from all of you.   I deeply appreciate the help you have provided to me in various ways, and I know I am growing up both as a blogger and a gardener because of all of you precious readers and fellow gardeners.  Thanks for the continous support!

To end this post, I need to ask "the question of the post" :)  Could anybody identify the cultivar of the hibiscus I have in my header picture?  I got two cuttings over one year ago, and now they are both blooming.  One has been identified by Floridagirl at "Peace in the Valley" as "Jane Cowell", and the one in the header picture is still unknown.  Thanks!

Garden Odds

One walk in the garden  revealed some garden odds.

I started these Indian Blanket flowers (Gaillardia pulchella) from a seed packet this spring, and most of them came out just like what I expected.  Here is the odd I found on one of the plants:  The flower looks like two or three flowers connected together.   You can tell this from the flower head on the left,  that is not fully opened yet.

Here is one plant coming from the same seed packet, and is what I considered as "normal".

The other odd I found is on this yellow ground orchid (Spathoglottis).  Can you see a green seed pod hanging from the left bottom flower spike?  I did not see any other seed pods from my other ground orchids spreaded in the garden.  I was quite excited when I first saw the seed pod since that could mean I can propagate more orchids.  However, after I read further more, it seems not an easy task since the orchid seeds require some special fungus to germinate which might only be possible in a lab environment.  My best bet could be sowing the seeds directly on the base of the mother plant since the mother plant might have those needed fungus for the seedling.   I will try this way once the seeds mature.  If I ever succeed, I will give an update later.

Speaking of the ground orchids, the ones located in the partial shade area are still blooming strong, new spikes are still rising up.   The ones in the more sunny area are not performing as well, maybe those areas are also not receiving enough water.  I think the ground orchids love partial shad and moistured location.  I so love these ground orchids.  Once established, they are care free. Their long soft foliage add the texture and green lush into the flower bed, and the flowers last for months.  I have three colors for now, yellow, light pink, and deep pink.  I just saw another lovely color of the ground orchid in a local nursery recently.   Hmm, should I bring one more home?  Just feel a little guilty since recently I have been plant shopping a lot, and I still have more on my list waiting...

Here is another plant I am in love with... "Angelonia angustifolia ".  The original small plant in the five inch pot has been thriving into a nice mound in the side partial shade flower bed.  This white one together with the Cats' Whiskers on the background, and the yellow ground orchid create a lovely scene under the moon light.



This is the purple version of Angelonia angustifolia .  I am thinking to plant more in another more sunny location.  Not sure if they will do as well as they do in this partial shade area.    Even it usually is marked as "full sun" plant, but I found out in South Florida, even the sun loving plants do better in an area that at least get some protection from the intensive afternoon sun. 

Here is the side garden these two Angelonia angustifolia are located.  If you still remember my post about opening this new flower bed back in August, you can tell how fast the plants could grow in Florida!

The small tree located in the middle of this side bed is another Angel's Trumpet's(Brugmansia)  from my friend at work. It only had two branches when I planted it in the ground, now it grows so big, and is already producing the 12 inch long pink trumpet flowers!

To end this post, let me include another combination that I am admiring these days.  This plant stand is in the front patio area.  The philodendron 'moonlight', the blooming Dendrobiums orchid, and the rod iron wall decor are looking nicely together, and made me smile every time I open the front door.

Parents have been amazed with my fairly new gardening passion since they came.  They did not know how their daughter suddenly became a gardener!  I am happy they too are enjoying my garden as much as I do, and the cool weather we are having made their daily morning walk around the garden even more enjoyable. 

My Favorites -- August 2010

Once again, I am joining Susan at Simply Susan! to show my favorites of this month.  

 

 
From top left clockwise: Cats' Wiskers (Orthosiphon stamenis) seems very happy with the new partial shade spot in my new sidegarden bed. One kind of ground orchid is also at the blooming peak. Torenia is my new favorite in the garden. It really brings lots of color into the shady spot of the garden. Angelonia angustifolia is the new addition to the garden. Datura metel double layered huge trumpet shaped flower sometimes looks so unreal, yet just gorgeous! Siam Tulip (Curcuma alismatifolia) is also my new favorite of this month.

The above are my heat loving favorites.  From top left clockwise: Zinnia, Allamanda (It has been blooming so flower prolifically!), another type of zinnia (a gift from my son);  Marigolds has passed its peak time, but now I have lots of seeds for the new season.  Canna Lily (Bengal Tiger) is soaring high into the sky.  My biggest zinnia in the garden! 

My favorite foliage:  From top left clockwise:  Crotons (can you believe they were just bare sticks after our January freeze?), Charmed Wine Oxalis, young caladium leaves hidden among the ornamental sweet potato leaves, Brazilian Red Hots (Alternanthera), more Caladiums!

Here comes more of my favorite foliage:

From top left clockwise: Coleus, Bromeliad (Neoregelia X Ultima), Coleus, Bromeliad (Neoregelia Tequila), Bromeliad (Neoregelia spectabilis), coleus. 

Center: Two kinds of bromeliad (identification, anybody?).

What are your favorites for this month?