Tropical Garden #58

We came from here http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1057484/


Picture: Cyathea Australis, Tree Fern
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/58539/

This message was edited Dec 4, 2009 12:02 PM

Rj, thanks for the new thread, I love that picture!!

sorry, looked like we cross posted on the other thread.! Looks like we may get some snow this friday..we'll see!

I needed to drop in and say I enjoyed the "mugger" article Rjudd ~ thanks too for the new thread.

To all of you tropical enthusiasts, I have been enjoying warming my gardening soul with all your lovely tropical plants and chatter. Once again, you are posting photos that make me go "hmmmmm" or at least till I look in my plant shelter. pod

RJ.. excellant article. in 1997 i was well... very bad in debt credit card addicted.. i chose to do a 12 step program to get out instead of bankruptcy. I also have tried to mimic my DH. he has No checking account, no credit cards and no debt. he pays cash for what he wants if he has it, and doesn't buy it if he desn't. .. and has set a good example for my children as they grew up. I used to think he was so tight he squeaked when he walked. Now I think differently. unfortunately, i have back slided a couple years ago, and now I am starting over.. thank goodness it isn't the double digits this time.
Rita and texas and everyone that has snow.... how can this be? We missed our snow, but we have winds and cold that blows anything to a frigid sideways. poor things.
Today I found some seeds popping up. These seeds were two years old, and popped up in four days. I get a thrill over that.
I grew this from last years seed.. it is blooming now..

I had to bring in a cane pole for the vines in the south corner... they were eating the trees there..,
that pink painting is by an artist who is my DHs' best friend. he has been diagnosed with colon cancer.. This painting he gave to me two years ago means alot more to me now.. I think it brightens up the basement garden. I did alot of cutting back, so now it doesn't look as full as it did before.. room to grow.. I have no clue about cutting back the Macho fern or The diffenbachia.. help?

Beautiful Debra, and Dustfree. What a good housekeper! I just can't do that. I would rather move rocks. Take a pic of the Macho fern so we can see it. You can cut back the diffenbachia but be very careful of the juices they are poisonous. Let it dry and pot it up. The fern I need to see it.
Charleen

Rita, I love your variegated ric rac. I have a plain one. I'm getting ready to go out today to dig out the pin stripe ginger and plant the fella in a container.

Thanks guys!
Yes, my partner Brian, has zero debt..nothing..no credit card....nada.
enviable.
I have the plan, it's just going to take time, but in the meantime the muggers are very busy charging horrible interest rates. When Chase took over Wamu, they went crazy on the interest.

Rj, The snow is Ok, but no more rain, we have had enough for now.


Hi Pod, I am glad that you drop by to warm your gardening soul. (I might have to borrow those words I like them) What do you have blooming in your plant shelter?

Joeswife, I thought of you last night around midnight, when I ran outside to pull up a couple of coleus plants to take cuttings from.
That is so sad about your Dh's friend. He sure is talented.
That basement garden has a place for everything, and everything is in it's place. I have piles of leaves on the ground with white stuff growing on them in my hoop houses.
I potted my new crotons today

ridesredmule, the sun came out for us today, here's hoping that you got the same.

LiliMerci, I hope that your yard has dried up some today, and that you too, are getting lots of sunshine.
From your comment about the variegated devils backbone plant. I learned two things about them (1) They are also refered to as ric-rac plant and (2) They bloom.
Ice plant

Dutchlady, we will pick up the new thread as soon as we get to round 150 post. There is no reason why we cannot have two #58s.
It is not too often that we see such a pretty pink Epie Bloom. Thanks

my ric rac hasn't bloomed yet, but I do have those ice plants. They do OK for me but were growing like crazy at my mother's.

LiliMerci, my ric rac is over 10 yrs. old and I have never seen a bloom. I will have to pay a little closer attention to them.
That one little ice plant growing between two rocks, what a trooper!

On november 28 I planted alot of seeds.. first up was Lazlos lilac plant seed, second up was merremia siberica, third up is I. Obscura.. these are Species of exotic morning glorys. Meanwhile, salvia splendons pink and salvia mexicana are reblooming down here. I fired up the old PC down here. it is nice to listen to the bubbling water and see things growing. now all I need are some lady bugs, and some bird sounds. It is now 12 degrees I think. Tonight I took my grandson out for his 16th birthday to Kobe. The girls fell in love with the chef.( he was very entertaining..) anyway, I found some pictures on this PC to share..
this plant is still with me.. this is may 2005, oddly so are the lavender osteopurums.. ( not spelled right I am sure)

I was thinking about the muggers and I remembered when I was first married with no credit and we needed an airconditioner, so I went to Otasco Tire and Supply and got one on time pay. My first credit! That year it was over 100 degrees 33 days in a row and I was pregnant.... funny how I never worried about extra charges on things back then.. what is a monthly service fee anyways? and when did that start? on a savings account? I was angry and sent the bank a nasty gram.
anyway, I am happy to say my red star of Texas hibiscus is blooming again, but since it was so tall, I had to bend it under the wire hoop. the little pointy buds are still happy..

here is a wondeful begonia I grew three years agom, before I started thinking about how much plants cost and didn't save it .

I keep looking at Texasbig leaves and RJs plants with snow on them.. It really tells me how the weather can be so unpredictable..
these are still going down here.. but getting leggy so I will be cutting them down this weekend..

I love the opening pic of the snow on the fir leaves (?)
Durn, this is not tropical, just pretty. Sorry folks.
Camellia bloom
RRM

It's actually an Australian Tree Fern!
It's snowing very hard today! Schools and companies are starting to close...We may be in for several hours of snow..we are setting a historic record today

Oh, my Goodness! I thought it looked ferny, but
I didn't know. It is quite Beautiful.
Charleen
RRM

Joeswife,those angelwing begonias are the best most forgiving plants.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2009 2:01 AM

ridesredmule, I agree that is a beautiful bloom!! You can tell from our pictures that we love all plants. I also have a Camellia plant (noid red single) that I will proudly show off whenever it decides to bloom.

