Now you have me thinking about putting Begonias under my River Birch. That is the empty shady spot in the yard. Perhaps a couple will need to follow me home today!!!!!! Gosh my GH is going to be packed full this winter!!!!!

Jean, when we lived NW of Tallahassee, I planted begonias (the regular ones) & put pine straw real thick on them for the winter & they came back. When the danger of frosts were over, I just pulled the pine straw back & they came up!

I've no luck with Begonias either but happy to report that my Dendrobium orchids survived my neglect and they are blooming.







I'm hopeful that when plumeria season is over, my Catts and Phals orchids will bloom too. My Epidendrum and nun orchids are barely hanging on but I'm hopeful they will come back...cooler weather is almost here.

Wow, beautiful Gigi. That white one has lots of buds, looking very good.

Thanks Elaine, I will post when they are in full bloom. My oak tree is keeping a watchful eye on them

Oak trees make a nice habitat for orchids here - they keep the temperatures down a bit and the humidity up, which the orchids really like. My "quarantine" area where I put any orchids that have black spots or insect problems is out under a huge oak tree, and most of the orchids that go out there recover and do well. I think the geckos help with the insect problems, and the air circulation out there is better for preventing fungal woes. But I like to keep most of my orchids inside my pool cage to protect them from squirrels and birds.

Also I can see them better and reach them more easily inside the cage.

Good tip Elaine. I have no pool and cage and hubby does not like plants on covered patio except winter time.

Beautiful Gigi! I like the last one best.

Took some pics before the deluge yesterday.
My Blue Sky Vine has grown up into my neighbors tree. Flowers are actually a true blue.

Candlestick Cassia must be 12' high & just as wide. Happy to see she is finally blooming.

Front flower bed.

Got this cactus in the spring in a 2" pot. They warned me it would get rather large. Over 2' tall now.

Butterfly Calendron froze all the way back last winter & took forever to show any life. Now it is finally blooming.

Jean, it's looking great! Love that Cassia! What kind of cactus is that? It's gorgeous!

Tara - I'll save you some Cassia seeds. Took 2 years to get this plant growing. Last year it never got out of the pot. Maybe 8" tall. This Spring it really took off & now I have the monster. I also have a Cassia with small leaves & flowers. I want to get one of the pop corn ones.

The tag for the cactus is somewhere in the pot!!!!! I think it can be started from a leaf and I do believe there are some babies forming.

I keep saying I need to have someone come over & give me the names for all these plants as I write them all down. I'm just as bad with people's names.

Nice pictures. I wonder if that candlestick cassia is the same as the buttered popcorn cassia. Maybe not, but i would give it a wiff just to check. I love them, they die back here.

Great pictures, Jean! Your front bed is looking wonderful, and will continue to fill in. Don't forget if you can clip the seed pods off your Crepe Myrtle, it can put up another round of bloom before the weather gets cold.

Hey, what's that pretty plant beside your very cool cactus?? Sure looks like a nice healthy blooming begonia to me! (but I'm sure you know it doesn't belong in the same picture with a cactus, right?) They like it shady and moist.

I have that blue Butterfly Clerodendrum somewhere out front, and really need to go check if it's still with us. My Pagoda is looking pretty sad, but has made some seedlings, so I'm going to transplant some out to a sunnier spot as soon as the weather's reasonable.

@qwilter
Does your candlestick cassia go dormant in the winter? If she makes seeds beyond what you & Tara can use, I would surely love some as well as the small leaved ones.

Buttered popcorn Cassia is a much smaller plant. Bloom is whiter & it does smell like popcorn. This is a Candlestick which is just plain HUGE!!!!! Many varieties of Cassia out there. I have 1 in a pot that bloomed & is only abt 8" tall.
The Cassias do die back in winter. With as many blooms as it has, I'm sure I'll get a fair number of seed pods & lots of seeds to share.

That is a Dragon Wing Begonia. I water it with a hose & don't hit the cactus. Unlike other begonias, the DW does well in full sun & drier conditions. I grew them in MD in almost full sun & they only got watered when it rained.

Jean your Begonia looks like what I've seen as Wax Begonia's. They do like more Sun and less Water. The Dragon Wings that I'm familar with are more like slender Angel Wing Begonias.

I've grown the Cassia's here also. They are a host plant for the Sulphur Butterflies tho, so get chewed up. I hate to kill off the caterpillars so I just quit growing it, they use the native stuff in the area. I don't have as many Sulphur's now tho, which I kinda miss.

Thanks Jean!

I want them for the sulphurs. And I just plain think they're pretty.

Starting to get lots of blackberry lily seeds now so if anyone wants some, just send me a Tmail. They're all starting to ripen & pop open.

Mine now look like blackberries too. How do you plant them? One by one, or just scatter them in a pot and cover with potting mix.

Pam, when I went to plant my seeds, I Googled & came up with so many conflicting ways that I just went with what I normally do when confronted with conflicting info.
Read my comment & it tells what I did.
Species Iris (Iris domestica)

qwilter said:Took some pics before the deluge yesterday.

Got this cactus in the spring in a 2" pot. They warned me it would get rather large. Over 2' tall now.

The beautiful cactus / succulent has a common name "flapjack". They get beautiful "orangey" color in late fall to early spring. I have a few of these, they make babies fast so I never tried to grow them from leaf. The small ones at the base are babies. You can separate them when they have good roots.