S Fla Galloping Gardeners 8/19/05

Today we visited Butterfly World up on Sample Road. Happy_1, Jnana and her friend and of course Artcons (and me). We started out earlier than our other trips trying to beat some heat. Ha! in August fagetabotit.

We had such a wonderful time. They have large screened aviaries with butterflies galore, humminbirds, finches and even a separate aviary for Lorikeets.

We've decided we need to have our gardens set up in the same way, screens over everything to keep out mosquitoes of course, lend a touch of shade and grow all those wonderful plants, trees and bushes within. Oh yes and misters around to cool you down, ahhhhh cool the plants down I mean.

I am the worst picture taker but will share what I have.

There is a butterfly on this Chenille Tree, and yes, I mean tree. Where we think of bushes and plants, they have grown into trees here.

Here is the bloom of a huge Monstera.

And this is the fruit of the Monstera. I sure didn't know it would do that!!!!

A bunch of beautiful little birdies having a bath in this mini-waterfall.

The Lorikeets were very friendly. If ya didn't watch out they would fly right over and make a home on your shoulder.

Do ya think these guys knew I had stashed some seeds in my bag? Maybe they were undercover seed police.

A beautiful blue hummingbird

Another pretty one with a very long tail.

Well enough for now. Let's wait on Jnana, Art and Nancy. I'll have a couple more later.

Molly
:^)))

Yeh, we sure had a great time. I didn't mind the heat, (too many years in a commercial kitchen, I guess) and the rest thought I had lost my mind. It's Florida, remember?

Anyway, we then went on a had a bite to eat and sat to talk more about plants.

It was a great day with great friends.

Hap

Yes we did have a good time. Nice place with nice friends. What more could you ask for.
I am off to the keys for a few days to lay back and relax.
The picture is of a very large moth. One of only a few I took there. I dropped my camera and couldn't use it most of the day.

See ya sometime Monday.

Art

WOW!!!
Hate you dropped yoour camera.
Hope it recovers. Sidney

The camera is working at home on the power plug, not on the battery. It might be the battery.

On the Mexican Flame Vine, when transplanting it this morning I compared it to one of the vines from a GT in the past. It seems like I already have a few of these growing. One of them is about 18" long already.

See ya in a few days.

Off resting in Key West (when I am not getting more cuttings)

Art

Greetings from dark, cold, wet, rainy Montreal.

I never thought I'd say this but "I want to go to Florida NOW"; specially after reading what a good time you had at Butterfly World.

Molly, thank you for the lovely pictures. You brightened my day. What do you mean when you say you're the worst picture taker? Those are excellent. Thanks again.

Art, I was so sorry to read that you dropped your camera. I was glad to read it's working again. I always carry batteries in my pocket because digital cameras just gobble them up. Worst offender is the nifty little LCD screen at the back. I buy Kirkland brand batteries in packs of 48 at Costco for about $14.00. When they're tired, I bring them to this battery place that recycles them.

I went the rechargeable battery route at the beginning but that was problematic at best. I am thoroughly addicted to my camera. I use it every day. If it broke, I would run to the store to buy another one. Not that I could use the expense, but I would give into my addiction quickly. Best wishes with that.

All is not dready here today. A potted hibiscus has bloomed for us this morning. No, I didn't spray it with a squirt bottle! That's rain. I went out barefoot in my bath robe, with my umbrella and camera 15 minutes ago to get this one while it lasted. I've lived here 28 years. The neighbours all know I'm crazy and they just don't call the police. Thank God for that. Good neighbours are hard to train.

Soak up a little sun for me if you can.
Sylvain.

We had a great time. The best part was seeing how Nancy, Art and Molly seemed to enjoyed the place. It was a nice outing with nice friends. Here are some pictures. Don't know the name of this butterfly.

This one is of a Morpho butterfly.

Another one

A cute pair of birds.

Passiflora

Hummingbird

Now we have to plan the next outing. Anybody has any ideas?

Val

Well, It's going to do nothing but get cooler from now on. How about planning another nursery trip. We had nursery, informative, now another nursery.....they of course are free which is an added bonus. I don't care which one, most likely I haven't been there anyway, so anything is new to me. LOL

Friday is a great day for me, how about 9/2.....that's in 2 weeks? Do an early nursery, say 9:30, and then put on the fed bag......hehehe like that part too.

Hap

I love all your pictures. It looks like a great place to visit with friends.

Sylvain--I visited Montreal and Quebec when I was fourteen. The flower beds in the public squares and buildings were stunning. My cousin and I thought all the snowmobiles parked in storage were interesting. I don't think I've ever seen so many snowmobiles stored at so many places. Down here, none actually.

