Tropical Garden #98

Well these are not tropical but I think we need a new thread..

Tulips

Thanks for the new thread pensacolagarden! I hope you will post another picture of those tulips once they bloom!

My Easter Lilies (Lilium longiflorum) are budding up but they have aphids on them. I spotted a ladybug this morning so hopefully they will eat all the aphids!

Kay, that is the sweetest gift anyone has ever given to me.

Randy, time for a visit?

I have a kazillion pictures of my plants but cannot figure out iPhoto on this mac laptop. I can post on Facebook because it has a button specifically for that. You are all out of my range anyway. I still have red flowers, white flowers, yellow flowers.....you get the drift. No Latin for me at my advanced years.

I definitely enjoy being a fan.

Species tulips can handle the heat and come back reliably too. This is Lady Jane.

Kristi, do you have the pictures stored in a folder on your computer?

Soon !
Can you believe I haven't even taken a photo of the garden this year.
My YTT bloomed well this year too Kay.

Can anyone ID the variety of clerodendron in this pic? It grows fast to a large shrub, and the leaves get as big as 12" long and 5" wide. It has this pretty leaf color, very dark green with purple on the reverse, and the flower clusters have 4in. long, tubular fragrant blooms with pink tubes and white flare. I don't have a good shot of the flowers, as it's been very stingy about blooming. Although I keep finding seedlings popping up, so it must have bloomed behind my back!

I like the pretty foliage, but it has died back a lot these past two winters, and it was planted as a screen, so when it doesn't have leaves for 3 months, that's a lousy screen.

I'm thinking of yanking a few of them out to make room for more brugs. (yes, they've done better in the cold here!) I'd like to be able to let people know what it is if I give the plants away.

It should be quadrilocular . http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51474/
It's generally a winter bloomer in the tropics- here it needs to be in a green house to bloom for early spring. The only time I've seen them bloom is at the whole sale green houses. You probably have more luck in Florida though.
I've yanked mine out because of the reason your contemplating doing so.

This message was edited Apr 11, 2011 5:12 PM

I agree ... C. quadrilocular:

http://www.hear.org/starr/images/species/?q=clerodendrum+quadriloculare&o=plants

I'm waaay too stupid for this crowd. I do appreciate your knowledge and wish I could have the motivation to learn as you guys have.

Randy understands me.......hahahahaha!!!!

Thanks folks! Looks like my clero's belong in Hawaii, or maybe Key West??

They sure are gorgeous in those pictures - mine never looked like that. Think I'll stick to more simple stuff like plumbago.

Christi, we will walk you through posting pictures if you will let us!

♬ ♭ ♫ ♪ ♬ Happy Birthday Joeswife ♫ ♪ ♬ ♪ ♫

Happy Birthday Debra, I hope you have a really special day!

Yes, happy birthday Debra!

This forum got really quiet while the weather's been warm - d'ya think everyone's been out gardening?? It was too hot outside for me yesterday afternoon, had to jump in the pool, then adopt 'summer hours' and wait for shade in the evening to finish my pruning.

I love the variegation on these gingers, jumping up inches per day right now.

Aww, Happy Birthday Debra!!

Happy Birthday Debra ! Here's a Yellow Knockout Rose blooming in my Garden for Ya !

Ardisia: I somehow missed your post earlier with those Lady Jane tulips are gorgeous! I've never seen Tulips growing this far south and I wonder if they would survive? I do have some Iris planted in the garden and love those blooms but they sure don't last very long. A few years ago when we were visiting my sister and family in south Fla. I went to Costco with my sis and bought some Pink Tulip bulbs and brought them home with me. I decided to put them in water as I've done Narcissus and a few other bulbs. I didn't know if they would do anything but they did sprout and were really beautiful. I tried drying them and saving them in a brown paper bag over winter but they just rotted in the humidity. I love visiting my youngest sister in N. Georgia when all her tulips, hyacinths and pretty bulbs are blooming.

Christy & RJ: it's great to see you both here on the tropical plants forum. Hope to see pictures soon.

Christy: You are not stupid, you are a fantastic lady with wonderful qualities, someone we can all learn from! I have only become familiar with the botanical/scientific names of plants since joining DG a few years ago. I found myself getting real confused when someone would mention a plant and show a photo and it would not be the plant that I knew by that name. That's when I learned that there are many totally different types of plants with the same common name. I remember getting real frustrated trying to find something in Plant Files because what would come up was not what I was looking for. Anyhow, please know that we all just love plants and sharing photo's and information, and your contributions will make it more enjoyable. We certainly welcome your presence here and on all forums on DG! You are a terrific lady!

I'm so sorry that you can't get your camera to cooperate to upload photo's here to DG. We've always been a Mac household but I'm not real computer literate and have never learned the IPhoto feature. My old laptop, a Mac G4? (or something) bit the dust so my husband ordered me a new one that arrived last week. It's a Macbook Pro and so far I'm loving it. I'm going to try to play around with IPhoto later today to see if I can figure it out. I've always just taken pictures and downloaded them to a folder I created on the desktop and then just upload from that folder. I'm curious about IPhoto so I will let you know if I figure out how to use it.

dyzzy: Lovely Plumbago, and that variegated Ginger is really pretty ... I love variegated foliage.

Ctenanthe lubbersiana:

MJ: Wow, that is an awesome photo of the Yellow Knockout Rose!

Happy Birthday Debra any best wishes for many more!!!!

James

♫♪♫ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEB ♪♫♪! I'll be calling you in a few minutes. Love you!

