Grrrr ... the temperature here is dropping quickly! We've had wind (sometimes 30mph) and rain today and now the front has passed and the cold is arriving. It's predicted to drop to 29º tonight and one weather report said 21º tomorrow night!! WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS WEATHER?
My husband moved more plants onto the covered deck and he's hung heavy tarps on the north side to keep out the cold and winds. He also hung a tarp on the other open end to try to protect the plants from the winds. Every plant is covered with old blankets. The back porch is crammed with plants too and I threw a blanket over some of them. A few plants in the yard are covered, but a few were left to the elements. I have two Monstera deliciosa plants that are in containers under a tree in one corner of the backyard ... hope they survive. I forgot to cover the Tibouchina that are planted in the backyard, I bet they will be mush but I usually see them at our local Home Depot every year so they can be replaced easily if they don't survive the winter. One day last week I strained a muscle in my back while moving heavy plants when my husband was at work. He always yells at me for lifting the heavy ones, telling me to leave them for him to move but I don't listen. I paid for it too early last week, spent one full day barley able to move around.
Rita: Are your Loquat trees blooming now? My neighbor has lots of those trees in her backyard along our fence line and they've been blooming for about a month now. The Gray Catbirds love the fruit when it appears in the spring!
Tropical Garden #86
Ohhh, I love Loquat fruits, too! I stand in my front yard, pick them off the tree and enjoy their sweet and tart taste. They re-seed themselves, with help from the birds, all over my side yard. I've given several seedlings to neighbors - such delicious fruit!
what is a loquat? Is that a small olive sized orange? If so, I grew up with them in California. I may be thinking of a kumquat tho.
Nice basket, Rita, I am waiting for those plants from ebay, I am putting a huge plastic tub out on the porch for my mailman to leave packages in, the temps here are in the single digits now.
This message was edited Dec 13, 2010 9:51 PM
Hows'it Debra!
Loquat, Eriobotrya japonica is a sub-tropical fruit tree from China and Japan.
It is probably the easiest to grow stone fruit equivalent to temperate Plums that grows in warm environments.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2321/
Folks here make pies with them for the holidays, as the fruit is ripening this time of year!
The reason for being at the site was to check on a population of the Listed Endangered Hawaiian Plantain, Plantago hawaiiensis.
It has suffered since discovering the stand in 1996, but still persists despite of feral animal browsing.
There are less than 2,000 individuals of this plant surviving in the wild. This site contained about 340 individuals in 1996. Today there are just a few dozen left in the area.
It is 19° this morning. I'm concerned that some of my gingers might not make it!
A lady I worked with years ago made jam from Loquats ("Japanese Plums"): http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&expIds=0&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=loquat+fruit&cp=6&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=kToGTczkBoGs8AbHoaG7Cg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CEkQsAQwAQ&biw=1280&bih=701
My backyard neighbor doesn't pick the fruit from her trees ... it's left for the squirrels and birds, but the only bird I've seen eating the fruit is the Gray Catbird which seems to love the fruit. This photo was taken the end of April last year:
Dave: Those photo's of the mountains are amazing ... what gorgeous scenery! I've never visited the beautiful islands of Hawaii and thank you for sharing views of your part of the world!
What a shame about the Hawaiian Plantain ... it's so sad to hear of native plants and animals becoming extinct. I hope that plant makes a comeback at some point in time but it sure sounds doubtful if it went from 300+ plants in 1996 to only a few dozen today!
Love the buds and blooms on that Metrosideros polymorpha!
Well ... it's currently only 38º here in Daytona Beach. We had wind chills at 24º earlier this morning. It's been extremely windy the past two days with of up to 30 mph which makes it feel so much colder! We got down to 33º last night and are expecting a hard freeze tonight with a low of 22ºF. I need to clean all the plants and stuff off of my fireplace hearth and bring in some firewood so I can have a nice roaring fire tonight! I've had folks laugh when they hear we have a fireplace in this part of Florida, and although we've probably only used it a handful of times in the past 36 years, it's nice when the temp's drop really low like expected tonight! My husband talked to his brother in upstate N.Y. yesterday and they have had 30"+ of snow ... so, I can't complain too much, LOL. Stay warm everyone and have a great Monday!
Beautiful photos everyone.
Rita, you've shown some real pretty Aglaonema plants and I adore your last hanging basket of Anthuriums. The one I have for you would make a nice addition to it if the weather would cooperate better for me to send it to you. I've not made out my plant wish list to Santa yet, have you?
Debra, I started you a piece of my Monstera adansonii and I'm sure I have a few other plants I can start for you as well. I'm always looking for projects like this during the Winter months.
New Anthurium, Magnificum x Papillilaminum
Dave, you posted some beautiful scenery and plant pictures from your part of Hawai'i and I agree with Lin, it is such a shame that some native plants are becoming so few in numbers. Love those Metrosideros trees and that Begonia you posted earlier is super nice.
Lin, great shot of a Gray Catbird and thats a very pretty color on your Dendrobium. I think you grow plants in Terrariums and I would like to know what type of lights and wattage you use in yours? I've taken a couple of my old fish tanks and am turning them into Terrariums but the only type of grow lights I have found locally are the fish/plant type with only 20 watts.
