A taste of the Pacific

A clear, cool morning sits atop Fort Lauderdale this morning. Upper 50's with only whisps of stratus clouds.

Portulaca molokiniensis "Hawaiian Portulaca"

At right is a portulaca I bought a few weeks back at Home Depot. A native of Hawaii,  it grows 1-1.5' with yellow flowers. I crammed 3 of them, 4" apart, into a planter to make sure they got nice and full. I need to research more and determine whether it is edible or not. I may be able to grow an "apocalypse" garden made entirely of different types of Portulacaceae.

Approaching the winter solstice

The terrace is now exposed for most of the day now as the sun sits much lower in the southern sky. This late time of year brings cooler, drier days.
My begonias are thriving in this less stressful environment, though the application of some kicker fertilizer applied a week or two back is probably helping them along as well.

I've placed the night blooming cereus (hylocereus undatus) in pots around the terrace. They are turning out to be great climbers. Creeping fig is also coming up and should soften the walls nicely (though slowly).

Tea in the garden

When time allows, the day is clear and the sun has dimmed enough to permit comfortable sitting in the garden, one might enjoy a nice cup of tea among the plants. Although I love a very strong, black-as-night cup, loaded with half and half and raw honey, the early onslaught of evening could also be enjoyed with the light, unadulterated liquor of a Darjeeling Tukvar or a slightly smokey Pu-er.*

The light begins to soften

As evening approaches, and the light treats the color of the leaves and flowers in a more amenable manner, the cleanliness of the tea, may well heighten one's appreciation of all the mistakes, prunings, scrapes, scratches and sweat at times required by even the most modest tropical terrace garden.

*For the curious, wondering, even restless mind:
Tea from the seven mountains

Ocean spray and keeping an eye on high PH

When I rinse everyone off while watering, the seabreeze-salt that has accumulated on the leaves is washed right down into the pot. Probably time to get a PH tester and make sure they are all on the slightly acidic side-- except for the bougainvillea, which come from the slightly alkaline soils in Brazil.

Along the handrail
(from left) Euphorbia, White Purslane, White Bleeding Heart
 Dwarf Yellow Shrimp Rubber Plant, Macho Fern, Bamboo, Liriope

For those curious minds

Nutrients needed in the largest amount by plants are referred to as macro-nutrients and include nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Sulfur (S). In addition to macronutrients, plants also need trace nutrients. Trace nutrients are not major components of plant tissue, but are required for growth. These include Iron, (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), Cobalt (Co), Molybdenum (Mo), and Boron (Bo). Both macro and trace nutrient availability is controlled by soil pH. In slightly to moderately alkaline soils, molybdenum and macro-nutrient (except P) availability is increased, but P, Fe, Mn, Zn Cu, and Co levels are reduced so low they may affect plant growth. In acid soils, micro-nutrient availability (except Mo and Bo) is increased. Nitrogen is supplied as ammonium (NH₄) or nitrate (NO₃) in fertilizer amendments, and dissolved N will have the highest concentrations in soil with pH 6-8. Concentrations of available N are less sensitive to pH than concentration of available P. In order for P to be available for plants, soil pH needs to be in the range 6.0 and 7.5. If pH is lower than 6, P starts forming insoluble compounds with iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) and if pH is higher than 7.5 P starts forming insoluble compounds with calcium (Ca).Nutrient availability in relation to soil pH.

Most nutrient deficiencies can be avoided between a pH range of 5.5 to 6.5, provided that soil minerals and organic matter contain the essential nutrients to begin with.

Garden pests?

Unidentified.
Friend or foe? We may never know.

Just a little watering, early in the morning...

With a little care my garden grows happily.

Quick study

Night Blooming Cereus

Starting to scale the wall

6 weeks later-- 40"

A little more on Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Orange purslane with white bleeding heart vine in the planter by the handrail 

You will not regret the purchase of a few small pots of purslane from the local Home Depot. It has been one of the very best performers on my terrace in terms of soaking up 6+ hours of zone 10 sun and putting on a non-stop display of  very sweet flowers.

I use them as companions to larger plants. They need the sun and will overflow the pot with little effort on the gardener's part. When too leggity replace with some new plants.

Evidently, they are high in Omega 3 fatty acid as well as vitamin C-- do some research. Purslane can be harvested in the am for salads (it's got more tang in the am). My cat certainly loves  a nip of purslane from time to time.

Ray eating a little purslane for his health 

Dynamite

Sprinkled a little Plant Dynamite for Flowers and Vegetables last week around bougainvillea. A week later, a flush of magenta brackets have begun to appear. Too early to tell of how full she'll get- I don't want to jinx any huge flush coming up.

Sprinkled in a bowl of begonias as well.  "Arte Hodes" (Pigskin begonia) after this feeding is getting a little ornery, pushing some other big begonias in the bowl out of it's way.

