You notice Ursula, that Jim will strategically be out of town over the weekend while the Amorph is stinking up the neighborhood.

I can see the neighbors calling the sheriff with "that neighbor of ours must have dead bodies buried under his beautiful garden . .. . "

Jim, I must thank you again, I think you've ID'd the big blooming bromeliad I got from Selby a couple of years ago. Pretty sure mine is the same as your Portea Petropolitana.


Red pentas going to town out front c/w butterfly adornments. Red firecracker sticks its fine fingers through the pool cage screening, then blooms. Sadly I must prune it as the flowers mess up the pool.

Couple more I just took, monarch coccoon attached to the pool cage wire, and Brazilian plume (I had to go back and clean off the scales on the stem after I saw the picture).



Starting some begonias from cuttings I traded for. B. Bonfire chocolate and B. Elaine (guess why I got that one . . ) Both have nice new growth after only about 2 weeks. Last is a tiny Dwarf Jewel Alocasia with a flower.

The Coccoon is neat!!

with Ursula and I like that Brazilian Plume as well.

I putting the last of my stuff in the little suitcase. I hope to be on the road by 6:00 AM. Hello Redlands and nice to meet you Kathy.

Jim

Enjoy, Jim! Have fun you guys!

We enjoyed Friday and Saturday at our place in NE Pennsylvania ( near Fleetville) Friday afternoon was spent walking through the woods and visiting the Cyp acaule stands. This weekend found lots of plants in bloom. Sadly one of the stands which has a more exposed group of plants, showed the buds on that location kicked by the late frost last week. But there are so many plants, we had plenty to enjoy.


And taking a walk up on the neighbors ridge, there is another pretty pond with yellow Waterlilies and a group of Red-Shouldered Blackbirds. They protested my presence loudly and circled around me. My camera had only the telephoto lens attached, so I quickly took a bunch of vertical shots and let Photoshop stitch a panorama for me and tried to capture the birds in flight before I backed off.


Some pretty Veronica near our entrance, and who doesn't like Dandelion seeds?

Oo, so lovely Ursula. Well done on the blackbird shots! Absolutely amazing color on that veronica, and the dandelion is exquisite. One could wish those seeds would stay on there, though . . .

The Cyp's could very well go on the orchid blooms thread, right?

This is a 5ft. tall agapanthus in a pot on my patio. Heliconia 'Lady Di' is starting to bloom again but needs rain.


Snapdragons nearly ready to give up. 'Easy Does It' rose struggles along.


Salvia 'Indigo Spires' getting going nicely.


Deep purple vinca, sadly the flowers fade in the sun. Mandevilla 'Merlot' have deep red flowers, I just couldn't get the light right.


Clerodendron ugandense, and coral Barleria

Hey, all - maybe I'm a stickler, but to assure forums have some cohesion, I really think we should start threads where they belong. This thread would have been better placed "Tropicals" or "Florida Gardening". I, too, am an orchid grower, but would not put pics of my upper Midwest garden in the orchid forum. Just sayin'! I think you all are great, but . . . please help keep the integrity of the focus of the particular forum!

Hey, Sherri. So how come we haven't seen any pictures of your orchids on our monthly threads? Have you been posting them in the "Illinois Gardening" forum??

Like most of these forums, there is a core Orchids group who post almost every day. Sometimes (not often) a few days go by without any new flowers to see. We started the "What's in your garden" thread when someone asked "let's see what else you grow besides orchids?" Our orchid growing posters up north really like seeing our winter gardens as well, when theirs are frozen or snowed in.

I also post on the Tropicals forum, Aroids, Brugmansias and Florida Gardening. Those forums are not as active or consistently posted to as our Orchids forum. Jim - hawkarica - started a thread in Tropicals for Palms and Cycads.

Not everything I grow is "Tropical" so do I post my pictures in Florida Gardening where nobody I know will see them? I want to show my flowers to the people I "know". My salvia pictures (above) went up on the Salvias and Agastache forum today as well.

I think as long as I can find what I feel is a thread that "fits" what I want to post, or a thread where I can see a given plant or someone will help answer a question, then ATP is working the way it's supposed to. Isn't that enough cohesion?

