Tropical Garden #62

That is too cool; I never thought of painting those unattractive labels.

Temp was terrific here today but we had 3 1/2' of rain last night and then a quick shower this afternoon. There is standing water everywhere. It was too wet to even get in to pick up the fallen branches and palmetto fronds.

thanks A. One advantage of painting is that they're easier to spot if people/dogs step on them or if you accidentally bury them in mulch.

I find the pastel shades are more pleasing to the eye and make for better reading. I love red and have painted some in red, but they truly are hard to read. The pastel blue is very lovely.

another casualty from Winter 2009/2010. I lost 2-3 of my ceramic mushrooms.

Poor mushroom - speaking of which, I saw my first stinkhorn the other day. Obviously the cold did not bother those foul things.

Rhodocollybia laulaha

I think many of the plants will survive. I dumped all my leaves in the beds this fall, and seems that it did a great job protecting the roots.
Was a beautiful day, so tidied up some, put up some new garden lights (when ya don't have plants). I do weird stuff with the led lights. It looks pretty good, cept for the hanging dead stuff.

Yes, correct on the Philo, I had that one and a variegated one. The monstera looks like it will return, the stalk still is firm. I haven't even checked the variegated one..or rather couldn't tell it was there before...soo that one bit the dust.

Honestly, I need this freeze to take out some of the overcrowding, because I sure don't do it. I wonder at my apprehension to get rid of plants! True, a nice one day freeze would have sufficed to take out less..but, I bet 90 percent of the stuff comes back.

Hey RJ! This seems like a good time to record, exactly which plants survive the lower temperatures.

True- I think the maturity and size of the plants will help me out ...nothing was very small!

Don't Get Me Down!

Let's look forward to Spring and the Growing Season!

I'm here to tell ya, last weeks freeze (didn't expect it to) did nothing to the mosquitoes. The minute it hit 70F today they were buzzing.
lol, your right music does brighten the fooey moments. So glad I have speakers outside.

When the rain comes, I don't mind.

When the rain comes, the weather's fine!

Imagine Sunshine!

Rainbows!

Waterfalls!

Till tomorrow.

Good evening!

Metros - what were you smoking there? LOL

Hi Dutchlady!

Not smoking anything.

Playing guitar!

How are you?

^_^

I am well, thank you....

I work hard.

I'm allowed to play the guitar.

Don't hassle me!

Dave, that yellow flower looks like a Xanthostemon

Here's the farm security team.

Nobody show up here, without them knowing about it!

The yellow flower is an unusual variety of Metrosideros polymorpha.
They are normally red. Color variations are very rare.

Red? That in red would look like the New Zealand Pohutakawa. The Xanthostemon paradoxus I was first thinking of is only ever yellow.

Kea and Ku have been the security team on the farm for fourteen years now (since 1996).

Here is Hawaiian 'Ohi'a, Metrosideros polymorpha, in it's normal red.
It certainly does look similar to Pohutukawa, Metrosideros excelsa, of New Zealand. The Dept. of Land & Natural Resources discourages the growth of Pohutukawa, because of our native 'Ohi'a forests.

Boy, that's pretty. Did they name it after you, Dave?

Hap

I took my user-name from the Hawaiian 'Ohi'a tree. I live in a forest of them.
The 'Ohi'a tree is the foundation of Hawaiian Rainforests!

'Ohi'a, Metrosideros polymorpha, is one of the first plants to grow on new lava flows.

'Ohi'a is the mother tree which allows for diversity in old growth rainforest.

If 'Ohi'a didn't pave the way, there would be no Hawaiian Koa, Acacia koa!

Old growth 'Ohi'a forests support rare plants such as Cyanea tritomantha.

I'm just so excited, I didn't know about variegated dracaena sanderiana until I saw the picture here... Well, yesterday, I was going to the grocery store to get milk, and what do ya know, I found a planter that had a nice rubber tree, variegated lucky bamboo, a syngonium and a neat moss, really wet, soggy and trying to kill all the plants but the moss. Well, I looked around, snatched it up and ran to get the milk, brought it home, made seperate plants in well draining soil instead of the root rot swamp it was in. My plan for the moss filled planter is after a few good rinses with rain water, put a sundew in it.

Good going 3jsmom. Sounds like a plan.

Sundew and moss look good together.

Mekos, have those Amorph seeds arrived?

I still think that they named all this stuff for you, Dave.

What a find 3j. You have just saved part of the world.

Hap

We didn't really need bread and lunchmeat, lol.

Just kidding :). How you doing? Have you started to see any recovery in your greenhouse?

Yes. A couple days ago and my granddaughter got bit by a big dog and I was at the er with her all that day and for the next couple, I've been in and out taking her back to be checked for infection since their car broke down so I'm touching base on and off, I'm sorry I thought I sent you d-mail telling you it arrived. It's been real hectic around here for a week or so. When things calm down a bit, I'm going to plant them inside here and wait for sprouts. I'm so hoping they will germinate for me.
Our power went off one night when it was in the teens outside and I lost some of my rare and tropical plants so gonna plant these inside and keep a better eye on them.
I sent you Konjac seeds and a bulb of Sumawongii with the certificate and told the man at the post office the certificate was inside so we wrote that on the package for the border people to see if they want to inspect it. It should get there soon. Thank you so much.

Sorry 3jsmom, we posted over each other. Not yet on new sprouts, but some that was mushy, I cut the mush off of and those look like they are firming up and this could be wishful thinking but might come back. I'm hoping they will. Some I don't think will but you never know. I'll keep watching and see. My Jade vine is one that looks bad. It looks so dry and all the leaves dropped off dry so I'm really concerned about it. I doubt if I'll be able to get another one of those. I ordered it a long way off and paid a lot for it. I bought seeds but those put up and died so this was my only hope of it.