Alice, Crowley's is like a theme park for gardeners! Did you get out that way when you were here last? I just love that place.
'Looking Glass' really shows off its silvery leaves when they're wet.
Tropical Garden #110
Hello Everyone!
LouC, It seems as if the weather is not normal with ardesia and homer getting so much rain and here in Texas we can't buy a shower. I probably got rain twice this year and had to do massive foundation repair on my house.
mjsponies, thanks very much for the compliment and offer, but you have shared so much with me already. I love photography and gardening and only wish that I was as knowledgeable as you and the other DGs that visit this thread.
This little Philo. from you is doing so well.
Joeswife, you are a good sister! I bet she will smile remembering that plant you brought her, for years to come.
My datura from you is blooming as well.
dyzzy, I mailed your package this morning, please forgive the lack of labels.
I have been very forgetful lately.
ardesia, I love those oak trees, and the Owl make it picture perfect.
Thanks for the birthday wishes. My mom says that she is 39 every birthday, I guess that makes me 29. lol
candela, thanks, I look forward to pictures from your garden as well. There is always a new plant for me to find. The Brug Super Nova that you sent me will bloom in a few days. Last year it was my brug of the year that was always in flower. This is the first bloom this year.
This is the last two guavas, the workmen helped themselves to my precious fruit.
Kay Jones, I will mail your package on your return from visiting your new Grandbaby. Have a good trip.
I would like this Plumeria Pudica to go to someone on this thread for postage.
Is anyone interested?
GAgirl1066, thanks for the bd wishes. It sounds like you have a great plan there. I have been to Tropicflora once. Great Bromeliads, fantastic people!
homer, I took your suggestion and cut my EE trunk in 3 pieces and now the leaves are starting to get bigger than they have in years. It is a shame that the season is almost over now just when they are starting to grow.
sorry-do over
Hi Rita,
I'll take the plumeria....do you think it will fit in a box?? Just let me know..... Thanks, Paula
I feel your pain Rita!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What exactly did I tell you? I've slept since then!
Hi, Rita! I KNOW I will have fun - he's so tiny and soft and cute and I plan to SPOIL HIM!
Thanks for the cutting, Rita. I will take good care of it. Please let me know what else I can send you besides the little 'Dauben's' next spring. Begonias? Citronella plants? Bromeliads?
Don't you just hate it when people help themselves to fruit in your garden? After all the work to buy and plant a fruit tree, then nurture it to produce . . . squirrels are bad enough, but people should know better.
CRAP! just did a big long post and it disappeared......excuse my French!
LOL Christie, don't you hate it when that happens. Where does it go?????
Elaine, I have a jungle here too, I just tell people I am a collector not a designer.
LOL, Christie! I learned, LOOOONG AGO, to type it in to WORD first!
You funny Alice! Dat Gurrrl is funny; whooo eeee!... Me to. I throw it together and most of the time it works out real well.
Another 3'' as of 5:00 P.M. this evening, and were not done yet today!
Alocasia Robudoras!
dyzzy,
Is that a clerodendron shooting star in the right of your pic?
Alice, love your planter, that is obviously very happy.
Homer,
We have been getting rain too, which so far we are loving it because it has been so dry and its slowly filling up our new pond we had dug. BUT, It rains for like an hour so hard you can hardly see and then done. I would rather it just rain all day. Our yard (with no grass) it washing away little by little. They just hauled in 20 loads of dirt to start building up the yard and I think 10 of it has moved somewhere else.
If you guys can afford it, are you going to place sod in the yard? Is it too big? How large is the pond? Fish?
Paula, yes that is my 'Shooting Star' hedge/screen in its full leaf - but not blooming. It's 8ft. tall right now, after being cut down to 3ft. of leafless stems this spring.The last two winters it has been nipped by the cold and not bloomed except the odd little single flower. It's supposed to have big, full heads of flowers. I am really hoping to see it flower properly this year. Armed with frost cloth, I await the cold nights!!
Alice, your succulent planter is so pretty! What is the silvery trailing one at the back?
GAgirl
There is a netting your can put down on your soil to help with keeping it there and now moving to your neighbors yard...
I passed by Tropiflora on Sunday, I was hauling home some Bambusa oldhamii, and wanted to stop but was too worried about getting in with the truck and the plants were hanging out the back by about 10+ feet with some being new shoots....so didn't want to bend or break them as the drive looked rather tight....
Elaine, are they having a sale? sorry didn't ready all the posts.
Jan
ps Just so yall know Elaine's garden is not a mess!
The succulents in the planter are Orostachys. The green one is O. erubescens and the gray one you can't see much of is O. imbricata. They are among the most cold hardy succulents out there but I have discovered they are also unusually heat tolerant. They lived happily with nothing but rain this past summer and we had many weeks of drought. My kind of plant. :-)
I got them from Nancy Goodwin at Montrose Nursery in the Durham, NC area. I had just pulled some of them out to send home with my son this past weekend, I'll make a few other starts of each plant and see how they do.