Thanks Elaine! You said it well.
Sherri, you are the first person ever calling us out, after more than three years on ATP?
I post pictures from my small garden here in NJ and from our place in NE Pennsylvania, they can hardly be catalogued as "Tropicals and Florida Gardening". I post just as others here specifically for my Orchid friends.
Some time ago I had posted my pond story interspersed with "Orchid stuff" also into our Orchid forum and it was moved into the pond forum. Yes, it surely belonged there, but the response from my new friends on that forum was not exactly overwhelming. Hmm, now I am sitting on some pictures from a Koi place, I would rather show them to my friends here. If I am not supposed to, I will then just skip it.
I enjoy this thread, especially when everything around here is cold and covered with that white stuff, as Elaine mentioned.

Sherri, hopefully we can enjoy your Orchid mounting endeavors here on the Orchid forum?

And now back to the good stuff -
Elaine, I love the beautiful colors you've got going on there! Pretty!

Thanks, Ursula and I would love to see those Koi pictures.

To please Sherri, I am posting the above series from my garden on a new thread in Florida Gardening.

I'll be interested to see the response there. No posts on that forum since May 10th, Florida gardeners must be very busy!

Elaine, but please don't stop posting here too?

No way!

Yes, Sherri, you are a stickler, and I am a bit irritated. Some of us have been posting together for more than 10 years, back to Dave's Garden and Cubits and finally ATP. We have become good friends, almost family, and we have had a thread like this one through it all. I have participated in other forums and have soon lost interest. Here I am comfortable and here I will stay. If I cannot post my garden pictures with these folks, they will not be posted. We are an inclusive group, always welcoming new folks. Please just leave us alone; we hurt no one.

Jim

Well, to go just a touch off topic here, I took a ride up to Waterford Garden again, I had received a nice gift card for Mother's Day. The Wisteria was in full bloom and looked just gorgeous. I wound up chatting with a nice lady who took my picture. I think my Lotus is still alive, just needs to be repotted, so I picked up this very cute Stone Fish instead of a new Lotus! In the meanwhile Klaus perched it at the edge of the pond.
This place has pretty Koi and in addition they rented out some space to a Japanese company selling beautiful Koi of all sizes. ( Some large specimen were a couple of 1000 bucks.) They had netting over their ponds so I never got really good pictures, but they were beautiful.

The koi really are lovely, Ursula. But I like your stone fish the best. Be super careful repotting your lotus, the tubers are so fragile! Mine never put up any leaves until the water gets over 75deg.

Jim, how 'bout a picture of your new palm? .

If Sherri comes back, I'd like to ask her where are the pictures of her garden. I went looking and so far found comments from her but . . . no pictures!

As you say, I can't see what harm we are doing posting our garden pictures here to share with our orchid buddies.

Love this ginger's foliage but I can't remember its name! Blazing red Canna looks nice because there's been no rain.


I got this RicRac orchid cactus (so, is it an orchid or a cactus??) as a cutting from Mj last fall. It got shoved back into the shady border, and my garden helper rousted it out yesterday. Lots of new growth, including one tip that has some roots looking for a place to dig in.

Regarding the Lotus, thanks. I will keep that in mind. I guess, it was just so cold here this Spring, it was slow to wake up. I know the Ric rac Cactus as Cryptocereus anthonyanus. I am growing one for many years and it never bloomed for me. Unfortunately I managed to burn it a bit this Spring.

Looking good, Ursula! Nice picture. Love the stone fish. Good choice.

The new palm is a Nannorrhops ritchiana. It is a slow growing, blue/gray colored palm that stays short and clumps. It is origionally from the high plateau area of Afganistan and I have seen pictures of it with snow on top. I'll snap a few pics when I plant it, probably tomorrow. We got some much needed rain this afternoon that kept me inside. I did pot up some of the new orchids and mounted another on a piece of drift wood that I bought down there.

Laurel called this afternoon from their car as they are on the road back to Atlanta. The roads in Miami seem to always be under serious construction. I don't know what I would have done without my GPS.

Jim

I love the garden pics. You guys have some great stuff going and I like being able to see what other people are growing along with the orchids.