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.

Blossom freed from...

Lantana camara-Gold

“Hey man…hang on a second and let me get a picture of that”

Plumbago auriculata

The grimy yard guy with the elcheapo knock off Felco clippers looked at me and with all the intelligence he could muster said, “Huh?”

Dracena reflexa- Song of India

He was just reaching down to clip a Gold Lantana bloom that had strayed through the white picket fence. I didn’t waste any time answering and quickly clicked the shutter. As I wandered away down Caroline St. in Key West the yard ape uttered the ultimate epithet to a local such as myself…”Tourist!”

Ixora hybrid-Nora Grant

See what inglorious indignities I suffer for you folks.

Bougainvilla spectabilis

It was in my mind to write some cute post about plants that creep through the garden fence to share their beauty with, “We, the Outsiders whom are not privy to the Inner Garden”. The only thing is I don’t do cute to well.

                     

Philodenron hybrid 'Burle Marx'

Let’s try this tactic… “Plants that know no bounds, the Untamed”. Hmmm…nah, sounds like something from the Discovery channel.

 

Mandavilla splendens

Ok, maybe “Blossom freed from Bondage”…errr, nope, too much like some smarmy adult DVD.

 

Codiaeum spp

Aw heck, “Flowers through the Fence”, yeah, that’ll work…not to creative but, whatever.

 

Pentas lanceolata

Key West must have more white picket fences per capita than any other town I know and plants doing their thing tend to grow though them and I always looking for something to feed the voracious appetite of the blogosphere decided to do a photo series. So here ya go …but I still kinda like the ring of “Blossom freed from Bondage”, smarmy or not.

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.

BPBS...Rocks!

Don’t ya just hate it when your writing muse decides to take a break and your self-imposed deadline is looming…sigh.

Last night was the first Big Pine Botanical Society meeting of the year. If you have read this blog before you may remember that I am a past president of this very cool group of people. By cool, I mean they all have dirt under their fingernails. Shorts and flip flops tend to be the standard attire, not so much with golf shirts or skirts.

A grand time was had by all and of particular interest to me was the number of Gen Y attendees(what with that topic being a current blog whirlwind). I did my heart good to see these younger folks hanging out after the meeting, munchin’ on the snacks, and talkin’ plants.

No pretenses are put on by this group, just honest down to earth discussion. Not a single clique developed in the corner of the room, in fact the unofficial motto of this club is “We’re not your Mama’s garden club”.

So in honor of this friendly group and the fact that I can’t think of anything witty to write, let me just lay these warm tropical landscape images on ya. Big Pine Botanical Society…you guys rock!

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.




 

Silent Sunday