Jan, this weekend is Tropiflora's Fall Festival, Friday thru Sunday. Sort of an 'open house' type event. I was going to try to go on Friday morning, but will wait until Saturday if you want to meet me? Oldhamii, huh? You know it gets 50ft. tall, right? You will have shade!
Paula, Jan has a great idea there, a roll of landscape cloth would help hold your topsoil from migrating until you can plant something to hold it. Please, I hope you've considered using groundcovers, perennials and mulch rather than sod if you have the option - they are so much more environmentally positive in the long run. If you're not growing grass for horse pasture, (or sports endeavors) it's a really expensive, high-maintenance groundcover. Everything you have to do to grow grass is expensive, work intensive and bad for the environment.
Homer,
Yes, we are going to have grass/sod mostly around the house. The pond has only been dug about 3 months and this is about the only time we have gotten some good rain. Its right at 4 acres, I think, and most of the bottom is covered now.So, no fish as of yet, but that will be later when it fills up and gets settled a little.
Jan,
Thanks for the suggestion. We are not supposed to have any more rain after today for a week or so. Nice cool front coming through for the rest of the week. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, my irrigation will be put down, and then we can start working on the flowers beds and sod.
dyzzy,
We will be putting some sod around the house, but I am planning on putting in a lot (and big) flower beds. The house sits on about 5 acres, so I don't want to spend all my time mowing grass. Not to mention we have 100 acres, which requires a lot of weed mowing. YUCK!
Paula,
Is it all fenced...if so, get goats........they will take care of your weed problem....and clear just about the rest of anything else you want cleared LOL....
Martha - LOL - yep, they will do a thorough job, too!
okay ya all, here is stage one of plant room#1 so far.. still needs cleaning, ( again) lights on a timer, I check the bulbs all the time, no gnats, no bugs except I keep finding tiny worms on a couple brugs, applied soap water to all pots with a bit of neem and used windex on everything.. (diluted) am now spraying with Kens Mix and using a humidifier..
poor Joe si just sure we are going to have a fire, but the same light set up has been used for the past three years, just in the main room out in the other part of the basement.. everything is in surges and 220 sockets in this room.
Almost have everything in from the front, stil have tons out back to get in, you know I move things in while it is same temp out as inside..
Alot of this came from some of you all..so it comes in first..
Purple cestrum is bloming away in the outer room
I can't seem to spell tonight, sorry.. here is the duranta
Something is opening up here, I can't remember for sure, but I think it is thunbergia erecta?
Martha look closely, see that vine making it's way to who knows where?
still happy after two weeks in here..cape honey suckle.. not too tropical for ya all, but very tropical for me here.. Hoping to let it get Very big..
I have the lights set up to turn off east to west, just like outside, and a mix of lights with high lumins, .. I cut back all the hibs, now I need to cut back the cestrums and the durantas... *sigh* not enough time..
I am leaving the cannas in ground this year, including the red one from Rita, I will just croak if they don't come back, I might cave in and lift them any way..
getting a place fixed up for the passis and other vines to climb on in the outer room, chalice vine is still outside, as is all the tropical vines.. will be up to 91 tommorrow, I will be antsy to get off and do someting outside before the shows come on TV.
Lookie here,,,,, nicandra
Debra, I'm sure if you leave something outdoors and it dies, one of us has a replacement. Cannas go wild in a tropical climate ie Florida! All your plants are lush and gorgeous!
Debra, your going to have " triffids " http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=triffid in your basement. LOL....
Cissus amazonica has new digs - Cypress long with hollowed out end and set in the ground...
It seems I have a lot of triffids in my garden, I call them wax myrtles.
Debra, I think I saw a caladium or two in your pictures. Why don't you just let them go dormant for the winter and store the bulb instead of having to water and spray a plant in a pot. That pot is valuable real estate in your basment.
Wanted to add, I wish my cape hineysuckle looked as good as yours.
This message was edited Sep 28, 2011 8:44 AM
Went to an estate sale last weekend. In the backyard was the most wonderful greenhouse I have ever seen. heated and air conditioned, on a concrete slab with solid area all around and in front of it that has been treated with something and the concrete doesn't get hot. Price for construction (never mind all of the extras)...tada.....$38,000 some 5-6 years ago. Made me drool. Just what you need, Debra.
No, Christie - Deb needs to move down here to Florida with me!
Ooh, too bad you didn't get a picture, Christie! Did you get any plants at the estate sale?
Debra, you could hedge your bets on the cannas. Wait until they all die back from the cold, then just bring in a piece or two of each plant as insurance, leave the rest in place, bury and mulch 'em like crazy! If you lose the ones outside, you still have starts for next year, and if you don't . . . well, you'll have lots to share. Plus, as Kay says lots of us have cannas to share with you.
Your indoor garden is great, but what a lotta work, kiddo! Give yourself a break, and as Alice says, let the things that will go dormant have a sleep!
Elaine