You're cute, fireant......LOL

Hi Everyone!
Made it back from Key West Late this afternoon.

The camera is working just fine. It was the battery. Perhaps it was on it's last leg and dropping the camera put it over the edge. I have taken over 900 pictures with this camera since I bought it three or so months ago. I have no idea how many times the battery recharges before it finally doesn't work anymore.

We visited the Buttefly Conservatory, a few bars, the Botanical Gardens and a few bars, walked around a few blocks looking for interesting Bougainvillea and Frangipani to make cuttings from, but didn' t find anything interesting, so we visited a few bars.

Caught rain both Saturday and Sunday nights so we didn't see the sunset at Mallory Square. In fact, we were on our way to the sunset when we got caught in the rain so we stopped in to the nearest bar for a few...

Did manage to get some great shots at the Butterfly Conservatory of an unusual treatment of a common plant. Will post it in the morning.

One of the managers there was friendly and gave me the name of her cousin who own's a business called Dania Beach Watergardens. She said the place is fabulous. We might consider a visit there when we are going to a nursery in that area. Perhaps I will visit and check it out first.

Got great cuttings and seeds at the Key West Botanical Gardens. More cuttings and seeds from Bahia Honda State park, in the butterfly area. We stopped there on the way back just to get cuttings.

Bought a pink Bougainvillea and a key thach palm at Gerry Droney Landscaping Tropical Gardens & Nursery in Plantation Key, Islamorada. Fabulous place for plants and bric-a-brac. He has everything you could every desire for your garden. We were there an hour and didn't even brouse the many shaded greenhouses.

Always nice to visit Key West, but always better getting back home.

Talk at ya tomorrow.

Art

Art,

So glad to see you back and to hear about your trip. I do so miss the keys, haven't been down much in the past two years.

Hey, many of my pond plants came from the Dania Beach Water Gardens. It's a great place and we should go there. We could go there on our next foray, have lunch at Grandpa's Diner then hit Living Colors Nursery. I can get plants from the wholesale side of living colors at wholesale. That should be a plus.

Tell us about the cutting you got at the nurseries and gardens. I want to hear more please.

Molly
:^)))

Fireant, snowmobiles are a part of life since there are only 2 seasons here: winter and soon-it-will-be-winter-again. What struck me in Florida the last 2 winters is the proliferation of Hummers. I had never seen so many of those in one place: Hummerland. Makes you feel small when they stop behind you at traffic lights and all you see in your rear-view mirror is the front grille.

Art, your message brightens my morning. Glad to hear your camera is OK after all.

We almost went to Key West once, but the cruise ship (Splendour of the Seas) was diverted because the harbour master had closed the harbour on account of high winds that day. We sailed on to Jamaica and although it was early in the morning, my friend Denis and I found a bar and the wives went shopping. What the heck, we were on holidays and we weren't driving. Never drink and drive: you might spill your drink.

I have been to Dania Beach Watergardens. It made me think I could throw some plants in the canal next to our condo and have a really big water garden. I think that's illegal but it did cross my mind. It wasn't the first time something illegal crossed my mind. I just never follow through. Very nice place, though.

Here, the obedient plant (physostegia virginiana) has begun blooming. The sylphium perfoliatum is in full bloom and the heleniums are putting on a good show.

Keep well, all.

Well, on the cuttings from the trip. I went after native's. Cuttings, seeds or pull out's, whatever was available. I loaded my bag. In several cases I was able to get decent pictures of what I was getting. Other times not. All in all probably about fifteen plants and seed varieties.
The botanical garden didn't offer that much that I didn't already have, except in the tree area. That is where I got the inspiration to get a Key thach palm. Later on at the butterfly conservatory I saw the same palm with lots of stuff attached to and growing on it. It's my kind of palm, since I do the same with my Sable palms now.

At Bahia Honda the park rangers were a bit more difficult. I think they suspected I was getting plants, but I am so conservative when doing so, they saw I wasn't doing damage and let me get away with it. I think it helped I had conversations with them before going into the butterfly area. I noted I was growing as many native plants as I could find to attract butterflies and birds. I also mentioned how difficult it was to buy these plants, since there were very few vendors that sold them and the selection of available plants was limited. At any rate I went out of there with my bag full of good sized, often rooted plants.

In the next few posts I have pictures of a local plant, treated in an unusual way. They said the plant was a sea grape. I noted sea grapes had more rounded leaves than what they were showing here. They insisted they were sea grapes. So, here are a couple of pictures of highly trained sea grapes.

In first picture the plant is on the left wall about ten feet from the entrance to the atrium.

