awww those are just lovely..... my Kaitlyn finally bloomed and then lost her stuff, it is still a scorching 106 with high winds here.. here is her face.. you need this one, she blooms thru the whole dang year for me.. this picture however, is from last year, she is tucked way in a corner where I can't get up close to her right now, I am hoping for a pod..
I bet Cherub looks like this:
Think I might try my hand with the Brugs.
Elaine, that is a beautiful orchid!
Debra, That X. Lime Zinger looks great with whatever you are doing!
Debra, have faith! The weather will change soon. Kaitlin is gorgeous - love the long tendrils on the petals!
Drew, after the lengths you go to grow your wonderful Aroids, brugs would be so easy for you. Stick a cutting in the ground in April, you have a tree by July. Then ask your friendly DGer's for new cuttings each year!
My orchid does have a nice perfume at night, too! That's why its common name is 'Lady of the Night'. I had to get right up close to sniff it, as the brugs were really overwhelming the place with their scent.
Here's the daddy cardinal with a couple of the babies, earlier this summer. They are still around, too. The young male is almost all red now.
dyzzy, darn it how are you getting those brugs to bloom so much. I've been fertilizing with the tomato fertilizer, watering, sweet talking and cussing at them...Milk N Honey bloomed earlier in the year and since NADA from her OR the others either. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
In the mean time....Begonia brevirimosa (Exotica ) and Leea amabilis look nice together.
I attached a piece of dried Grape vine stalk between two Oak Trees for the Cissus discolor to climb and it's a happy camper.
Mj, maybe more sun? My wimpy one, Charles Grimaldi, finally set a bud when I moved him into the pool cage which is pretty much full sun all day, filtered by the screening. The old noid pink is in full sun all afternoon plus it gets morning sun through the pool cage.
I can't think of anything else special I'm doing. The ones in pots get regular Miracle Gro at 1/2 strength every week. I got tired of the raccoons coming around when I'd use the fish emulsion. In the ground they get Osmocote 14-14-14 timed release at planting, (or end of May) and again the end of this month. We're on fertilizing restrictions here from June 1st to Sept 30th.
Watch out for spider mites, though! Had a huge infestation on Cherub, but she kept setting buds through it all. Soapy water with a little windex (thanks Deb!) have taken care of them for now. Check by running a finger along the underside of a few leaves. If your finger comes out with a rusty-brown stain, they are back. (my eyes aren't good enough to spot the little webs unless they're wet, or I'm wearing my glasses)
Elaine, Because of the ground water getting contaminated?
Yes, but more concern is for storm water runoff into the Gulf. We get about 80% of our rain in the summer and restricting residential fertilizing from June to Sept seems to have reduced a lot of the algae blooms we were seeing.
Fishing's better, sea grasses are healthier and the water is clearer all year now.
Mj, make sure you don't pinch the brugs out, that takes the bud formation away, when they start Y'ing, buds will come after..
Brugs Like to eat.. a lot. they don't like a heavy phosphate in their food.
That is all I know.. LOL.. windy and hot, off work, Joe is leaving in the am for Buffalo, supposed to get down to 70's this coming week, go figure.
(I can't wait)
what is that Leea amabilis >? is it a shrub?
Thanks Drew, she is still coming out this weekend to go back to her normal pot.. I think the rabbits have been eating at her and the other EE's back there, I am missing my Nancy Anna, Black Stem, and dark colocasia... driving me mad that I can't "see" them..
Drew , when I start sending out my brugs, I will send you one that is fully rooted with branches. It has to come in before freez time, tho..
martha, what is a cissus?
and do you have a picture of the devils claw?
I wanna go fishing.. * sigh* ( staring out the window watching the wind blow my water into kingdom come)
Kaitlyn suffers from too much water, not enough food, and too much sun and wind right now.. Soon those yellowing leaves will be stripped, Forbid will be applied and she will set more blooms before she comes in for the winter.
Elaine, what do the golf courses do during those no fertilizer months? We are not golfers but in this part of the country golf rules and the courses are heavily fertilized, pesticided and fungicided (are those really words?). With our acres of marshlands in the lowcountry you would think restrictions like yours would benefit the water quality. I applaud whoever pulled that off in FL.
Now that I'm down here I was thrilled to hear about the restrictions, I just wish it could be so for all residential, why anyone wants to grow grass down here is beyond my ability to understand....LOL
Elaine that is good to hear that reduction of them have made a positive impact on the red tide, as an asthma suffer, I wasn't looking forward to dealing with that, as we have been blessed an not had anything over here in Palma Sola Bay.
Jan
We have lots of golf courses here, too. The blanket fert restriction is mainly on residential properties, but I do believe that the golf courses are limited to using slow-release pelleted fert in the summer rather than the highly soluble stuff they use in the spring and fall.
Pesticide and fungicide are still allowed but strictly regulated for everybody - summer's the big season for bugs and fungi, right?
Wish I could say it was this way in all of Florida, this is only a Sarasota County ordinance. But I think many other counties have something similar in play especially along the Gulf Coast.
