February Update on the Leap Day

Today is the leap day, thought it would be great to give an update of my February garden, just make this post a little special :)

There are so many colors and flowers bursting in my February South Florida garden due to the mild winter we had this year.

In the past, I only tried pink snapdragons, and this is my first time to grow yellow and white ones, and I find myself loving them so much in the winter garden, warm and bright.

This is the time for Golden shrimp plant(Pachystachys lutea) to bloom.

Giant Apostle's Iris (Neomarica Caerulea 'Regina') started blooming, much earlier than last year.

This Lobelia plant is one of the rare blue flowers I have ever seen.  They make the great trailing (spiller) plants for the container.

Lobelia 

This Purple Verbenas is also great for container, either as the filler or the spiller.

The following two are the new plants I am trying this year, Cuphea llavea Vienco™.  I love them in a more compacted size, suitable for my small garden.

This year I am trying to grow Mona lavender (Plectranthus) in the ground instead of in the container.  It is in a partial shade area, and they seem quite happy there. Best of all, it doesn't require frequent watering compare to growing in the container.

These two Begonias had their blooming peak this month.

Begonia Odorata Var. Alba

Rex Begonia

Even caladium bulbs are shooting out of the ground here and there much earlier than last year.

Dipladenia pink just started blooming again after a hard trim I did late last year. Now they came back fresh and strong.  I expect they will be on their peak time in March.  

Dipladenia pink

Bulbine plants look the best when they are blooming in a mass. Bees just love them.

This Chorus Line daylily has not finished blooming yet, neither has Pandoras box daylily.

CHORUS LINE 

Wow, I found I am having quite some blues in my garden.  I guess that doesn't happen by accident considering blue if one of my favorite colors in the garden. Could not help snap some pictures of this blue butterfly flower every time I pass it by.

Blue Butterfly
Clerodendrum ugandense

February is also the month when many orchids bloom.  One of most impressive orchids bloomed this month is Epidendrum Orchid, or go with the common names such as Crucifix Orchid, Reed-stem Epidendrum, Sun Orchid,and etc.

 I bought one in April of 2010.  After the initial blooming, it only had a few flowers last year.  After I put them into the ground (this orchid is terrestrial type) in a more sunny location, this year they just bloomed like crazy.  If you are trying to find an easy growing orchid, this is the one that you should try!  They are also so easy to propagate by division of pseudobulbous stems or offsets, or by removing and planting those pups on old stems or flower spikes. From one 5 gallon container, now I have three clumps of this orchid spread in my garden.

You also can spot Epidendrum Orchid in the below flower bed.

Now the rest are different orchids blooming currently in my garden. I put them mostly in my front porch since my back porch has too many suns.  I really need more space for more orchids!

For those of you living in the cold weather area, hope you enjoyed the flowers in my Tropical garden, and remember Spring is coming!

Happy Gardening!

Early blooming of Daylilies and Other Things in the Garden

Since this is my first post of the year, let me first say "Happy New Year" to you all !!! Wish you have all the fun of the gardening in this new year!

Every year, from early Spring through the summer, I admire those beautiful pictures of Daylilies from other people's blog, wondering when I can own some of these beauties in my garden.

For some reasons, Daylilies are hard to find in South Florida.  Occasionally, the big box stores have some for sale.  I brought two home in two different times, and both died after the initial blooming.  I did some researches, and found out that among thousands of Daylilies, there are three foliage types: Dormant, Semi-evergreen, and Evergreen.  For people live deep South like me, Evergreen is the one that will survive our long-lasting hot weather.  No wonder I failed twice since those two were all Domant types! Then why they even sold them in the store since Daylilies are not supposed to be a one-time thing in the garden?!

Anyway, since I did not find any local nurseries to buy Evergreen Daylilies, I looked over the Internet.  I ordered 5 bareroot Evergreen double-fans from http://smokeysdaylilygardens.com/, and they arrived at the end of last October.

This week, two of them are already blooming! I am not sure if it is only because they are the early bloomers ( 'Lavender Silence' is labled as "Extra-early", and "Whooperee' is labled as "Early-mid" ), or also because of the mild winter we are having in South Florida.  Nevertheless, I am excited to see these beauties are finally finding a home in my garden!  If they all perform well after this summer, I think I will order more this fall.  With a small garden, Daylilies are the ones I can find some space to squeeze in.

Whooperee
Evergreen, early-mid, rebloomer, 6.5" flower, 24" scape height,  fragrant, recurved

Lavender Silence
Evergreen, extra-early, 6.5" flower, 22" scape height,  ruffled, fragrant, recurved

Other things going on in the garden...

This Rex Begonia is in a shady area, and recently started shooting up the flower scapes.  I bought it last year.  After one year, it has been growing nicely.  I have separated it into four plants.  I think after a couple of years, I can expand them to the whole border that surrounds the air conditioner area.  Even when it is not blooming, I love the texture of this plant.

Begonia

Love this combo in this part of flower bed.  White Vincas,  Orange Indian Blanket flowers, pink Pentas. That purple leaf plant with white dotted flowers is Alternanthera dentata 'Purple Knight'.  Some says 'Purple Knight' is kind of invasive, but I have not found it is a big problem for me.  It does have some seedlings, but only a handful I found so far.  I can easily pulled them out, or give them to the friends.  In the winter, they are full of those tiny white flowers, brighten the winter garden, and give us Floridians some snowy touch :)

Another combo I like:  White Angelonia angustifolia, colorful coleus, and blue Lobelia erinus Techno Heat.  This Lobelia is supposed to withstand the hottest summer temperatures while blooming nonstop.  I will see if it holds true to Florida heat as well.

My front entry is quite colorful this winter.  I removed some copperleaf bushes in the front, and put two cast iron cranes statues there together with some bromeliads.

This philodendron 'moonlight' behind the cranes statues started as a 3-in house plant from the big box store.  Oh boy, how much it has grown!  Wonder how much bigger it will get if I put it in the ground.

philodendron 'moonlight'

and I did not know it blooms as well!!!

philodendron 'moonlight'  bloom

Snapdragon flower is one of my favorite winter annuals...

Pertunia is perfect for containers.  Red is used to combo the white.

Purple petunia is in this container I have just redone, together with Flax lily and purple Verbenas.

Red and  white petunias are in this pot with 'Red Star'.

My most favorite red-white stripe petunia is in this container.

Orchids that are currently blooming...

The first is a Cattleya orchid gifted from my friend this Christmas.  Love this soft yellow.

This Moth orchid is reblooming the second time for me since I bought it one year ago.  I have special thing for any orchid flowers with dots. 

I recently purchased this Mini Oncidium Equitant from a big box store.  It has five flower spikes.  

It looks so pretty and fits well in the pot that my husband brought for me from China last year.

I am really enjoying my winter garden.  I have to say I am spoiled by this year's Florida winter.

One Year Blogversary and A Rain Splashed Garden

The 14th day of this month was my one year blogversary day.  I started a post draft a few days before that day.  The day came and went, and I did not get time to finish the post for the day.  Actually, struggling to find the time has always been the common theme in my one year experience with the blogging.  With only 79 posts to the day, obviously I am not a prolific writer, but how glad I am that I made it to my one year blogversary!

We had a good day of rain several days ago, which was much needed in my area.  I would like to present you some foliage and blooms in my rain splashed garden along with my one year blogversary rambling. 

Delicious Cordyline fruticosa 'Kiwi'

Hawaiian Ti is showing its bright pink new leaves of the season

As lots of my readers might have known,  English is my second language.  I know most of my blog friends can  flow their thoughts naturally through their flying fingers without the need to think about the grammar, spelling or the organization of the sentence.  For me, I need to look up the dictionary to make sure I am not saying something I didn't mean to. Not to mention the grammar, spelling or a common English saying. Although I tried to check as much as I can before I click the "Publish" button, I am sure there still have been lots of mistakes in my writing. Thanks to all my forgiving readers for the encouragement you have given me over the past year by reading my blog and leaving the comments!  I still could not believe my blog got nearly 7900 visitors from all over the world, and more than 21600 hits within one year.

Christmas Cacti

Together with the writing, it is also a year that I learned to take pictures of plants. I use a Cannon EOS Digital Rebel XTi as my viewfinder. I have to admit that I still have not read the manual yet. All of my knowledge about this camera are from my husband, who is the real owner of this camera since it was gifted to him several years ago. I really need to take some time to read the manual since I believe there are still something about this camera I am not fully taking advantage of. 

Snapdragons  (saved from the distressed rack in the big box store)

I never took so many pictures in a year, and 98% of them don't have people in it.  Thanks for the invention of the digital camera.  It made it possible for an amateur like me to choose a presentable picture out of numerous blurring, not well-exposed, or unbalanced pictures for my posts.  My family is now used to seeing me rushing out in the morning before work to capture some flowers in the soft morning sun.  Sometimes, I wonder what my neighbors think about me when they saw me in my apron taking pictures in the front garden during the late afternoon time. That was when I had dinner cooking on the oven, and wanted to take some pictures before sunset, and forgot I am still wearing apron!



Various bromeliads, one of my favorite collection in the garden!

Of course, the main driving factor for me to start this blog is to record my garden progress I started around the time we bought our house about one and half year ago.  It helped me to record my gardening lessons and fun as a beginning gardener. So many of you have endured my whining since very beginning, and shared the excitement and joy with me every time a new bloom was unfurled, a new plant was acquired and a new garden bed was opened. Thanks for all the tips and plant identification help you have given me along the way.  I guess many of you are now used to seeing me asking the questions in my post!


Loving this swan container full of double impatiens blooms!



Lemon Lime Warneckii is now blooming




Angelonia angustifolia

 Now one year has passed, and I definitely want to continue my blogging fun.  Please bear with me when I could not post frequently, response to all the comments you have left, or visit your blog and leave the comment as much as I would like.  I do enjoying reading every single comment you have spent time to write.   I felt I have made so many friends in this blogging world, and learned so much from all of you.   I deeply appreciate the help you have provided to me in various ways, and I know I am growing up both as a blogger and a gardener because of all of you precious readers and fellow gardeners.  Thanks for the continous support!

To end this post, I need to ask "the question of the post" :)  Could anybody identify the cultivar of the hibiscus I have in my header picture?  I got two cuttings over one year ago, and now they are both blooming.  One has been identified by Floridagirl at "Peace in the Valley" as "Jane Cowell", and the one in the header picture is still unknown.  Thanks!