Tropical Plants and Gardens #116

Welcome all! Please post pictures and chat about your wonderful tropicals.

We need lots of pictures of whatever is green and growing or blooming in your garden, greenhouse or basement at this time of year.

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1233799/

This message was edited Jan 16, 2012 10:20 AM

Sorry, my first time starting a thread here and I forgot to post a picture. Here's one to get us off the ground

Blc Chia Lin 'New City' - I bought it with buds but still feel like a new mother with these two huge, fragrant flowers.

Mango tree has flowers at every stage - this is good for prolonging the harvest come summer. Feeling so lucky that the cold weather has not blasted the blooms, so far at least.

If we get another flush of bloom in March we'll have plenty of mangoes!

Oh my gosh Elaine!!! That is beautiful!!!! It looks huge!

Well heres something new......just bought these.

Does anyone know the name of this one? The leaves are all kinda different. Some of them are straight, some are shriveled up with almost a "cup" and some have little 'tails' like the stingray. I just love it!! I tried to get different angles of the different leaves.

Pic 1

and here the one with the little cup...

and the one with the little tail

and Rita, I know you would probably love this one....IF you don;t already have it..LOL
Red Aglaonema

Hey Paula, It's a Xanthosoma Albo Variegata; aka 'Pocket Plant', aka 'Mickey Mouse'.

Alocasia Infernalis Inflorescence.

Philodendron pastazanum inflorescence.

Anthurium waroqueanum inflorescence.

Philodendron moonlight; 14 straight weeks of blooming.

Philodendron verrucosum cuttings starting to come to life.

Mr. P. giganteum. I believe he will be in the garage next winter.

Can hardly wait for spring! Hope everyone is well.

Wow, Drew the leaf on that A. waroqueanum is pretty enough, can't wait to see what the flower looks like! Your philos are putting on an early spring show.

Paula, love that little variegated Xantho. The orchids aren't quite as huge as they look, my hand is about 12in. away. But it is about 7in. across.

My aroids are still out in the shady border, but I've been covering them on the cool nights the last couple of weeks. They seem to be pretty happy. Prince of Orange is dark brick red, but still putting up new leaves slowly. Wonder if they will bloom?

Elaine, They should bloom in the spring! My Bipinnatifidum always did before I froze the main trunk a few years ago! Could be late spring though.

The inflorescence is just to the right of that big leaf on the Waroqueanum.

Rita these are the two newest leaves the Monstera deliciosa 'Albo Variegata' has grown. It is really doing well.

This message was edited Jan 16, 2012 8:24 PM

#2

well, someone hand me a towel, I need to wipe the drool off my face before I fry the keyboard..

Drew, your Albo Variegata is so pretty, and those leaves - even the smaller one is big enough to hide the cat.

I love the half white one - and the cat of course.

Little calabrichoa flowers in a planter by my fish pond. Nice and warm out there, facing south.

All these beautiful plants and the beautiful weather we have been having makes me think spring but I know there is still time for it to get dicey again.

I had a surprise this week when this tropical lily bloomed. The flower is much smaller than normal but obviously this one is pretty tough to be blooming at this time of year. BTW, this is the one I have promised to Paula if I ever get down her way. When it is fully leafed out it is way to big for my little pond but it should do well in Lake Paula. :-)





This message was edited Jan 17, 2012 5:48 PM

The cold hasn't hurt the alpinias - yet.

Alice, your waterlily is a lovely little treat for the eyes. I've had my tropical waterlilies do that a couple of times, too. Tiny flowers out of the blue just pop up, when it's been warm for a few days and the water temp goes up a bit.

I've had amazingly little cold damage this year - even my little divas the Peacock gingers just finally gave up last week, when we had two cold nights in a row. They usually disappear at the first sign of cold. My 'Shooting Star' clerodendron still has buds that are ever so painfully slowly trying to open. I tried to cover the bushes but they are just 'way too tall and big, so they've been exposed to the cold 3 times now. Coleus are all shriveled leaves, but they're still alive!

I think the temps near the ground have stayed higher because of all the residual heat in the ground, and very little rain to cool the ground as well. Also the Gulf temps are still well up into the 60's where they were at least 10deg. colder at this time last year.

Brug 'Monster White' popped open a flower - the plant doesn't look great - I had to prune it down so I could cover it - but the flowers still smell wonderful.

Alice, very pretty! Maybe one day soon we can meet half way and have a mini roundup of our own. LOL

Drew, Are you pretty sure its Mickey Mouse? I am so excited!!! I have a tiny baby a couple of years ago, but lost it so I am so excited that is what this one is. Is it normal for the leaves to be contorted like that?

Elaine,
I really want to come visit you also. I would love to see your yard! I am so sad....my cup of gold was just beautiful and I kept telling myself to bring it here to this house, but I waited too late. I had it in the make-shift greenhouse at the other house and went to get it the other day and it was 'toast'. All the leaves were brown and what made me even more mad/sad was that it was loaded with blooms. I almost cried. It only had two blooms last year. I really hope it doest die, but it really looks pathetic right now, just a couple of stalks. Waaaaa!!! Do you think it will come back??? I have it inside the house here now, right in front of some double windows. It stays warm and gets lots of light.

Any time, Paula. You'd laugh at my garden, it's a chaotic jungle even in winter, but always interesting. As Alice says, I am a collector not a landscaper.

