You've beat me Arif, we should get to 40° today and then it is supposed to start going down into the high 30's. Hopefully the night temps will go down too, it's been very warm and without a breeze the last couple of nights. It's a little overcast today so perhaps it won't get as hot.

Thanks Jo Ann, yes I'll bet it is a lot different from the NE. You are heading into the beautiful season though and we are getting drier and drier waiting for the rains. I've had to water every day this past week and still the plants look stressed.

Blooms from the heat lovers.

Crown of Thorns


plumbago


shrimp plant

Jonna crown of thorns, have you ever tried to make a crown out of it? Sometimes I don't understand from where people go and find names for plants. Got that one.





Plumbago, white and that colour that you put up both in bloom. Shrimp plant I have not tried but I do not think it will work here, Used to near the sea.
I call it a giant heat engine and it's first heart beat is now due any time. Once the temps cross 45c it unstablizes the atmosphere and there will be sand storms culminating with a shower. As soon as rain touches the super heated earth, bang the pressure drops and suction is applied on the surrounding area which sucks in more cloud.
http://www.weather.com/weather...
There should be five or six heart beats at the least before we can get Monsoons. Lets see how hot it gets this year.

Hello Jo Ann how are the mother and child pair these days? Happy with the company of all the plants .
Regards,
Arif.

45c.

More photos, Jonna?

I'm having internet problems for the last few days, I had forgotten how irritating it is not to have a reliable connection. After talking to the techs in Mexico City several times, they agree that it is on their side and say they are working on it. It means that the pics I have on my phone are not automatically uploaded to the cloud and I can't access them on my computer. So, I have only 2 pics to share. I harvested my pineapple yesterday, after almost 2 years. It's a runt, but it was starting to go soft so I had to cut it.



I was looking around the kitchen for something to show the size and decided to put it next to the kettle while making some tea. I haven't cut it yet, perhaps for breakfast tomorrow.

Congrats on your new baby.
Regards,
Arif.

Looks like a premmie, but healthy!

This seems to be a good spot to add some recent pictures. I almost missed this dragonfly as he matches the blooms from the Bleeding Heart Vine (Clerodendrum thomsoniae).



I got one more bloom on the pitaya (Hylocereus undatus) but I missed getting a picture as it was pouring rain that night. This is the next day and the bloom is fading. Now the wait for the fruit.



Yesterday Oscar was here and I had all sorts of things I wanted him to do. Instead, Mimi was home with a cold and decided that we needed to thin out the bamboo (Bambusa oldhamii). She got out there with him and they spent most of the day cutting down 5 really long stalks, 35' to 40' long. Oscar was so far up into the them that you couldn't see him at all. One stalk he cut about half way up and it fell into the neighbors yard so we had to go over and get their permission to pull it out. Only the live in maid was home and she let Oscar pull it off the back wall but didn't want us taking it out through the house until the owner came home. I don't blame her, just the top was about 20' long and full of branches so it would have knocked things around going through the house. I'm going to talk to the lady of the house tomorrow about Oscar coming over and cutting it up in their yard on Tuesday. I want to be a good neighbor and clean it up. They got all of the ones on our side stripped of branches and all the leaves bagged. We kept the huge stalks and the larger branches and they are on the roof drying. I want to use them to build a trellis for tomatoes that I'm going to try growing hydroponically on the roof.



This is after taking out the 5 big trunks, there are still a bunch of the leaves to be pulled out.


The mule ear orchid (Trichocentrum carthagenense) is blooming on the back wall. I was afraid all that bamboo falling everywhere would break it but it survived.

Oscar have any relatives up here he can send my way? Wow, what a lot of work and good job of it, too...

That's a beautiful enclosure, Jonna! What's the plant with wide glossy leaves directly in front of Oscar in the first pool photo? It looks like an anthurium. The orchid on the wall is gorgeous.

Thanks guys, yes Sandi that is some type of anthurium. I posted a picture a year or so ago when it bloomed but it is too hard to identify which type as there are lots of hybrids and many natural ones. I moved it about that time from a spot that was getting less and less light to where it is now. It gets a few hours of filtered sun all year and more in spring and fall. It seems a lot happier and has grown quite a bit. The orchid was moved from inside the terrace to that wall as well. It seems to have adapted and I'm hoping that I can add more orchids to that wall now that it never gets direct sun. I don't usually have good luck with phals but I might try another one there.

I'll go back and find the photo of the anthurium. I think you have the magic touch. Really pretty garden.

Here's the post where I asked about it.

The thread "Blooming, help with ID" in Philodendrons, Elephant Ears, and Other Aroids forum

Funny, I say there that it was getting burned and I moved it because of the sun. I'm sure that is true but my funny memory says it was not enough sun. I guess, whatever the current problem you're having kind of bleeds over into everything you remember. I can't imagine this year having a problem with too much sun.

Thanks for the link, and it sure does look a lot happier in that spot!