In this second picture this plant is about 15 feet from the exit attached to the West wall. This is a more mature plant. There are many more orchids and bromeliads attached to this frame vs the first picture.
The frame is attached to a bracket which is attached to the wall. There is about 8" between the wall and the frame. The plant was able to grow around the back side. Not many leaves were browned as though they were touching or rubbing against the back wall. Of course there is no wind in there.
I speculated with some of the help there that perhaps the different shape of the leaves were due to the more subdue lighting.

The third shot is straight on. You can see how the plant was trained using plant ties to fix the branch to the frame.

In this picture are two of the more unusual butterflies at the conservatory. Both are green. The one on the left is the best shot I was able to get of this green butterfly. The second one is just to the left of the main branch of the plant. I have a better shot of this butterfly on a different plant. I will show it in the next post.

If I didn't know better (from them telling me this plant was a sea grape) I would swear it's a strangler fig vs sea grape.

Here is a second shot of the green butterfly shown just to the left of the main branch in the above picture. I caught this butterfly on a different plant earlier.
This is a very colorful green butterfly.

This is another unusual butterfly, this one is orange and black. We usually think of Monarch's when we think of orange and black butterflies. This butterflies unusual markings present a striking appearance.

There was a lot of help out in the conservatory. I spent time talking with them. One of the subjects I brought up was the air conditioning there. This person noted they use the air to create a slight breeze and to keep the temprature at a constant 85 degrees.

This picture is of a moth I previously pictured above from Butterfly World. In this picture at the conservatory, the moth was a bit more cooperative with my camera because it was matting.
If you look closely you can see the tip of the wing of the second moth at the lower left and under the main moth in the picture.

Art,

I am so glad you solved the problem with your camera. And so simply. I love your photos. That last one is a real winner.

BTW, with all your practicing, did you know Dave has a photo contest here every year? I think there is one going on now. You might want to enter.

Molly
:^)))

Art,

I just checked and the photo contest for this year is still in the planning stages. I thought you might want to follow it here: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/525275/#new

Molly
:^)))

Molly, two years is way too long to stay away from the key's. I think I left my guide and butterfly book with you at Butterfly World. Hold on to it for me will you...

Sylvain, I spent a week in Montreal back in 67 during the Expo 67 there. Great time there and loved the spectacular buildings they built for the event. Is the area still there? I sure hope they didn't tear down all those great modernistic buildings.

On butterfly pictures. If interested I posted a thread from my first trip to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory. Here is the link. http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/509700/ There are a lot of pictures of butterflies & moths there. I will go through my pictures this trip to see which I took this time were not already posted there. I will post the new pictures there rather than clogging up this thread with butterfly pictures.

One of my main targets this trip was to get pictures of the many ways they use water there. I am planning some kind of pond, or waterfall, or both for the yard in the future. I was looking for input. I am not very original, but I sure can copy other's ideas.
Since this place is small, their use of water, bridges, waterfalls are all done on/in small area's, more like you would find in a backyard vs Butterfly World where their water, bridges and waterfalls are much bigger.

That said, I am looking forward to my next trip with our club, no matter where it is or where we go. I always have a good time with Molly, Nancy and Val.

Here is a picture of an "orchid tree". It's not really an orchid tree, but it is a novel way to display orchids. This is on the way out of the conservatory. This tree holds twenty two potted orchids.
Art

Art,

Yep, I found your B'Fly World Book in my bag. I will keep it there and bring the bag at our next meeting.

I love that Orchid tree Art. That's a great idea for an "Art" project, don't you think?

Molly
:^)))

LOL, Molly!
Art sounds like a great week. Just love your photos. Thanks for sharing.
sidney

Glad you're home OK, Art, and photos are great.

Thanks ladies! For that, I have two words for you. Costco & gusseted.

I'll start with Costco. There are two in my area. One just off University in Davie and the second on Sample Rd in Pompano Bch.
On a hunch, I went to the one in Pompano Bch., hoping if I stopped by Butterfly World, there just might be a giant Porterweed bush outside. Well, I did and there was. I made eight cuttings of the giant Porterweed for us to share at the next GT. I also took a cutting of one of those unusual Firebush they had there. They are unusual due to the flower color, which is a much deeper color and the leaf color, which has a slight purpleish color on the underside of the leaf.

Next is gusseted. Remember the word I couldn't remember in my Martha Stewart story, well the word is gusseted ie; my pillowcase is gusseted. That is it has on the front and back, accordian type of expansion built in. I can take my giant, soft, down pillow and put it in the pillowcase and it will remain giant and soft. It won't turn into something resembling a chunk of hypertufa.

The moth pictured above is an Atlas Moth.

Gussetted....now you're talking my language. Know exactly what you are talking about now. heheh That's a real ol' seamstress' term....where'd you find that?