I'll always be looking for that magic pill that will make the garden uncontrollably vigorous, busty and floriferous.



I checked out Parks Seed for some of their products. Algoflash and the seaweed fertilizer are interesting. More Later.

Leaves. Deliberate on textures, sizes and shapes before committing to the garden.

Does it add up to a tropical Garden? 

The plant / pot ratio in the container garden

It ain't the pot but the plant that makes the container garden.
Keep the foliage at least 2 to 3 times the container size.

Splayed the branches of the bougainvillea

Why all the talk about bougainvillea? It can take unadultrated caribbean sun, salt air, strong breezes and is quite floriferous in season, which is usually the dry winter months. I had the magenta plant blooming all year in cycles with some regular feeding. The wet summer months are it's real growth period.  Hardy in zones 9b and higher.

I splayed the branches of the 48" I bought and planted last weekend and stuffed some creeping fig in with it. I'll place the creeping fig against the wall.  After trimming a good many of the smaller branches and dead wood, I got 6 or 7 nice branches, some to throw over the handrail (sun all day!) and 2 strong branches to climb up a fishline 'trellis'.

Have to untruss them, find the strong branches and clip off the rest, rather like a rose 

He vuelto

Impulse buy at the Fairchild Botanic Garden's 71st annual "Ramble"
Aechmea Dean:  a large landscape bromeliads reaching a height of 5 feet.
With an elegant green/ orange foliage and very large corn like bloom.

Tu sabes.. 

Oolong steeping

On the road

Cup of coffee on the terrace in the early morning. Watered everyone in well in the  late afternoon as I'm going out of town until Friday. It's cool enough that there probably won't be any suffering.

This is my "out of town" signage from the folio:



I'm out of town, please come back and visit later!



A strong force pulled me off of the road

The past few days have slipped by without an update on my non-stop carryings-on on the the terrace. The center handrail which you see from the main room was missing vine coverage, color-- something. It had 2 dwarf cypress at both columns as vertical accents. Cypress are not tropical looking. So, they had to come out. A friend happened to be passing and I gave both evergreens to him.

I wish I knew the name of this Euphorbia.
Notice white puffs starting to appear along the stems.
Begonias to the lower left. Gave them all a little
Plant Dynamite [click for large pic with details]

I had gone to Home Depot earlier in the day to buy potting soil. As usual, I start looking at the plants and lost track of time. They were having a special on nice looking 26" rustic Mexican terracotta pots for $19 which I couldn't resist, bought one of these. Also picked up some  Plant Dynamite, Plant Tone and some high nitrogen tree and shrub food, mainly for bamboo who likes the nitrogen. Plant Tone is an organic fertilizer, 5-3-3 made of bone meal, dried blood, smells like offal but it has beneficial microbes in it, an my instincts tell me it keeps the soil alive.

On the way home, I lost control of my car and pulled into the local nursery, one block from my house, the Wilton Manors Nursery. There is an old cracker who runs the place (the term 'cracker' refers to the Florida cowboys that ran cattle all over the state in the 1800's, now it means more or less a 'good old boy') with whom I haggled for two bougainvilleas in 3 gal pots. I only got $2.50  off the combined price but it opened the door to haggle in the future as I go there every few weeks.
I got everything home, planted bougainvilleas, approx 36"-40" high, where cypress had been, placed recently purchased Pandora Vine along rail and the results were sweet.

The tropical cottage garden (along a handrail).

Worked all last night,  I need to gather some steam and get some more potting soil as I never got around to planting the creeping fig and night blooming cereus into the fabulous square fiberglass planter I bought from Hay Needle for $69.

New planter

Planted: creeping fig, night blooming cereus, euphorbia 'Silver Fox'

On the dog walk: the chalice vines are starting to bloom

Sometimes one has to call a doctor

There may come a time when professional help is needed in the yard. 


 Einie Glasson Ph.D.,  Soil Expert

 

Pretty Weeds

You will not regret the purchase of a Euphorbia hypericifolia 'Silver Fog' . Charming and NO trouble to grow. Grows into a nice round mound of feathery white flowers, a loose airy habit. Although this is obviously a hybrid given it's commercial name, it remains close to it's humble roots of being a pretty weed-- as are all hybridized flowering plants 

Type: Herbaceous perennial

Family: Euphorbiaceae

Zone: 10 to 12

Height: 1 to 1.5 feet

Spread: 0.75 to 1 feet

Bloom Time: Flowers freely

Bloom Color: White

Bloom Description: White

Sun: Full sun to part shade

Water: Dry to medium

Maintenance: Low

Flowers: Showy Flowers

Tolerates: Dry Soil, Drought, Air Pollution, Deer, Rabbits