Tropical Zone Gardening: Anyone with experience growing Rudbeckia hirta?, 0 by vitrsna

vitrsna wrote:
Hi Andrea. I am as far away from finishing my walls as you are away from spring. First I have to scrape, then repair some parts with a cement mixture and then I can paint. Right now is a little bit hilarious because there are 4 or 5 different types of caterpillars pupating. When they start pupating, they stop eating and generally will leave their host plant and wander around looking for just the right place to make a chrysalis, so right now I have to look where I am putting my feet so I don’t step on one. They will be all settled in a day or two and until them my work is slow. When I return to the house, I look at the bottom of my shoes just to make sure there is not a squashed caterpillar there. So far, so good. This has happened to me once and I felt terrible for a week.
Is your house in the path of potential avalanches? I recently saw a news item of a snowboarder coming down a mountain in Colorado with an avalanche following and engulfing him. He had an airbag (I don’t know if that is the same thing cars are equipped with or if it is special snow equipment). He activated the airbag which lifted him up above the snow enough so that he would not be buried and he not only survived, but continued snowboarding down the mountain on top of the avalanche. Here is a utube video (just in case you want to see more snow :-):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKGKpqloIOE
I imagine you are happy to start planting things. :-D
I don’t know all the rules about sending seeds, but I have received seeds from England and France and if they can send me seeds, I suppose I could send some to you. I know that Australia is very strict about seeds coming into the country. I would send them in a small mailer via international mail…this is the best way, not registered and with no return receipt. Delivery services such as DHL, UPS, etc will not accept a package with seeds in it from Mexico or to Mexico, but international mail works great. I think you are right about bulbs, I don’t think you can receive them from here but you might be able to accept them from other places in Europe. I have no bulb plants. I know absolutely nothing about growing bulbs which is funny because tulips are one of my favorite flowers.
I am thinking of sending small quantities. These seem to pass quite well. Very large quantities would probably be subject to inspection.
What I have to send at present are: Asclepias curassavica. Ruellia, Cosmos sulphureus & bipinnatus, Tithonia Rotundiflolia. These are all native or introduced to Mexico and would be annuals in your garden. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) rates agricultural zones from 1 to 11 with 1 being the coldest climate and 11 being in the warmest. I am in zone 10b. I know people in Michigan, USA , zone 6(it gets very cold in winter with lots of snow) and they can grow all of the above in the summer. I am not familiar enough with your climate to know what might work. But you can look these up on the internet and decide if any of them will work for you. If you would like any or all of the above seeds, let me know and I will put them in the mail to you. You can contact me via D-mail at the Dave’s Garden site so you don’t have to provide information on the public forum.
At this time, I have an overabundance of seeds for my garden. I have been ordering since late December, and I wouldn’t know what to do with more seeds. I’m all set for this year. I am not sure that rudbeckia goldstrum is going to work well for me. It is described as a perennial from zones 3-9 and I am 10b, but I am going to try them anyway. R. hirta may be a perennial here. It is native to Mexico. I would like to find a perennial rudbeckia that will do well in my climate and has the approval of the butterflies. I am working on having flowers year round, because I have butterflies year round. The rainy season (between July to mid-October) knocks all the blossoms off the lantana and sometimes knocks over the tithonia. So far the asclepias c. is the only one that successfully blooms all year, but sometimes I need to cut it back after many broods of butterflies have been eating the leaves.
Here is a photo of a heliconian long-wings (or zebra heliconian, or zebra long-wings) on a tithonia blossom. It is one of my favorite butterflies and is the state butterfly of the state of Florida in the USA. It is fairly large and very common here but not a butterfly you would see where you live. Warm wishes, beverly