Showing posts with label Blue Butterfly. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

February Update on the Leap Day

Today is the leap day, thought it would be great to give an update of my February garden, just make this post a little special :)

There are so many colors and flowers bursting in my February South Florida garden due to the mild winter we had this year.

In the past, I only tried pink snapdragons, and this is my first time to grow yellow and white ones, and I find myself loving them so much in the winter garden, warm and bright.

This is the time for Golden shrimp plant(Pachystachys lutea) to bloom.

Giant Apostle's Iris (Neomarica Caerulea 'Regina') started blooming, much earlier than last year.

This Lobelia plant is one of the rare blue flowers I have ever seen. They make the great trailing (spiller) plants for the container.

Lobelia

This Purple Verbenas is also great for container, either as the filler or the spiller.

The following two are the new plants I am trying this year, Cuphea llavea Vienco™. I love them in a more compacted size, suitable for my small garden.

This year I am trying to grow Mona lavender (Plectranthus) in the ground instead of in the container. It is in a partial shade area, and they seem quite happy there. Best of all, it doesn't require frequent watering compare to growing in the container.

These two Begonias had their blooming peak this month.

Begonia Odorata Var. Alba

Rex Begonia

Even caladium bulbs are shooting out of the ground here and there much earlier than last year.

Dipladenia pink just started blooming again after a hard trim I did late last year. Now they came back fresh and strong. I expect they will be on their peak time in March.

Dipladenia pink

Bulbine plants look the best when they are blooming in a mass. Bees just love them.

This Chorus Line daylily has not finished blooming yet, neither has Pandoras box daylily.

CHORUS LINE

Wow, I found I am having quite some blues in my garden. I guess that doesn't happen by accident considering blue if one of my favorite colors in the garden. Could not help snap some pictures of this blue butterfly flower every time I pass it by.

Blue Butterfly
Clerodendrum ugandense

February is also the month when many orchids bloom. One of most impressive orchids bloomed this month is Epidendrum Orchid, or go with the common names such as Crucifix Orchid, Reed-stem Epidendrum, Sun Orchid,and etc.

I bought one in April of 2010. After the initial blooming, it only had a few flowers last year. After I put them into the ground (this orchid is terrestrial type) in a more sunny location, this year they just bloomed like crazy. If you are trying to find an easy growing orchid, this is the one that you should try! They are also so easy to propagate by division of pseudobulbous stems or offsets, or by removing and planting those pups on old stems or flower spikes. From one 5 gallon container, now I have three clumps of this orchid spread in my garden.

You also can spot Epidendrum Orchid in the below flower bed.

Now the rest are different orchids blooming currently in my garden. I put them mostly in my front porch since my back porch has too many suns. I really need more space for more orchids!

For those of you living in the cold weather area, hope you enjoyed the flowers in my Tropical garden, and remember Spring is coming!

Happy Gardening!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Fall Florida Garden Update

Have not been posting anything for a while... Being busy and maybe also a little bit lazy explains this long blog break very well. Now the hot summer is behind us, we Floridian are in the best weather of the year. I love this cool weather, and I got more energy out of it. I found myself enjoying working in the garden again, although the gardening time is even more limited after daylight savings time ended.

I have been doing lots of gardening chores, most of them were related to cleaning, trimming, removing the dead plants. After a long summer, lots of plants are either growing huge, or looking sad. However, there are lots of plants seem enjoying this cool weather as much as this gardener.

Here are some pictures from last month that I would like to post here for my own record keeping.

Roses perform much better in this cool weather than they were in the hot humid Florida summer.

Josephine's Land

Queen Elizabeth

Peace

Belinda's Dream

Firespike (Odontonema strictum)

My friend gave me one small cutting of pagoda flower early this year. Since I have not found the proper spot, I kept it in a one gallon pot. As young as it was, it surprised me with its first flower cluster last month.

Pagoda Flower (Clerodendrum paniculatum)

Bridal Bouquet (Plumeria pudica)

The following are more recent pictures from this month's garden.

Bromeliad Corner is now more filled in.

Does anybody know the name of the bromeliad below? This one performs very well in the full sun.

On the other side, Neoregelia Zoe could not take much sun. Too much sun will burn its leaves and fade the color. This clump is located in a partial shade area, and kept its showy color.

Neoregelia Zoe

Matchstick bromeliad multiplies itself quite fast. This is one of a few flowers.

Aechmea gamsepala
'Matchstick Bromeliad'

Various ground orchids are putting up shows in this fall garden. Over the past two years, I have bought, divided the ground orchids and they are now all quite happy in the different flower beds.

These are other orchids that are blooming now...

Here are more recent looks of the east side garden I opened during the summer. Comparing them to the picture in August post , the bed looks much more established although I still have not finished planting at the further end. Except some bushes as foundation plants, I used lots of free plants from other parts of my garden. Those colorful coleus, impatiens, and Vincas are all volunteer seedlings from last year's plants. White and purple Angelonia angustifolia are from the cuttings. Don't you love the free plants?