Solitude Time in My September Garden

My schedule has been out of ordinary busy recently both at work and at home.  While I have very little time left to write and read the blog recently, I do make sure I spare a little time to walk through my garden everyday to unwind myself.  Even just spending a short 10 minutes in solitude is so important to me, only me and my garden, nothing else. 

Oh, you are welcome to follow me, quietly...

I am in love with my garden in September with so many colors, both on flowers and the foliage.  Here are some of my favorite spots or plant combinations in the garden...

White Christmas caladium and Persian shield in the container...

Chartreuse colored sweet potato with three different caladiums in another container....

Backyard west flower bed with Aechmea blanchetiana 'Orangeade', ground orchids, variegated devil's backbone, caladiums, Variegated Shell Ginger (Alpinia zerumbet 'Variegata'), vincas.

Bromeliads in this corner have setting pups.  Maybe one more year, I can have this space filled completely.

East side backyard with Agaves (Agave desmettiana 'Variegata', Agave Angustifolia Variegata , Agave lophantha hybrid ) and bulbines.  There are about half dozen pups growing out of Agave desmettiana 'Variegata'.  Burbines are ready to divide again.  I may give away some to my friends.

Flax lily with blue daze (Evolvulus)...

This bed has most butterfly favorites, zinnias, pentas, vinca and blue porterweeds, along with roses, purple fountain grass and diamond frost.

Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha) started blooming again after I cut it back to one third of the length two months ago.  Love its long blue/purple flower spikes. It makes a nice combination with pink vincas and Siam Tulips.

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The new side bed has been filled in quickly...  My new favorite yellow ground orchid is also planted here.   Those white Cat's Wiskers almost bloom non stop, got to love that!

You can tell Coleus is becoming my new favorites in the garden...  They are adding so much color into the flower bed.

Here is one Coleus hidden in the above picture... 

They are also in this new shady garden.  Hmmm, looks like I am running out of the space of this bed already!

Acalypha wlkesiana (Copperleaf or Beafsteak) is blooming with those red fuzzy flowers.  They are rather insignificant compared to its colorful foliage.

This begonia does have both flowers and foliage that this gardener loves!    The flowers are clustered soft pink, and the leaves has the upside dark purple with a deep red color on the back.

Brazil Red Hots was frozen to the ground in January, and it is slowly recovering...  The color is so showy against other green foliage.

Well, maybe I spent more than 10 minutes.  I do feel recharged, and tomorrow is another day!

Do you like the solitude time in the garden?

New Bromeliad Corner, First Daylily and Cat Whiskers

This past weekend was extremely hot and humid.  It felt like over 100F.  However, I still managed to work in the garden for several hours each evening after the sunset.

I finally moved some plants out of my only partial-shade corner in the existing flower bed.  Now the rest of bromeliads got to get out of the small pots they were in, and have a spot in this "new" area.  I will call it "Bromeliad Corner" :)

From another direction:

I know I might not have left enough space between the plants (no surprise to this new gardener with very limited garden space).  My hope is when the pups grown out of the mother plants, if they can not find enough space to expand, they might grow vertically, especially for those on the back against the fence.  I am sure I will post more update pictures later to track the progress of this corner.  This is not all my bromeliad collection.  I still have some others planted in the front yard, and other areas of the garden.

There were another two things that got me excited this past weekend.

Found a daylily plant hidden in the big box store corner!  After I drooled over (and sighed) so many gorgeous daylily pictures in other bloggers' posts over the past month, I finally got my very first daylily!!!  Yes, it might be a very common one, but the first is always the best (at least for me), and this is the only one I saw for sale! 

daylily 'stella' (Hemerocallis)

Found another plant that I have been looking for in the same store: Cat Whiskers (Orthosiphon stamenis).  The first time I saw this plant was at Miami Fairchild Botanical Garden a month ago.  I adored the shape of this plant then, and the white is always something I sought for.  So no surprise this plant followed me home!

Cat Whiskers (Orthosiphon stamenis)

Garden creatures are very active these days...

Maybe because of the rainy season, everyday I can see so many dragonflies in my garden.  Today I even saw three dragonflies in the same plant! 

This bird was walking by the lake outside of the backyard.  Yes, we call the man-made big pond in the community "lake" here, so the builder can claim that they are selling "lake view" properties :)  What is the name of this bird please? 

I will soon have a three-week out-of-country vacation coming.  There are so many things in the garden that I want to take care of before I leave.  Wish the weather can be a little more cooperative for me to work in the garden a little longer...