Only a Picture

Phalanopsis spp

This past weekend the debauchery and mayhem of Key West reached its usual annual peak…Fantasy Fest. For those of you who don’t know of this insanity, let’s just say it tends to be a half naked Mardi Gras in the southern most city. Go to Youtube if you really want to know more. Key Weird is inundated by about 60,000 extra folks all bent on letting their freak flag fly for one weekend a year. That said, you can understand why many of the locals are a little edgy.

Balfour Aralia (Polyscias scutellaria) & Croton

So that preamble brings us to my little story. Camera in hand, I was walking down a tiny little lane between a couple larger streets. There are a bunch of these glorified alleyways and I’ve never had a problem on them, until now.

Chenille Acalypha (Acalypha hispida)

I came upon small Conch house, in a state of disrepair surrounded with lush tropical vegetation. A sort of hedge, untrimmed and rangy AcaIypha of varying cultivars combined with Crotons and Aralias made up barrier between the postage stamp yard and the lane. I was busy trying to focus the macro mode on a Black Aralia and as usual having little success, being as I forgot my cheater reading glasses in the truck.

Acalypha spp.

In the back of my mind I heard the old man but it just didn’t register that he was talking to me.

“Hey you…Hey!...Hey YOU!! What are you doin.”

Brassia spp.?

Finally I caught on and looked over to see and elderly man holding garden hose trained on a group of orchids I had photographed a few minutes earlier.

Emerald Acalypha (Acalypha wilkesania"Hoffmanii")

Opening my mouth to ask permission to photograph his plants I was interrupted by a pack of college age scooter riders, zipping down the lane, madly beeping their horns in accompaniment to much hooting and hollering. Why must they always do that?

Black Aralia (Polyscias guilfoylei"Blackie")

It was then that the sky opened up in a hurricane-like deluge of water. Wait sec, rain doesn’t come down in a stream. With catlike reflexes I looked back to the house. The old man had a gleeful snarl on his lips as he pointed the pistol grip of his hose, unleashing a torrent of killer water. My mind in overdrive, I instantly assessed the situation, and reacted…by saying “Huh?”

Copperleaf Acalypha (Acalypha wilkesania"Copperleaf")

My middleschool Ninja training took over when I made a few goofy skips backwards out of hose range directly into the path of the last straggler scooter terrorist. It was only his drunken wobbling of the scooter that saved us both, much to the cackling delight of the octogenarian aggressor.

Acalypha wilkesania"Marginata")

Dripping and defeated I made my way back to my truck.

Sheesh, I only wanted a picture.

Wordless Wednesday

Dendrobium spp

Hylocereus undatus

Achmea fasciata

Codiaeum spp

Treminalia catappa-Tropical Almond

Phalaenopsis spp

A Little Love

Monstera Deliciosa

Yikes, close one!! I tend to write these posts on a nifty little HP netbook when I’m out and about. I really like the small size and portability of the little machine, but it has its drawbacks, such as lack of file storage. To keep this little comp running at its best I store my pix on one of our home desk tops and keep the photos on a handy dandy flash drive to use when posting. Well wouldn’t ya know it the desk top crashed over the weekend taking all stored files with it.

Colocasia esculenta"Illustris"

Fortunately most of my images still live on that little plastic stick and none of the lost files were of any real consequence. Unfortunately my photo editing software is toast so for the moment my new pix have all their inherent flaws for you to see.

Cyrtosperma johnstonii

Let that be a lesson to you folks…back ‘em up…it can happen to you.

Alocasia spp

Thanks to the Blot. I happened upon a garden blogger that is into Aroids…a fave plant group of mine. Swing by and say Howdy to Zack and Christine at The Variegated Thumb. These guys are doin’ it the hard way, getting the tropical plant bug while livin’ in temperate climate. They have put together a killer little greenhouse to support their addiction. Well done, guys.

Monstera obliqua

So let me throw a little Aroid love out to them with some of today’s images.

Bloody Bougainvillea

Have you ever found a plant that you just love but still ya hate ‘em. Well, Bougainvillea is just that sort of plant for me. I absolutely love to gaze upon the incredibly intense colors of the blooms and I truly hate pruning them.

