Memorial Day Blooms

The banana is a twenty-foot "dwarf" Cavendish (mislabeled at the DeLand Plant Faire). This bloom is only the second off this Vanda, though once they start to bloom, they tend to bloom pretty continuously during the hot season.

Blooms

Glads, from easytogrowbulbs.com. I order from this outfit pretty often. The quality of the bulbs is really outstanding.

The bloom on my Mississippi Silver crowder peas.

Dahlia 'Sunshine' from Easytogrowbulbs.com. I'm really happy with these dahls. I'd had no luck this year with any dahlias, so I'm pleased to see them blooming abundantly now, during the toughest time of the year in FLA.

May Day Blooms

Pink Paeonie Papaver. My favorite bloom in the garden.

A small bed of 'Rocket' Snaps. This varietal does very well here in Central Florida. Last year they continued to bloom well into July before burning out. These get more shade in this bed than other locations where I've planted them, so I'm hopeful that they'll make it through to fall. I nursed several through the summer and fall in pots, and they're blooming for the second year now.

My familiar. On 'Prosperity', a really nice Hybrid Musk growing on Fortuniana in my garden.

I'm really excited by how well these Foxgloves ('Foxie') are doing in the garden this year. In the past, they've burned out quickly, but I got these into the beds in November, so they're really well established and seem to handing the dry and hot conditions well. Lots of water helps...

Alstroemeria in FLA

I'm always trying out new bulbs in my garden. I read somewhere on Dave's Garden that you can grow Alstroemeria here in FLA as a perennial bulb if you 1) plant it in rich soil in a large container; 2) keep it fairly dry and out of direct sun throughout the summer.

I bought a gallon pot of them I found at Lowes last winter, and enjoyed a season of heavy blooms and lots of cut flowers. I added some Polka Dot Plants (the Alstroemeria were initially very small, and looked lonely in the pot).

Summer came, the Alstroemeria died back completely. I dragged the pot under the eaves of my gazebo, where it got hit lightly by a sprinkler (that ran way too often last summer), but was otherwise allowed to dry out completely. All summer, the pot looked completely dead, including the Polka Dots.

As soon as some cool weather hit, the Alstroemeria popped back up, and gave me some disappointing blooms. I read up on the plant, and some sources claimed they needed a lot cooling hours to produce flowers. I figured all was lost, but over the last couple of weeks, the things been flowering like crazy...

The Polka Dots bounced right back, though all summer there wasn't a spec of green in the pot.

If it blooms like it did last year, I can expect this level of bloom until mid-May. Not bad for a $4 pot of flowers.

I noticed an online vendor that sells a "grab bag" of bulbs for $5.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alstoemeria