Is Cup of Gold a brug? If so, it absolutely could recover. They have a big dense root mass that sends up new shoots even when they are killed back to the ground by frost. If the stalks are still green or are not soft, it's still alive. Don't rush it back to health, just baby it along with warm, water, and use dilute fert when it starts putting out new leaves. Careful of really bright sunlight until the leaves are bigger.

Paula are you referring to the chalice vine?( cup of gold) If so, I can start you one. Mine from Rita is all over the place.. I might even see a bloom in a few weeks. Finally!

love all the greens and colors, what is alpinia? Is it a ginger?

Elaine, Cup of Gold is a vine...winter bloomer, can get HUGE if it doesn't get knocked back by a freeze. You could grow it there easily.

Yes, that's the one. I just hope it comes back or I may need you to start me one, Debra. Just brought my heart to see all those 'frozen' blooms. It is obviously VERY cold sensitive, because all the other things in there were fine...hibs, duranta, etc.

Got ya, Paula... Good Morning everyone, way below freezing here.. ugh. Is -15 low enough?
KayJones, sister and I have some dates in mind for our vacation to travel South and East, will be good to meet you!

Deb, CALL ME!

Minus 15???? Am I reading that right? Oh Debra, you need to get south ASAP - although most of us do not have basements and yours has become infamous. :-)

Dreary and drizzly here today but the camellias are loving this weather. Supposed to get colder tonight, hope they are wrong again.

Had to stop at a nursery in Charleston yesterday for some vermiculite and look what else came home with me. I am terrible with the rexes and rhizos, preferring the canes, but I am going to give these a try. It is hard to tell in this picture but the red is a deep burgundy, the tiny one was just cute and cheap.

This message was edited Jan 18, 2012 9:45 AM

Right! I saw the chalice vine in bloom last time I was at Selby. Sadly, I'm very challenged for space as far as big flowering vines go. I'd love to try that, and the Hawaiian Sunset, too.

We'll see what space turns up in the next month while I am still bushwhacking the jungle back out of the garden.

Alice your new baby begonias are just lovely! I have had to stop buying begonias until I get the ones I have situated for the summer. (but I know if I saw them at the nursery, they'd follow me home, too) Still buying orchids that I think will bloom on my shady fence, and on the limbs of the oak trees. Local fellow here is selling off his father's business and has a bunch of great ones at very low prices so I can experiment . . . work in progress!

I got two of these 'Little Lulu' brassavola crosses and am going back for more today. Planning to mount them to a big low branch of the oak tree for the summer and see how they do.

Elaine, your fence is going to be gorgeous! Do you ever get over to the Miami area? There is a nursery called Palm Hammock that sounds interesting. They are SW of the city in an area called Kendall.
http://palmhammockorchidest.tripod.com/phoe.html

Alice, that does look like a fascinating nursery. We used to make it over to Miami at least once a year for a sailing regatta, but haven't gone the last couple of years. (we call the East Coast of Florida the "Dark Side" for various reasons - well, it does get dark there first . .. ) We also have gone on a couple of cruises out of Ft. Lauderdale but usually don't stop to do shopping on the way to and fro.

On the way down to the Keys there are literally hundreds of nurseries especially in the Homestead area, and I've wanted to stop, but knew it would be futile with DH tagging along. Plus we'd have to shop on the way home so the plants wouldn't come on vacation with us. Generally we're exhausted after a regatta or holiday, so stopping to shop for plants just hasn't happened. I need to get more assertive about that, obviously.

On the other hand, I'm not finding any shortage of plants to buy . . . have you been to one called Carter and Holmes, in Newbery SC? www.carterandholmes.com

This message was edited Jan 18, 2012 3:31 PM

Oh my yes! C & H is an experience. You have to leave your hand bags locked in your car (or their file cabinet) because there is just no room for swinging appendages. You literally walk very carefully under plants just dripping with flowers and you don't want to knock anything off. Back in the days, I used to go up there, I lived less than an hour away then, and pick up a dozen or two to use for Christmas gifts. All the secretaries in my office and my husbands used to have blooming orchids on their desks for weeks sometimes months. They are only minutes off the interstate and I always tell people if they are passing that way they should stop and drool for a while. They grow a lot of other tropical plants in addition to the orchids.

Deb it's ok to drool, just have a towel on the ready!

Paula; I'm positive!

Alice, surprised there are only two there! Alpinias looking very nice!

Elaine, hope you Mangoes blooms don't get fried! That Brug. is a MONSTER!!!

Thanks, Drew. I have hopes for this winter to not get cold too many more nights. Mango stood up to at least 3 nights that went down near 40-ish.

I do have many cuttings of Monster White - which grew to it's huge size from a cutting I got from Debra in April! - with good roots already going, so if you'd like to plant a hedge of white-flowered Brugs, I can supply you with starts. Pruned the thing back because I couldn't reach over it to put on the frost cloth, and . . well, you just can't throw away perfectly good cuttings, can you? It would thrive in those low spots that flooded in your garden last summer. Loves lots of water!

Alice, I was on the C & H website today looking for Cymbidiums that are heat-tolerant, and they have some so I put them on my wish list that my daughter keeps. Had hoped there would be a nursery in Florida that had them but I have yet to find them. We may be heading up that way this summer, so I will put it on my "let's stop" list.

Here's the white Cym I got at the orchid show 10 days ago. These buds are opening painfully slowly!!

Thanks Elaine, may take you up on that.