 

This comes after a couple of decades working with these guys in the landscape industry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stabbed by thorns, raked by thorns, stepped on thorns or fixed flat wheel barrow tires from thorns. As far as I’m concerned the only good Boug is one that is in someone else’s landscape.

That said there is one exception and that is the Dwarf Boug. That cultivar is one that just may find its way into my gardens. Dwarfs are a very low maintenance plant that requires almost no pruning if properly sited.

Yet for all the brutal issues I have with Bougs there is nothing more spectacular than this plant in full flower or should I say “full bract” for the flowers of Bougs are an insignificant white little guy and the modified leaves are the showy heart stoppers we all love.

Bougs can grow to 30’ with support which means most are improperly located in home landscapes. From a pruning perspective this can be a nightmare if the plant is near a walkway. One way to deal with the sprawling growth habit is to allow the plant to climb a tree particularly if the flowers of the tree are insignificant.

Bougainvillea bloom best during the dry season(fall and winter here) and an established plant needs little fertilization. There are an abundant number of hybrids, colors, and variegations but they tend to lose their horticultural identities down here and are commonly referred to by color.

The plant is easily propagated by cuttings and I have seen 4” thick by 4’ long branches rooted making for an instant standard container plant.

Bougainvilleas are native to South America and are named for Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a French explorer who sailed around the world in 1767. B. spectibilis and B.glabra are the species most frequently found.

So to all those gardeners out there who grow this plant I say THANK YOU and I shall be more than happy to gaze upon your boug with awe, heap horticultural praise upon you, listen with sympathetic ear, and pass you a Band-aid.

Misc. Monday(Blog Stuff)

Hong Kong Orchid tree

Bauhinia blakeana

Ok, so no more whining from me about the heat for a while. The long anticipated cold front blew into the islands Saturday night, bringing the temps down to a frigid 65 degrees. How sweet it was and thus you haven’t seen my smiling face writing any blog posts, oh no, this old boy was out in the gardens, diggin’ and plantin’ an prunin’…wearing blue jeans and jean jacket no less. Sweet!!

Dioon edule female cone

In the evening I was foolin’ around with my pix trying to make some sort of order out of them. All of you blog photographers out there know my pain. Of course I haven’t been smart enough to mark any images I’ve already posted…sigh, that alone could take hours to catch up on.

Baby Hawaiian Wood Rose

Argyreia nervosa

I’ve noticed that in the comment section of Liz and the Prof. you fine gardening folks ask me to identify various plants that I have posted images of, I will try to rectify that oversight in the future by captioning each pic (or at least most of ‘em).

forground Song of India-Dracena reflexa

background Lady palm-Raphis excelsa

Let me take a second here to thank everyone who takes the time to pick a post, fave my blog, become a follower or leave a comment. That few moments of time it takes to provide some feedback is what makes this blogging stuff worth the effort and I will try to comment on others blogs more often.

Nerium oleander-double pink

So after a weekend of heavy duty gardening, evidenced by a sore back and a bunch of new fire ant bites let me get to the posting of some images.

GBBD October 15

A great big smokin’ hot THANKS to May Dreams Garden for starting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. A way cool Idea for showing off what’s bloomin in our gardens on the 15th. of the month.

At Liz and my little piece of the “rock” one of my favorite, due to necessity, ground covers are goin’ gangbusters. The lowly Madagasgar Periwinkle also known as Vinca minor. Good stuff because the Key Deer and iguanas leave it alone but not so good because it is considered to be an Invasive Exotic down here. They do self-seed like crazy. I have only seen them wild on disturbed sites, never on pristine habitat.

I grabbed a couple of pix of our Jatropha integerrima before the loppers got to it. I really should have cut it back a month ago but…so it goes. This is the land of Manana.

Ruellia brittoniana has come up as a volunteer, it figures, with purple being Liz’s favorite color this one would be pink, on the other hand the purple Ruellia has gotten really, really common here so I’m cool with the pink.

Our Dwarf pink Ixora or Petite Pink hybrid is going through a flush of blooms, tough little guy that lives in a pot, gets forgotten about but hangs in there.

The Plumeria rubra (who knows what cultivar) is starting to shed leaves and the blooms are becoming fewer and fewer.