Clearance rack Dischidia from Lowes.
Rachel ... that is one really, really nice Dischidia! Looks like D. ovata: http://www.dischidia.com/dischidia_ovata.htm I've always confused that one with a Hoya ... there are a couple of Hoyas with foliage almost identical. I will have to google to see if I can see what the blooms look like on that one.
Yes, I have a few terrariums. One is a 10 gal. aquarium, no special light ... just the one that came with it. I really need to find some miniature plants because it seems like everything I've planted in that one outgrows the space quickly. I've had Fern, Fittonia, small leaf Philodendrons, Pilea and African Violets among other plants in there. A friend gave me a large octagon aquarium this summer that I planted up and I've been having trouble keeping plants happy in that one, more than likely the light isn't intense enough and it's a deep tank so the plants are pretty far from the lights. I like planting in glass containers too. I have a few with lids and if it doesn't have a lid I will try to find something to sit on top, or cover the top with saran wrap to keep moisture in. I sit them on a table beneath a lamp and they seem to do well.
I rarely see Dischidia for sale down this way, don't know why. I have a D. ruscifolia ("Million Hearts") that I bought a few years ago and I haven't see any Dischidia at a garden center since!
This is my D. ruscifolia a couple of weeks ago ... now it's hiding under a blanket somewhere on the porch!
Thanks Lin and that is one healthy and large Dischidia rusciflia you have there. Wishing you the best with all your plants during this extremely terrible COLD. I am only using my old aquariums as "temporary" housing for some of my smaller plants which prefer a more humid environment that I can not give due to my heat source during the Winter months. These plants will out grow a terrarium very soon but I am liking the idea of terrarium growing and will be looking into other plants that are more suited for this type of situation.
Dave thank you for the vacation tour of your beautiful area. I can't stand the thought of some of those natives dissapearing. It breaks my heart. At least I got to see them here, thanks to you.
Rachel that is a beautiful Anthurium. I have two more to re-pot, as they are not happy where they are at.
Kay Jones sent me some spanish moss.. I have it in several locations for the winter..
here is a part of it on the T ball I made..
so far, all the plants in all the rooms are Happy. If I can keep them that way, I will take on more challenges, that are not normal to my zone. It is 24 out right now with 15 windchill, low is down to 16 tonite. My beautiful tropicals, most from people like you, are in good warm homes, with lots of light and love. I wish I could take in every piece of plant I have ever seen that is new to me.. Joe says I would need a couple hundred acres of green house to do that..
Debra I think your clearance plant is Stromanthe sanguinea. Temp on my front porch, 26º ... I'm waiting on a pot of boiling water to take out to the greenhouse and put in a big buckets out there. Helps to keep the temps up along with the heater. One more bad night then we are supposed to warm back up a little but we are still going to be below average for this time of year. I don't even want to see what things will look like. I decided to let the brugs in the ground fend for themselves as I need the blankets for my Staghorn.
A few more things will just take an early nap . Oh well. I even double up on the horses blankets as the wind chills are down in the teens.
No pics, I hope the wind lets up enough that I can open the barn doors and get pics of the Milk N Honey blooming in the barn. I think there were 9-10 open blooms on it.
Rachel, I have two brothers in Md, one up in Western Md, and one on the eastern shore. Both said it's been very cold there also, although the one on the shore doesn't get as cold as the other.
Deb, your plants all look great!!!!
Deb: You sure are a true plant caretaker, great growing! I agree that your rescue plant is Stromanthe singuinea 'Tricolor': http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/59470/ I see them in garden centers here during spring and summer .. I've never been able to keep one alive for very long.
Did you treat the Spanish Moss before bringing it in the house? It sometimes harbors mites, chiggers and other creepy crawlies!
Tillandsia usneoides ("Spanish Moss", "Florida Moss", "GrayBeard"):
http://www.floridata.com/ref/t/till_usn.cfm
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2060/
That stuff is tough and should survive fine, and in the spring when the rains come you can put it outside for a nice shower or just give it a good spray with the garden hose. It's green in color when wet, and will stay gray when it's dried out. Spanish Moss is very common all over the southeast U.S. It's growing all over a Scrub Oak in my neighbors yard ... they don't seem to like it and are always pulling it off the tree. A lot of people think it's ratty looking but I've always loved it!
It got down to 24º here last night and is still only 39º right now ... at almost 12:30 in the afternoon! I was walking around the yard and took a couple of pictures before my hands froze! ^_^
This is my Snow Queen Hibiscus ... can't even tell it has variegated foliage. I thought our many freezes last winter had killed this plant entirely but it sprouted back from the ground in the spring. If we don't have too many freezing nights this winter it should survive to bloom again.
Now, I wish the cold WOULD kill this Schefflera tree. Although it gets to be a huge, beautiful tree I wish I had never planted it so close to the pool deck. The root system on this thing are massive. I thought for sure it was dead after last winter but uh uh, it grew back! It didn't get real big this year, it's usually taller than the house ... I'm hoping maybe if we have a lot of cold temp's this winter, it will be the last of it!
I will first show a photo of what it looked like before last winters freezes, this is how it looked October 2009:
