Tropical Garden #59

We've come from here:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1060256/

First up is a Walking Stick Iris that just started flowering for me recently.

All our Ipomoeas are coming out now. The earliest are usually Ipomoea abrupta. Grows quite large but isn't invasive. Dies back in the dry season

Close up of Geodorum neocaledonicum, Nodding Orchid.

thanks for a new thread....

Hope that Everyone had a Great Christmas!

I thoroughly enjoyed the photos, keep them coming.

Thanks for starting the new thread Tropicbreeze
Happy Boxing Day!!!

Philo.Gloriosum in the GH

This message was edited Dec 26, 2009 4:54 PM

Carolina Jasmine in the back yard

Thought I might do a bit of a tour around the garden. Maybe make viewers forget the cold and feel a bit warmer.

This is a corner where I decided to set up orchids that appreciate a little shade. Photo was taken a couple of weeks ago just before that Pandanus in the centre was cut out to make room. It's sheltered mainly by a few Swamp Mahoganys and Ficus benjamina, with some African Mahoganys further back. It's beside my dam and the large rocks are laterite which probably came from digging the dam out.

Looking down along from the laterite to where some of the palm fronds are piled up and left to rot. The palms are Carpentaria acuminata. The foreground fern is Drynaria quercifolia and just past it a small Cythea cooperi

Looking back into the new orchid area. In the foreground are limestone rocks I piled up for my Jewel Alocasias. The African Mask is very obvious. The very bottom left side rock has a small Alocasia reginula coming up above it. There'll be more going in there later.

The Pothos likes the garden, it and the Syngonium take over the trees. To the left is (part of) a Ficus NOID and at the back African Mahogany.

The Carpentaria palms make a great totem for the Pothos, although they're even higher in the African Mahogany behind.

Tree on the left is Indian Almond, Coconuts in the middle, and another Ficus NOID. Most of the lower plants are Psittacorum Heliconias and (what I think are) some small Betel Nut palms.

The large tree is a Raintree with a Philodendron climbing up one side, the other side has some Dendrobium affine growing on it. The tall 'ringed' palms are Dypsis madagascariensis. Small palm on the bottom left is Ptychosperma macarthurii, centre is Carpentaria acuminata, and right is Dypsis lutescens. Upper right are the fronds of Archontophoenix alexandrae.

What a fabulous garden!

The main palms here are Archontophoenix alexandrae with Dypsis lutescens just behind.There's a mix of lower plants around those, Heliconia rostrata, Turnera, Jasmine, Psittacorum Heliconia. Right in the background there's African Mohogany, Ficus Benjamina, Ficus racemosa.

tropic, your yard looks so neat. I can't wait to see how you fill in the alocasia area. Your pics made me realize that I need to define my paths again. I love the palm area. It is a peaceful and shady looking path. Nice to be planning my spring activities now :).

On the left is a densely clumped, fine leafed NOID Bamboo. Middle is Dypsis lutescens and Archontophoenix alexandrae. Behind those a NOID Ficus with more African Mahoganys in the background.

Centre there's the Dypsis madagascariensis, Archontophoenix alexandrae behind that, the urn has Water Canna in it, and beside that a small Macadamia.

Your place is beautiful!!! It's only 50 here but we have dipped down to 32 a couple nights already and my garden is covered to hopefully protect it from frost.

Thanks Dutchlady1, the gardening certainly keeps me off the streets. And that's got to be good for everyone!

3jsmom31, I'm working towards a blend of rampant jungle with only a touch of manicuring. But I plan as I go along, so who knows how it will turn out.

Garden?? That's a Jungle you've got there ... and a very beautiful one! Wow ... really nice plants!

Thanks Jeri11. Thankfully I don't have to worry about low temps. What would be a "freeze" to us would be if at night it dropped to 10C (50F). But there are always other issues we have to contend with.

Thanks Lin, the advantage is that when your goal is jungle it doesn't matter how unkempt it looks, you can always say that's how it's meant to be.

Hi.

I just love your garden/jungle/paradise! Thanks for sharing your environment with us.

Take care, all.
Sylvain.

TB, that archontophoenix alexandrae is gorgeous!!
Marianne

tropicbreeze, I'm really enjoying your photos now that not much is blooming here. I never have time to read all the posts from everyone, but I really enjoy looking at everyone's pretty plants!

Me too. I'm green with zone envy. I think I was suppose to be born in a tropical paradise but somewhere along the way the stork got side tracked and dropped me here.

Hi Mekos, we are just the same! Zone envy wise, that is. But when I lived in Florida, I missed the lilacs and other northern plants!

But with all the rare stuff you can grow there, I could adjust very well. I just got some blue gingers and white, peach and orange butterfly gingers and got them in the greenhouse for now. Also got a few more gingers one is verigated leaf and so pretty but wow all the stuff that would grow naturally in a tropical place like Hawaii or Florida or Australia or anywhere it doesn't get cold. I'm just praying the power doesn't go off in the greenhouse till I can get a propane tank heater to take over in it's place during the freak ice storms and snow storms and such. I could like tropical for a while. Every ten years I could come back to make a snowman and then go home to tropical paradise. BIG SMILE.

Hey y'all ... it depends on what part of Florida you live in! I'm in Daytona Beach and we do get cold here at times! Luckily, we don't have freezes very often but they are not totally unheard of. Back in the early 80's we had such a hard freeze that we lost many, many landscape plants ... from 8' Viburnum shrubs that were around the entire perimeter of our backyard, a few citrus trees, many large hibiscus shrubs, even a bunch of cactus I had grown from seeds.

It was 80º here on Christmas day so everyone was in shorts and T-shirts. The past two days have been in the 60's and tonight is supposed to drop to 38º and our high tomorrow may not make it out of the 50's! Brrr ... makes me want to move south! ^_^

Really ... I've been thinking of all who live in areas with the blizzards, power outages etc. I just can't even imagine what it must be like having to deal with weather like that!

aaaaahh...we had one of those 8 year freezes. It looks pretty scrappy now, although it appears mostly cosmetic damage. Most of the plants will recover.
Only 2.5 more months until the warm weather returns.!

Beautiful picture's from your tropical paradise Tropic and thank's for the information you gave me concerning the growing condition's for your "jewel's" on the previous thread. I had forgotten about reading the tip from LariAnn concerning "limestone". Look's and sound's like you have a great set-up for growing them.

I am with some of the rest of you all...I am so ready for the Winter month's to be over and back to gardening again. I have zone envy quite often;-)

Hope this helps to warm everyone up!

That is beautiful. I love the Palm tree. What kind is it?

Hi Mekos, that's Clinostigma samoense, Samoan Palm.

Sure is pretty. Not many Palms will live here. Some in Charlston S.C. close to the beach but not around here. Every now and again I see one someone has brought in already big but few and far between.

Thanks everyone re the garden. The thing is that the tropics have a very wide range of different conditions. Each present their own problems, not to mention different soil types and their idiosynchracies. It's never easy but we learn. Still, my preference is the tropics, I'd rather only see the white stuff when I open the freezer door and not my front door.

Rachel, does your Spathiphyllum flower turn green after a while? Mine spent a while pure white and has now turned completely green, but still healthy and not a sign of ageing/dying off.

Dave, that Clinostigma samoense is a beautiful tree. The young plants look even better with their almost entire fronds. That looks like a Strelitzia on the left. I was going to grow some but found out we're about 1000 kms too close to the equator for them. The trees in the background look like a Casuarina sp.

Sundew flowers, Drosera sp.

OH WOW! Sundews, we're working on bog gardens with those now. Seray has got them started and the rest of us are waiting to see if they grow good so we can try them. We have seeds on the way now. Love them. That one in bloom is beautiful.

tropicbreeze, if you get a minute, please show the whole plant. I enjoy seeing them glistening and waiting for unsuspecting buggies, lol.

We've quite a few different Sundews, but their flowers don't differ all that much.

Pandanus aquaticus fruit (not that you can eat it).

I think the blooms look like tiny orchids.