Vicarious winter gardening - or Show me da blooms!

Our weeping bottle brush tree is beginning to bloom again. It draws the yellow-rumped warblers that are adorable the way they flutter in mid-air. It also brought hummers last year, but we haven't seen any yet this year. I have a hummer feeder out, but no sightings just yet. They are pretty rare to see here.

Here's a tree that is similar to the bottle brush in bloom, but not in the foliage. It is the shaving brush tree. There is only one in the neighborhood. Today we saw a Baltimore Oriole flying from it. I hope Mr. O. stops by our yellow elders for a visit!

ooops.......I posted the wrong photo. This is the shaving brush tree.......sorry!

The photo above the shaving brush tree that I mistakenly posted is a pink ixora and a lavender bouganvillea, fyi.

All very nice! You're starting to remind me of the FL tourist song from years back - 'When you need it bad, we've got it good. When you need it bad, come to Florida, 'cause we got it good here...'

LOL, Victor - I guess "the grass is greener" principle kicks in???!! All I know is that I had to live on half my salary for a lot of years to make our gameplan happen! LOL

Most of us live on half our salary - after taxes!!

trees are very pretty!

True, Victor! But make it half the half! LOL

And then you split the place you call home half and half. You're full of halves!!

Half-baked; half-witted; half-______; half-pint; half-hearted at times.........LOL

Now I know how the other half lives!

Oh, LOL, Victor.......we live half as well as the other half lives!! But we DO know how fortunate we are! LOL

Louise, I would love to see all the birds your beautiful trees draw in. The bottle brush is gorgeous!

All the tropical blooms are beautiful. We don't have many blooming house plants, just a lot of green ones. But here is a begonia that is doing well.

very pretty picture bebop.... begonias go straight to my heart

:)

Beautiful trees Louise - reminds me of Florida!! Eleanor

DonShirer,
I hope no one minds me jumping in here to answer the Verbena "Homestead" Purple question on hardiness. I was curious on this one also. I did manage to have this come back for the past few years by placing a flat rock over it in the winter. Although it was never as large and full it has always come back. I did see,after reading the plant files, that the center probably didn't return. I think other plants crowded it out also. This past year a piece rooted itself in a crack in the asphalt driveway and bloomed all summer. So it seems to be hardy enough to come back but not enough to put on a big display.

I still have the native honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens blooming.

Oops, Forgot the photo.

and winter pansies.

Thanks for the Verbena info, Semper. Next year I'll try it in a protected spot and see what happens.
NJ must be the garden state--my honeysuckle quit blooming months ago.

The one verbena I grow that occasionally comes back but reseeds like crazy is the 5 foot tall, branching, purple one (think it is the V. bonariensis that Victor mentioned). In this zone, that is a big plus! I don't have a photo that shows how tall it is but here is one of the blooms I took last summer.

gotta love pansies!.... yours look better than mine though.... I forgot to summer sow some... OOPS love it when they bloom sticking out of the snow

Jan - I will try to get a few bird photos. It's tough to get them to come out well from inside my sunroom because of the window screen. I will take my camera out to our breakfast patio and see if I can get a couple. We regularly have a cardinal couple, an endangered scrub jay, doves, pigeons, warblers, mockingbirds, and sparrows. Occasionally, others stop by as well, and last year in March we had a huge flock of migrating robins that covered the entire yard. They were huge!

Thanks, Eleanor.....glad you are enjoying seeing them!

Semper - I love both of your shots.....so glad you shared your experience with the verbena and your pansies.

Bebop - pretty verbena and begonias. I love the begonias and I am really taken by the verbena. It's so colorful and cheery!

So happy to have others share their blooms and thoughts!

Louise!!!!!!

The Christmas Cactus has two buds!!!!!!!!!

Awesome, Candyce!!!! Merry Christmas! I'm so glad to hear it! You are doing something right! Mine doesn't have any yet.....I see on Google Weather that is on my home page that you are supposed to have 3 degrees up there tonight??? OMG!! I'm anxious to go over to the weather thread to see who's having what temps today......

Congratulations Candyce! Have you passed out cigars yet?

Candyce - or Buds?

That one took me a minute, but I prefer Sam Adams!

Which one - there are dozens now!!

Well, I was just SO happy to see the Christmas Cactus flower buds that I had to let my friend DB know about them.

I am not a beer-drinker, but I love the aroma of a good cigar!

Yes, Louise .... it got really cold last night ... it has since warmed up to 14*. We are in the 6 to 12" band for predicted snowfall. Down where your cottage stands, it's in the 2 to 6" band. It's all in the elevation, I believe. Do you have someone there who checks on your place from time to time?

Candyce, Louise, and anyone else who wants buds on their
X-Mas cactus.
My brother does this to make his bloom:
He use's bloom booster mixed with water at a fairly weak strength. He starts watering them with this for 2 weeks, then stops. Use regular water after 2 weeks and you should start to see buds form. He can make his plants bloom when ever he feel like it.......it drives me crazy!!
Please don't blame me if it doesn't work for you....but it worked for me last year and im about to try it again this year. I'll let ya know if I get blooms for Christmas or not.

Is the bloom booster sold commercially?

I buy mine at Home Depot. It 'Miracle Grow' water soluble Bloom Booster Flower Food. It says "promotes bigger flowers & more color" and it is for all blooming annuals and perennial flowers and plants. I bought a box and it's 1.5lbs I don't remember what I paid for it.

Ahhhhh ....
OK. I remember seeing that in and amongst the other 'grow' stuff there at Agway. Thanks.

Bloom Booster...gotta try it. thanks for the tip. Mine blooms, but I never know when it will be.

Okay, how's this for a winter bloom!!! It's the cuttings from a sweet potato vine - I guess I better pot it up before I lose the roots, too!

This is the cat window - I put the bench in front of the window and they can watch the birds nicely from there.

Ya like my ghost photo? It would help if I included it, huh?

I potted up four plant seedlings yesterday. The cats had two of them dug up within ten minutes!! Darned things!!!! Of course, it didn't help that I put the seedlings in their window. So, after the second uprooting, I moved the seedlings.