Plants/Planting Tips For Zones 9-11

Love the color in that garden!

If you need a guide for what plants to buy and planting tips for gardening in zones 9-11, click here for an excellent article from Gardening Know How.

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Christmas Cactus Care

It has been years since I have tried to successfully grow a Christmas Cactus. Back in my first days of growing houseplants when I first moved out on my own, I didn't bother to do my research.  I'd just buy a Christmas Cactus and eventually kill it.  I treated it the same as all of my other houseplants.

When I found the following articles, they peaked my interest in trying to grow Christmas Cactus again.  If you are also an amateur at growing these beautiful plants, check out the following articles.

Click here for the article from WikiHow, How to Care for a Christmas Cactus.

Click here for Secrets to Getting Your Christmas Cactus to Bloom.

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Companion Planting Top 10 Plants

One of my organic gardening habits is to plant marigolds with my peppers and tomatoes since they assist in keeping the pests away.  Making small changes in your gardening routine can make a big difference.

The blog Imperfectly Happy has posted an article on Companion Planting that is very helpful and informative if you are interested in adopting some of these practices in your garden!  Click here to go to the article.

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Crinum Lily

The drought tolerant and virtually maintenance free crinum lilies have been blooming like crazy, as shown in an older photo from our garden. We have them all over the yard and when they are in bloom, it is a color splash explosion during the warm months.

The foliage of the variety of crinum lilies shown in the photos are not very attractive in the landscape (in my opinion) . . . but they make it up with the explosion of colors when they bloom.

The irritating thing about this plant is that it attracts the huge grasshoppers that are such a problem to get rid of, although they don't do much damage to the crinums.  They are shameless!

What I love about the crinum lilies . . . they multiply profusely once you get them established.  They are easily propagated by dividing the bulbs.

Here are some links featuring crinum lilies . . .

Pacific Bulb Society 

Floridata

Doofus.org Crinum Page

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Cranberry Hibiscus

We have officially started working in the carport jungle getting it cleaned up and organized.

The basil, tomato and pepper seedlings are thriving and we are so excited about getting our vegetable and herb gardens going.  For color in the garden, I have planted rainbow coleus, red salvia and marigold seeds this week.

Today we cut down a pesky cranberry hibiscus that came up out of nowhere in a pile of leaves on the carport . . . in the way!  The plan is to do a mass planting of them in the front yard since they thrive in the full sun and other than keeping them pruned to avoid a leggy plant, they are really maintenance free.  I cut the plant up into a ton of pieces and got the propagation process going.  I've never tried propagating them before, but after doing some research online, they seem to be a very hardy plant which propagates easily.  I also gathered many seed pods that I plan on getting started in the next couple of days.

Since we are gardening on a tight budget, the more plants we can use from existing plants, the better.

Want to know more about the Cranberry Hibiscus?

  Here are some links:

A previous post about these gorgeous plants from this blog.

A plant guide and discussion about this plant from Dave's Garden.

All about the Cranberry Hibiscus plant from the University of Florida.


Are you getting your hands
 dirty in the garden yet?

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Beautiful Flowering Variegated Gingers

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year in subtropical Florida.  The Captain and I visited Busch Gardens this month and will be featuring plants and landscaping from the beautiful gardens.

The first in the series is 

Variegated Gingers

Flowering variegated gingers were featured in this raised bed at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida.

A close up shows the beautiful flowers that remind me of clusters of pearls.

The variegated ginger is a green tropical perennial which grows up to ten feet tall outdoors and 3–4 feet tall indoors. 

They do very well in the shade as well as the morning sun, however, they don't do well in the hot afternoon sun.  They are reasonably drought tolerant with little insect or disease problems. 

For more information on these showy, easy to grow plant, visit my webpage dedicated to growing gingers.

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Plants for Butterfly Gardening

My red pentas were the main attraction for butterflies in my old garden . . . and my favorite butterfly gardening plant.  

They profusely flower and look gorgeous in a mass planting.  Pentas will once again play a huge part in our future garden landscape.

Here is some information on the plant from Florida Friendly Plants:

"Pentas lanceolata is the most popular Florida Friendly perennial. It blooms continuously and is one of the best Butterfly attractors. The tall varieties should be pruned several times a year to shorten and strengthen their structure. Soil enriched with 50% organic matter (compost, leaf mold, cow manure, peat) supports beneficial bacteria and microbes that combat microscopic nematodes, a pest that can cause the eventual decline of Pentas. Pentas is adaptable to full sun and partial shade and repeating several groupings across the length of your garden alternating with another tough and colorful plant like Variegated Flax Lily adds harmony, texture and formal appeal to a design."

Interested in learning more about butterfly gardening?

Click here to go to the butterfly gardening page on my website.

Click here to go to Florida Friendly Plants website's page on their

Top 10 butterfly plants.

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Calissia fragrans . . . thriving in my Paradise

This is an older post from another blog
 that I am currently restructuring.

The calissia fragrans are still thriving, although the
unusually cold winter knocked them down a bit this year.

I'm currently propagating them from runners and cuttings

in containers and will start another "farm" in the ground.

I love these plants!!

They are multiplying and blooming for the first time . . .
they must love acid since I have been feeding them coffee.

Calissia fragrans is an unusual and tropical semi-epiphyte (grows mainly in trees, but will root in soil). Individual leaf rosettes may be 8" wide at the center stalk. Snaking out from the stalk are runners that trail as much as several feet to find a new place to root. Fragrant white globular flowers on upright spikes bloom in summer, then fade and lose their fragrance, then perk up and become fragrant again on and on.

Flowering or not, it is a spectacular plant that would look awesome hanging from a tree in a shady spot in the greenhouse or in a hanging basket as a houseplant. I plan on lining my carport jungle with hand painted hanging containers loaded with these gorgeous plants.







