Tropicals & Tender Perennials: 'Phoenix' bird or paradise, 1 by dyzzypyxxy

dyzzypyxxy wrote:
Phil, You're right, gardening is just like a Master's thesis, except the learning never ends. Once you get the basics of Florida gardening down, if you have an urge to try orchids I'd be glad to help you. I'm doing my Masters in orchids right now, too. My collection has gone from 12 to 38 in the last month! (local grower selling out, great bargains, don't know WHAT I'm going to do with them all . . . )

The dwarf boug is really great! If it spreads its foliage over all that rock mulch before the weather really heats up, that will help, but it's going to need quite a bit of water out there in it's little desert. Rock mulch doesn't insulate the soil like an organic mulch does, it absorbs the heat and bakes the roots. So if it's in full sun, the plants need a lot of help. I assume there's irrigation there?

Great growing on starting the tiny Lobelias! Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to now thin those little delicate guys out to clumps at least 3in. apart so they can grow big enough to bloom. OR, I did see the Techno-heat Lobelia in gallon pots at Lowe's for $3.98 last weekend. They had both light and dark blue.

Nice going on the tomatoes! Yes, they do need full sun to produce any fruit through winter. Mine are doing the same sprawling act. You have to buy a "bush" variety to get one that will stand up, or look on the label for one that says 'Determinate' which also means it only gets about 3ft. tall then bushes out. In Florida it's really more important to look for disease resistant varieties, and also heat tolerant varieties. Disease resistance is marked as a bunch of letters and numbers on the label like it will say 'VFN123' or something like that. Heirloom varieties don't usually have a lot of disease resistance, it's modern hybrids that have been bred to resist the fungal and bacterial wilts that we get here with our humidity. I probably told you this already, but be prepared for them to just suddenly die in May or June. It's not anything you did wrong, it's that the nights get so hot they can't suck up enough water and they just expire. Once the night temps get into the 70's they stop setting fruit anyway. Plant again in Sept. or Oct. with an eye to a spot that will stay sunny. If you want to start from seed, start them indoors in August in a sunny window.

My coleus tops out at about 2ft. tall, but it did a similar sprawling act as the tomatoes. Trying to tie it to stakes will have the same result, too. Very brittle stems. Just break it off (and root the cuttings) to keep it the size you want. Those puppies are so vigorous!

I planted the Cupid's Dart from seed in my garden in Salt Lake, and every time I visit that house in summer, it's there blooming. It's got beautiful blue flowers and nice foliage. But I haven't tried it here, so don't know how you'll do keeping it going. Often things that thrive in a low humidity place can't take the constant wet of our greenhouse summers.

The really good blues for this climate are Plumbago (see pic), a nice easy shrub that blooms at least 9 months of the year, and the 'Blue Daze' evolvoulus - a low groundcover-like plant I mentioned earlier. Both are available everywhere.

Oak trees, yes I have 3 huge ones and get buried in leaves and pollen, same as you. Small price to pay for how wonderful they are the rest of the year. Plus they're wind-resistant trees known to protect your house in the event of a hurricane. Best plant by far for color under oaks are bromeliads. Talk about your gorgeous, easy care plants! You throw them on the ground and walk away. Go over to the Bromeliad forum to see the thread I did just recently called "Some Beauties just for fun". You may develop a new obsession. Here's the link http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1241055/

Lesson over for today! I've got to get the trash taken out and piles of prunings picked up for collection tomorrow!

Cheers Elaine



This message was edited Feb 6, 2012 3:20 PM