Went to the nursery for mulch, and scored a deal on five more 'Easy Does It' roses for half price. I'm planting a prickly border along the side of the pool cage so the critters don't tear the screening going for the water. Figure if I interplant with my Skeleton Rose geranium it will repel the bugs, and maybe keep the roses from being devoured by the Sri Lanka weevils. My Sunny Knock Outs are all shredded and looking very sad.
just got in from dinner... left with beautiful skies... during dinner, toad strangler comes up about 4 miles away from the house at about 7:00... get home take a look around... theAeAe is at a 30 degree angle from the ground laying on the tomato plants... i thought i was going to be S I C K... i have spent the last hour propping up and sulking... if there ever was a plant with nine lives this is it... i don't think it is appropriate to ask for prayers... but, positive vibes would be graciously appreciated...
praying your AeAe and other tropicals smile at you tommorrow while in the sun, Drew.. (I know they will, cuz that is what happens when they are in their homeland tropical storms, right?)
Yikes, Drew! That would be a shock. Hope it will be fine - if it uprooted, it should recover as long as the exposed roots didn't dry out. Probably the rain took care of that, and you weren't gone that long.
Positive vibes coming to your place from down south ~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ Plus more positive vibes for tropical storms to dry up before they get to you, too! ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )
Drew, may your plants continue to recover and hope very much that you do not get anymore hurricanes your way.
Though, isn't a Tropical Storm much less damaging than a hurricane? I would think that if a storm must come through that I would prefer a Tropical Storm instead of a Hurricane (but then again I'm not very bright).
For those in the 'tropical south', I bought two Pentas Plants a week and a half ago, and noticed they are so 'hardy' and pretty. They spent two days in a box in my mailbox in high daytime temperatures of about 93 degrees with a 102 heat-index, and they came out looking fantastic! Does anyone else in the south or in Florida have these plants? They seem so strong in this type of weather.
I grow pentas, but they are not winter hardy here, I love them. I keep mine thru winter in the basement garden. I know they grow them in texas, and they are prolific.
night shot of bean patch with portera pups..
lavender moon vine gone wild in old potatoe patch
a pretty morning glory
Gorgeous, healthy plants/flowers you have JoesWife, they are so beautiful.
Drew,I feel your pain. Of all the plants to go down why did it have to be the AeAe??? Being a banana, it should not be a problem but that one is so special I would cry too. My friend who grows them here says we all baby them too much and that it should be treated like any other banana. Of course, he has the magic touch because his AeAe's grow prolifically, go figure, most everyone else I know struggles with them.
Pentas are very tough and forgiving plants in the southeast. If we have a mild winter they are even quite hardy, I think of them in the same way I do lantanas - real workhorses in a garden, and the butterflies love them.
Ardesia, Thank you for the info on the Pentas. I guess I made the right choice to purchase them.
Do they survive for a few years or just a short time? If we get 32-34 degree temps here in Florida again this winter, I'll most likely cover them at night with a sheet.
Thanks Deb!
Alice After taking another look this morning I think it wil be ok! A few of the top corm roots were out of the ground on the opposite side of the fall.The wind must have just kept pushing it down as we had a LOT of branches and shredded leaves on the ground this am. I lost 2 leaves in the falI. Here are a couple pictures after I figured out how to prop it back up with the least amount of damage!
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homer i am so glad you were able to prop it back up and at least it didn t snap in half. the good news is you should have some babies coming up. that usually happens to me with the praying hands bananas. it is about 12ft., every time it flowers i get excited, then i anxiously watch them grow for another year, only to watch them snap in half because of the weight of the bananas, and of course they are not even ripe enough to fry! ugh.
I had 4 coming up Candela! As much as I wanted to, I did not mess with the soil in the immediate area of the corm/pseudostem. Looks like 2 of the 4 pups will make it for sure, while I am awaiting the other two to show there heads!
Drew, so glad it looks pretty good, Nice rescue! Considering it could have fallen over that railing in your first picture, which would have smashed the stem. I'm hoping to see a pic of those jazzy striped bananas next year! Plus of course your jazzy variegated baby AeAe's, too.
Candela, couldn't you prop up your banana before the fruit gets too heavy? Maybe just tie a few bamboo poles to the main stem to help it support the weight? OR put a prop under the fruiting stem?
I scored two new Phal orchids at IKEA for $10 apiece today. They had a lot of nice ones, too!
dyzzypyxxy i couldn t really because they are so tall the board would have to be 15 to 20 ft tall. you can see in the picture above some of them get protection from the mango tree. at least it is only the praying hands that i worry about the other kinds are a more manageable height. actually i have yet to taste those praying hands. these are plaintains that are good boiled .
We fry plaintains ...............YUM............... but I think here that they would not come back from the freezes we get.
Another 4-6'' thru. Wed.
no rain but 70 degrees this morning. for the last two months it has been already 100 and climbing by 9:30 am. YAY!
What great news, hope it keeps up for you and your fellow Texan gardeners.
How much rain in the southeastern part of the state from the tropical storm Christi?
A DG'r on the Carolinas forum said they got 13" in New Bern.
I am sorry Alice; ? was Posed for Christi...I meant in Texas!
I checked the radar several times every day, as we were supposed to get rain and wind from Lee as it went by, but sadly, I don't think any part of Texas got much rain out of that storm. We got a spritz or two.
We've got good breeze today, although it's already 92. Any temp in the 70's would feel wonderful to me! Outside cutting up a big oak branch that we had to trim, I last about 10 min. Phew! It's like a windy sauna out there.
The good news is, there are more clouds upstream of Texas now. If the next front can make it over the mountains with some moisture still in it, they'll get a little relief!
This crazy brom has been showing off its bloom for over a month! They sure never last that long in the garden.
