Yuletide in the tropics

Entrance to Jesse Durko's, a botanic garden in it's own right

I had to put my Vietnamese gardenia down today. It had been failing, and it's quality of life was obviously no longer very good. The telltale was the rot that was showing up in the cells of a living branch when I did a investigative cut. Part of the ring was brown. It wasn't pretty. Long and short: I had to bag it. It was too big to bag in a single run, so rather like the 2 bit Italian mobster in Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties, I had to saw the body into pieces and tossed it down the trash shoot.

I went to the nursery where I had bought the original plant. This gardenia is fabulously fragrant when in bloom-- rather like ylang-ylang. I bought a nice 7gal pot, a nice size plant, for $40. They were asking $45, but I paid cash, and was reticent to hand over the cash, so the nurseryman took off $5.

I wanted to report on the worth of a 4 gal shop vac (5hp). It was the more expensive model-- but it paid for itself today! I was able to clean up after the gardenia, and a terrace full of wet bougainvillea petals, bamboo leaves and other hiding flotsam. It sucked it all up. The vacuum might be of great use to other terrace gardners as well.

 Jesse Durko's nursery, the source of the Vietnamese gardenia:

A tropical (winter) perennial bed

Another bed, notice mound of begonia 'Caribbean Corsair' on lower right

10' high, a habit of prehistoric proportions