We came back from our place in NE Pennsy, things looked good, the cabin is now again ready for another Summer season.
We had such a long and hard Winter, even in NEPA nature is much delayed. The Coltsfoot is finally blooming, three weeks later than expected and little delicate Claytonias are starting to come up. Trilliums are up and budding.

Amazingly, the talk amongst the Sunnies got around that "food falls again from the sky" and they came to feed, even some of this year's new crop of the little fish joined the fray to try some soft bread. When we started to walk around the pond, they all followed us in one big school, too cute.

Hopefully the Goodyera pubescens will bloom this year!

Such a beautiful place you have there in Pennsylvania.

Jim

I don't envy your weather, but I sure miss that communing with nature. We have conservancys here, but you have to make an appointment, and often pay, to get to them.

I always think I am a lucky person, and this place must be a slice of heaven.....

I wish I could contribute to this thread, but it has been too breezy to get any pics of anything outside. Stupid plants just won't stand still!

Me too!. Still in cold wintry Utah but looks like more sun today.

DH says things are blooming in FL.

Great lead-in, Elaine, and I took a walkabout with my camera this morning.
My big Bougainvillea aborea is exploding with flowers.


This is Yucca gloriosa, sometimes called Spanish Dagger.


This cute little fellow will stick you without mercy if you're not careful. Here is Agave schidigera 'Shira Ito no Ohi'


This is called a wild date palm or Phoenix sylvestris.


The bald cypress are fully leafed out.


An entrance to the rose garden with a big queen palm in the center.


Red iochroma, yellow bells and purple iochroma.


A closer look at the purple iochroma.


Begonias


A basket of bromeliads blooming and some big Aechmea Blanchetianas


Lots of cycads in this garden.


Hibiscus and gardenias in front of a ribbon palm


The fountain


I have to go sing church music to the folks in a nursing home this afternoon. I'll continue this later.

Jim

I'm back from the singing so I'll continue.

This native dwarf Simpson's stopper looks happy down by the lake.


Another native, this sweetbay magnolia is happy in wet areas.


Roses on the left and the yellow garden on the right.


Yellow Bells in the yellow garden.


Here is a tarraw palm and the now very tall Bismarkia palm


Good news and bad news: This toddy fishtail palm is blooming but after it blooms, it dies. Nothing I can do.


Purple pentas:


Dioon spinulosum cycad in the front of the cycad garden.


Lots and lots of fragrant gardenias in bloom


Plumbago is always a treat.


The avocado tree is getting big.


Here is a line of rare palms I planted mainly to keep the neighbor's weeds from invading. The first tall one is a grugru palm and there is an olive tree just to the left.


This is one of the largest ponytail palms I have ever seen. It is not really a palm.

That's it for now.

Jim

Wow! You are living in a botanical Park!! Everything is so perfect and well groomed! Simply wonderful! Surely it shows your hard work and effort!

Thanks, Ursula. It is a lot of work but as you know, it is a labor of love.

Jim

Absolutely wonderful Jim.

My fishtail palms hung on with blooms then seeds for at least a year and then seeded themselves abundantly. The seeds turn shiny black before they drop and are really pretty too. Just don't handle them without gloves. They have an irritant on them.

Jim,
All's beautiful, but I am most impressed with your purple iochroma, I have always had a terrible time with them, thought it was just too hot....well, obviously THAT was not the problem.

Welcome to So. Cal. spring! Last week it was in the high 60s and breezy. This week the high 90s and the palm fronds (among other things) are sailing. http://forecast.weather.gov/Ma... but it beats the heck out of tornado watch. I was able to get a few pics yesterday morning but I missed a few Epis that bloomed early.




Ignore the blank. Icouldn't make it go away.

it was a missing light box closing bracket.

Such beautiful blooms, Carol! I just love the Epiphyllums!!

Carol,
Wow that first Epi is gorgeous !
I have Epi ackermanii and Showboat. Showboat hasn't bloomed for me yet tho.

Mj, am I seeing this correctly, you have the species/ ackermannii!? I believe that is the very first time I have ever seen it, heart be still!!! I am hyperventilating here!!
Most ackermannii posted are actually x hybridus Ackermannii.
Wow!

Ursula, came to me with the tag reading Epiphyllum species ackermannii. No hybridus and no Cap's.
Great large red blooms. Mine has about a dozen buds/blooms in various stages. Usually blooms in spring and again in fall, in response to length of day changes.
I wouldn't know how to tell the difference.

Mj, the main difference would be red stigma lobes!
The hybrid ( Disocactus phyllanthoides aka Deutsche Kaiserin x Disocactus speciosus) has white stigma lobes and you might see occasionally 3 - angled growth popping up as a throwback to the speciosus parent. And the hybrid has white stigma lobes.
Yours is red!!!! it is awesome!!

Mj, I like yours too! That first one is called "color splash". That is the first bloom on it. I have given up names, for the most part because it seems most are made up by each grower.The second one is Epi. crenatum, the third is 'Stern von Erlau' according to the tag, and the fourth is ' German Empress', of course. I have a couple more named ones, and several NOIDs, but they are either finished, haven't started, or blowing in the wind.

The German Empress/ Deutsche Kaiserin has to be one of the nicest Epis too.
Carol, you have yours for many years, right? Did you ever have to re-start the plant?
Many people keep losing them every so often, so they always keep a back up plant. Yours must like the Santa Ana winds.....