Our Orange Gieger(Cordia sebestana) is still throwing flowers but at a slower pace than earlier this summer. But now for the good news, those 2 words I so dearly love…COLD FRONT. One is supposed to swing in on Saturday morning dropping the high temps into the mid eighties and the lows into the low seventies for two glorious days of low humidity…SWEET!!!

The Garden Trap

Spanish moss(Tillandsia usnoides)

Ahhh…a nice long weekend. Time to go boating, maybe take a couple of naps. Life is a breeze in the Florida Keys.

Liz asked me to make sure the boat is ready to go. Ok. As usual the stupid boat won’t start.

Golden Shower(Cassia fistula)

“Hey, baby, let me just put the charger on the battery for an hour or so and we’ll be ready to go.”,I tell her.

Meanwhile I’ll clean up the yard a little I innocently think…Right…I’m a gardener remember. And so it begins.

It seems on every property there is that one area that gets very little attention from the gardener…on my property there are a few of those areas. The trap was set. This section is about 25’ feet wide by 60 ‘ long and is the deepest shade on the property…the reason being... I tend to ignore it, thus it is severly overgrown.

It all started innocently enough, I walked over it to pick up an errant soccer ball. Simple enough you say grab it and walk away. The unfortunate thing was that I had a pair of Felco clippers on my hip from cleaning up a deer munched banana plant. There were a few palm fronds in my way to get at the ball, no problem just prune the offenders…wait, I can’t leave the palm lopsided, can I. I’m taking the bait. Next thing I know I’m in the midst of a pruning frenzy and the trap has been sprung.

                                       

Monstera spp.

Grab the trash cans, pull out the loppers, bring in the chipper/ shredder, time for the chainsaw. Two soaked tee shirts and several hours later I have a nice canopy to work under.

Liz again asks, “Is the boat ready?”

”Ummm, let me check…yup, fires right up. You get the boat bag, cooler and dog. I’ve just got a few more branches to cut.”

Red Ginger(Alpinia purpurata)

Twenty minutes later I watched the boat with Liz and dachshund aboard pulling away from our dock.

“Hmmm, guess she got tired of waiting, don’t blame her. Where was I, oh yeah, that sea grape tree. I can plant a ton of aroids under this shade... and ferns…yup, ferns over there and maybe an Alpinia in that sort sunny spot."... Somehow I never even noticed the trap.




 

Pineapples, Tourists and Hippie Chicks

I was jogging down Whitehead St. in Key Weird when I heard, “Look honey, it’s another one of those cute, little, carved pineapples.” The sun-pinked, cruise ship, tourist lady looked at her beer-bellied husband who ignored her. He sat on a step in front of the Hemingway House eyeballing a local sun-bronzed hippie girl in a tie-dyed string bikini. The resulting “smack” echoed down the street behind me as I passed.

I stopped jogging when I reached my parked truck. I wasn’t doing any kind of fitness running, just trying to beat the notoriously fast, Key West parking meter timers. While I leaned against the fender sweating and puffing like a rookie angler on the losing end of a swordfish tug-of-war I looked over at a bubbling little fountain with a pineapple on top.

“Hmmm…looks like a blog subject.”

Here’s a little history regarding the significance of the welcome pineapple. Seems it all started with the Carib people way back when. Our boy Christopher Columbus picked up some pineapples and brought them back to Spain in 1493 and the King thought these things were just the best.

When other Spanish explorers sailed back to the Caribbean Islands they figured out that the Carib Indians looked on this fruit as a sign of welcome. If the Spanish set one out at the entrance to a village they would be welcomed in. All the better to swipe any gold the native people had laying around. Nice… real nice.

Anyway, this symbol spread back to Europe, then to the colonies, etc. Key West is and was very much a seafaring town. In days of yore when a Cap’n returned from sea he would impale a pineapple on the porch rail to signify he was back and ready to see visitors. Kind of a waste of good fruit if ya ask me.

Pineapple carvings, statuary, abound on our islands. This very traditional kind of garden art is still alive and well in a very, very untraditional town .

So, I plugged another few quarters into parking meter, spending my hard earned change just for you folks and wandered around Old Town snapping pineapple pix and dodging cranky tourists…by the way, I swear, honest... I never took any photos of good looking hippie chicks.