Rj, how many inches of snow did you get today? We are expecting our first hard freeze tonight. Dh bought a few propane tanks as a backup just in case we trip the breakers in our Green Acres house tonight.

philo.

vossner was spot-on in her description of Croton Picaso's Paintbrush.
I got one in a trade today. It is a cool plant.

ooh, that reminds me, i need to go out and get my begonias.

Rita: this picture here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=7336178


incredible! I have never seen a plant like that EVER!
RRM beautiful.. I have never seen a camelia in real life either..
RJ: I can't believe it! SNOW? In Houston? I loved the 50.00 steak dinner I had at the del rio restraunt there.. I was there in November about two years ago for ten days in a training thing. one of our assignments was to go to that restraunt. I can't spell toight, sorry. Been gardening since 10:30 PM

RJ, you're getting snow? Probably just as well you identified your tree fern as Cyathea australis. If it was having an identity crisis and thought it was a Cyathea cooperi it might freeze to death ;O) I don't actually think any of my plants would survive snow (or frost). My big preoccupation is with getting those that will take the heat. There's so many things I'd like, especially some ferns and orchids, but they're just not suitable. My C. cooperi however is going to be planted in the ground this coming weekend. After many weeks of careful consideration I think I have now got the perfect spot for it. Just hope it doesn't have any aversion to being next to lateritic rock.

Yes, we had a snow storm yesterday...the city shut down at noon pretty much. The accumulation wasn't much, but it got down to 28F (2C) last night. I had to go to work at 6am this morning, and it's clear skies..but everything was frozen, so haven't seen what destruction walks amongst the garden yet.
The tree fern had so much snow on it that Brian actually went out there and knocked it off as it was bending some of the branches/fronds. One broke, 2 others are suspect. I wrapped the trunk up like a mummy last night just in case, although it shows that this tree is hardy almost to zero F. Poor fern is a trooper...it's weathered freezes, hurricanes, 100F temps for weeks and snow...

Cyathea australis is one of the most resilient and copes with a large range of conditions. Hope the garden's coped well when you get a chance to look.

Thanks,
well it certainly has demonstrated that. It also has attracted a lot of Gardeners interest in what type it is because if it.
The next time it produces spores, I'm going to pop a few out! I have saved a spore 101, and am going to go for it this summer.. ..wish I would have figured that out last summer, it was soooooo loaded with ripe spores.
That reminds me, the two little ones I left out...I wonder how they did. I decided not to move them, or move the rocks they are on. I figured they grew there in those conditions for a reason, and decided not to disturb them. We'll see if that reasoning paid off or not.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2009 9:13 AM

Rita, yep, that is PP. Youi have renewed my lust for it.

Randy, remember all my comments about letting existing plants grow and slow down on buying so many plants???? scratch all that. I will be on the prowl for many, many tropicals that are sure to be gone as a result of the freeze. I covered stuff but not as many as I should have.

As you can imagine, an event like this (the snowstorm & freeze) sends all houstonians into a tizzy. Why, the pizza delivery place we use closed at noon!

I still don't have my new camera so I couldn't take pics of the beautiful snow scenes or fancy blooms from my brugs, which are now mush. those Canon people are in BIG trouble.

Oh really!?
I have to check and see what I have left, but you know what I like, so if you need something let me know... I did put a bunch of stuff in the green house, and covered stuff in the back..and trust me, I think even though things are defoliated, it will come back. In any case, you know I'll share anything I have with ya...I even put the green and white crotin inside the house...did yours do okay?

I covered that baby! lol s/b OK. thanks for the offer. I will come a-raiding Jungle Heights. plumies went in the garage, and I covered all the hibbies, sea grapes, staghorn fern, var. banana, ixora and some small bay rum plants. But there's a lot out there looking mushy and blackish.

Crotons are house plants in Canada. You buy one for mucho mucho dinero from your local nursery or Big Box Store. It has many large colorful leaves in red, yellow, orange and forest green. You leave it outside in full sun all summer. It doesn't do particularly well but it survives. You see, the sun in Canada is much like the moon in the tropics.

Then comes September and you have to bring it inside. It does even worse, even under growing lights. Then, the leaves start falling off one by one. Around the middle of October, you have nothing left but the stalk. You keep watering it and it keeps withering until it dies just before Christmas.

Randy, I love the tree fern. What a plant! When we were in the Azores and Madeira, there are roads lined with those. They are so beautiful. When the time comes, please remember this polar bear in Florida who would love to try his hand at it.


Take care, all.
Sylvain.

Forgive my hyperbole, Vossner. Above the 45th parallel, Montreal in particular, the sun provides some light but very little heat. So does the moon in Florida. Our growing season extends from the middle of May to the beginning of September. Canadian gardeners living in the Great White North have zone envy... big time zone envy. We buy tropicals, hoping to be able to grow them. One may just as well put his money in the garbage disposal and be saved the work of growing the new tropical baby he just bought.

If you look at last summer, there was no heat or sunlight until the middle of August. It was cold and rainy all summer. There's not much of a growing season over there. That is why I say that the sun in Canada is much like the moon in the tropics. Quid erat demonstrandum.

Sylvain.

thanks for the explanation, S.
did you mean quod erat demonstrandum?

Oh good, I have tons of plumerias of every size.

I will keep you in mind with my fern sporing this summer!

Slip of the finger there, Vossner. New computer installed yesterday: not yet used to the keyboard. Sorry about that.

Sylvain.