This is where the plants in the carport jungle began . . . I cleared out a few of these plants that were growing in the pathway and placed them in this container that I use to start plants or experiment with my propagation projects.

At the moment, I am experimenting with the calissia fragrans in my carport jungle, planting the runners into individual containers. I've been doing this for several months and those babies are already putting out their own runners. I left the runners intact in this container and they are growing another rosette. How cool is that? You can see some of the runners in the above photo.

I have a few spots in the yard where I planted a few here and there and now have my "farm" of mass plantings. Hopefully, they will be one of the plants to start my mail order plant business.

It all started about 7 years ago when I had a gardening group on MSN and made some local gardening friends that I swapped plants with. These came from Sally in St. Petersburg . . . she is very much into native plants and I have some other plants I got from her that are still thriving through neglect. There is something to be said about native plants!

All my container plants in the carport jungle have been getting a regular dose of watered down coffee and water that I boiled vegetables in (without salt) . . . the calissia fragrans are especially responding successfully and I have never seen them looking so healthy and big. Keep in mind that I have not used commercial fertilizer on them at all.

These are my new perfect plant . . . as you can see from the following photos taken from previous seasons, I have them growing in my "trash to treasure" book rack lined with moss. They went through one winter night freeze, neglect, no watering, no fertilizer with minimal damage. The ones in the carport jungle look much better since they are being pampered and I will soon transfer some of them to renourish the rack. I'll take some recent photos soon.

I'm getting the gardening bug again . . .
it makes me smile!

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Aucuba . . . the plant with the look of the tropics

It is one of those plants that thrived in my father's garden, a successful result of his passion for propagating plants collected in his travels. The shrub in the photo from my garden is a result of several years growth from the cuttings I took from his yard. The aucuba plant is one of my favorites.

Our aucubas were severely damaged from the unusual cold winter . . . the first year this happened as our mild winters in Tampa usually don't damage the plant. Being the resilient plant that they are, new growth quickly appeared this spring and are on their way back to the beauty the brightly colored leaves bring to the landscape.

Scientific Name
Aucuba japonica

Common Name
Aucuba . . . Gold Dust Plant

Native to eastern Asia, this evergreen shrub has dense, glossy foliage that appears splashed with yellow paint. The shrub can grow up to 10 feet tall.

The ideal soil is moist, high in organic matter and well-drained, although it will tolerate almost any soil condition. Plant in partial to full shade (summer and winter), as its leaves will "burn" in summer and turn sickly green in winter.

It competes successfully with the demanding roots of other shrubs and trees, and transplants easily. The aucuba plant also performs well in containers.

Avoid overhead watering to reduce incidence of disease. Prune occasionally to restrain growth or eliminate dead or dying branches caused by disease.

Insects are not a significant problem!

Propagate from softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings.

In my opinion, they are the perfect Zone 9 plant (although they thrive in Zones 7 through 10).

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What's blooming in Paradise

They started in my dad's garden. As a child I remember the bright orange and red blooms against the colorful tropical crotons, thinking how beautiful the color combinations were.

He taught me how to multiply plants, baby them and have them give back with their beauty. There was a lady on one of the older HGTV gardening shows who described her show as the one who profiles gardeners who touch the earth and makes it bloom. That is one of the most beautiful gifts my dad ever gave me . . . he taught me how to touch the earth and be grateful for everything it gives back to me. Just as it did for my dad, I can touch the earth and make it bloom.

The kalanchoe in the photo come from the seeds of those plants that graced my dad's garden. They live on in my paradise and bloom for me year after year . . . and have thrived through neglect since my husband died. My desire to garden is slowly coming back to me . . . and my plants have waited for me.



Today as I sat outside in my carport jungle, I noticed some new plants of kalanchoe that came up in some of my containers that I sprinkled seeds in last year. The bold red blooms are predominant in a sea of green . . . they made it through the winter freezes and cold nights that refuse to go away. We are still in the 40's at night in Central Florida . . . unbelievable!

My next post will be a profile on these plants that thrive even with neglect and come up with bright and beautiful blooms to remind you that spring is around the corner.

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Kalanchoe blossfeldiana

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana is a durable flowering succulent that requires little maintenance and can be grown either indoors or outdoors.

Their fleshy, dark shiny green leaves will reach 3 inches (7.7 cm) long by up to 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wide with lobed edges.

Floral colors range from the traditional red to yellows, oranges, salmon, to pink and almost any color in between.

They start blooming in December and last 6-8 weeks.

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana need full sun to high interior lighting, with a well drained soil mix.

The plants are well watered and allowed to dry somewhat in between waterings.

During the growing season (spring and summer), the plants are fertilized every month with a balanced fertilizer.

Beginning in the fall, the plants require 14 hours of continuous darkness every day to promote blooming. During this period, no fertilizer is used. I've never used this method and they always bloom like crazy for me . . . even the container plants that live in my carport where the light is never turned off.

After the plants have bloomed, they should be cut back to promote new growth and fertilized every 2 weeks. Keep plants trimmed to encourage compact and bushy growth.

Cut the blooms off the plant when the flowers start to fade . . . air dry to harvest the seeds. My method is to sprinkle seed where I want them to grow . . .

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana is easily propagated from cuttings in the spring. Cuttings should be 2-3" long with two pairs of leaves. Leaves are removed from the lower one or two nodes and inserted into the medium . . . no rooting hormone is needed. A good rooting medium consists of 1 part peat to 1 part perlite or sand . . . stick cuttings into final containers.

This is one of my favorite plants because of the brilliantly colored flowers, they are tolerant of neglect and so easy to propagate . . . I'd love to have a mass planting of this and will probably take lots of cuttings and throw out lots of seed this spring so I can.

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