Picked this up, this weekend...Colotropis gigantea - giant milkweed.

Found some plumbago marked down

Paula, THAT tears it! I am moving in next door to you!!! I have been looking for the giant milkweed for a long while - does it have lots of blooms at a time or just a few here and there?

Happy Birthday Debra, hope your day is special!

Lin, the species tulips seem to have a greater tolerance for the heat. The flowers are smaller but I love them anyway.
The ones I put in the ground disappeared, I suspect squirrels were the culprits, so I plant them in pots now and they have come back reliably for 3 years now. The bulbs multiply also.

I don't need to live next door to GAgirl, I just want to go plant shopping with her, she finds the neatest things. :-)

GaGirl: Oooh, LOVE the looks of that giant milkweed!

Ardesia: Do you leave the Tulip bulbs in the pots over winter or do you have to dig them up and store them? I know nothing about growing tulips.

I just leave the bulbs in the pots year round. They have finished blooming now and the foliage is dying so they will be put in a sheltered spot under my back steps for the next 9 or 10 months. No chilling other than whatever winter provides. These bulbs have been so easy for me. A good friend plants hers in the lawn and they look so beautiful popping up in the grass.

My antique roses have been lovely this year, this is Allister's Stella Gray and it perfumes the whole neighborhood.

Debra,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YA!!!!!!!!!!!

Got this too...justica

Kay,
Yes it does have blooms all over it, 3-4 flowers together all over the plant. That is my hobby....I love to look for new plants wherever I go. They also had a white kings mantle but someone had beaten me to it. I was so mad! I did get a varigated thunbergia grandiflora this weekend. It said Alba, I don't know if it is referring to the leaves or just the wrong classification, because it has the lavender flowers.

Gagirl, I sent a d-mail.
Also Re:T.grandiflora - varigated. I think it is probably the lavender w/ varigated foliage. Alba as far as any research I've come up with does not come with a varigated leaf.
I've mostly been lurking. Been very busy w/ horses/garden. Weather has been phenomenal here ! THIS is why I live in Florida. !!!
I know I have D-mails to answer I will get to them ! Got most of my trades out just a few left to do .

Hi, Martha!!! Take it easy, ladybug - we don't want you having sun stroke or develop chronic fatigue syndrome!

Hello Everybody!
Thanks to pesacolagarden for starting the new thread and everyone for posting such beautiful pictures
I am laying low for a while in order to heal my ego and posterior, after taking a fall from a 6' ladder, trying to get way from a snake in my hanging basket. It was only a rat snake but I did not know that at the time. lol

Two nights ago a storm tore half the roof off my GH, and took the plastic off one of my HHs. Most of my buds and blooms were blown off.

I had to pop in to wish Joeswife a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Oh Rita, I am so sorry about your fall and the damage. I hope you are ok. The GH and HH can be fixed, but you need to be more careful!! What we do to take care of our 'babies'. LOL I know I have cried on several occasions when some of my orchids got scorched by the sun and when I have let a favorite plant dry out and die, just when I bought it. My husband thinks I am nuts, I guess I am...

Rita: So sorry about your fall, I hope your posterior (and ego) heal quickly! I ran into my first snake of the season week before last! It was large black racer and it scared the daylights outta me. My husband saw it the next day and called me outside so I took a picture of it. There was a smaller one in a flower bed yesterday, very near the post the wisteria is climbing. There's a bird house at the top of the post and Carolina Wrens have nests in there. It's an active nest because I've watched the adults going back and forth. I haven't heard chirping of baby birds yet but I'm afraid the snakes will get eggs or babies. :( I know it's all part of nature but it's so sad. I am so afraid of snakes, even the non poisonous variety. I get really nervous when I see a snake. We've had a few coral snakes around the past few years and last year I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack when I was weeding a flower bed and spotted one ... it really shook me up when I saw the head and realized it was not the king snake but the deadly coral snake! I'm always on the lookout for those slithery things.

Oh, what a shame about the storm damage to your GH and HH. We've had some doozy storms already this year, it's really early for such weather ... Love that Hibiscus bloom!

Well, I'm off to bed .... goodnight everyone.

Thank you for the well wishes for my Birthday, everyone. Rita, you have some healing to do, not rest up! ( dr's orders)

I hope you get someone to help you with that hoop house repair.
Love the giant milk weed. I am waiting for mine to come up, I planted seds. All of the other milkweeds are coming up, tropical and Native here.
Today I got to smell my Lilac and see a butterfly..

Saturday I got to go to the Belle Plaine Arboretum, that Robin from the original Dixie Chicks has bought, and now is strugling with grant money. It is an Old place, with very old pines, and some trees and shrubs and plants .. She has a crew of volunteers called Soil Sisters, I applied to join..
My Daughter and grandson, cousin and girlfriend , my husband, Joe and I all had a great time. The effort to keep these very old pine trees alive has been worth it..

here are a few of those very old pine trees

This guy had a vendor for frappes and such, I told him I would buy a Frappe if he would ride his bike, he told me he rides it all the time, all the way to colorado and back even.. He did give me a Frappe after all..

The placce is huge, it has the Ninnesca river floweing thru it.. I told DH he could buy me the place, house and all..he said "Yeal, Right"

It was also Tulip Time in Belle Plaine, and the Aboreatum had a load of them everywhere..
I have found that if you put your bulbs in the lower part of the refridgerator during the winter ( crisper drawer) they do better in a warmer zone.. ( I experimented one year )

This message was edited Apr 13, 2011 12:04 AM