Holly: That Bougie is gorgeous! Great job of getting it to bloom during the winter! I have one in a container out in the yard but I'm not even sure it's still alive ... will have to make a mental note to check for new growth. I'd love to have a home with 18ft floor to ceiling glass!! I bet your plants are very happy in that situation!

Tiffany: Are you moving within the same city? I can't wait to see photo's of the way you display your plants on your new patio and in your yard!

Holly, is that bougainvillea 'Barbara Karst' by any chance? That is my favorite. Very, very pretty - whichever one it is.

I am not sure I picked it up un-named at a nursery on one of my trips down south. Either in S. Carolina or Fl. I've had it for years.

It does look like my Bougainvillea 'Barbara Karst'. Mine was given to me by a friends daughter and son in law when they moved to California a few years ago. 'Barbara Karst' was available all the time in garden centers around here many years ago so yours may very well be that cultivar. I went out and checked and mine is still alive and leafing out, look forward to the blooms in a couple of months. My best friend has two huge ones climbing up the Live Oak trees in her backyard and they are so gorgeous when in full bloom.

I have photo's of my plant under the general entry for Bougainvillea in the database, I should add some to the cultivar if it's in the database.This photo of the entire plant is from summer 2012 and the close up photo of the blooms is from last year:

Thank you for the ID that really looks like mine.
My FIL lives in Fl. and he use to have one that was eating the side of his house before he cut it down. All the way to the roof line and over the top. Near broke my heart when he cut it down but I did realize that it was needed

I planted quite a few of them in CA. Someone sent me a photo of the back of our house in San Diego and the hill is now covered in 'B. Karst'. They were planted there over 30 years ago.

Back in the mid 1970's I had a 'Barbara Karst' in a hanging basket and I kept getting stuck by the thorns so I planted it outside of our screened pool enclosure by the back driveway. There was a very tall steel pole with one of those mercury vapor security lights and that Bougie grew and grew and climbed and covered that entire pole and light. One day we heard an extremely loud crash and ran outside to find the pole on the ground with the light smashed and the Bougainvillea broken completely in half. The steel pole had rusted all the way through and the weight of those thick branches were just too much I guess. That was such a gorgeous plant when in full bloom; we could have dug up and transplanted what was left somewhere else and I'm sure it would have taken off again but we just threw it out.

We were talking about birds nest ferns earlier in the thread .... this isn't a birds nest fern but I thought I'd share a photo of my Kangaroo Paw Fern. I've had this plant for I think five or six years and it desperately needs to be up-potted again!

Kangaroo Paw Fern (Microsorum diversifolium)

I just love ferns.

Very nice Kangaroo Paw, Lin. Do you have other ferns?

Tee: Besides the Kangaroo Paw, Birds Nest and Elk Horn that I showed earlier I have a "Crocodile Fern":

Microsorum musifolium 'Crocodyllus':


And, growing in the yard I think this is Swamp Fern (Blechnum serrulatum)


And, growing on a couple of trees, Resurrection Fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides):

Lin, we're moving less than a mile! It will be a lot less hassle for us though, should have done it years ago. (Long story, but we rent here, and own the house we're moving to.) And thanks, I am too (once it gets past the "that's where it got put when I brought it over" phase!)

While I'm here yakking, might as well include a closer pic of this I took yesterday, after being outside all winter. It needs a scene in the middle, I never got around to that yet, and is kind of beat-up but most of the plants are still alive. Neat-o. The skull is just sitting there, way too big, strange looking, and there's lots of toy dinos. I dunno what's going on but it's there.


BTW, if anybody does any mini gardening, pop on into the mini forum & say something, throw up a few pics. 'Tis the season to redo/rearrange/create new ones of those too. I've got 2 containers I'm planning to work on next weekend (all in the name of consolidating pots for the move, right?)

Cute arrangement, Tiffany. Very nice ferns, Lin.

Thanks Tee!

Tiffany: That is a cute miniature garden ... looks like something you'd see in a desert out west. I'm curious as to what animal the skull belonged to.

I pack as many in my south-facing windows as I can. They all go outdoors in the summer. These photos were taken at night because in the daytime the light coming in makes too much glare to photograph well.

Very nice Christine!

Here are a few pics of my AV's. About half of them are in AV pots the type that are 2 pieces where you fill the bottom with water. I have those sitting on these type of plant stands this one is two tiered. The other ones are still in the plastic pots that they came in. They sit in terra cotta trays on top of pedestals.

A few more

Holly: Beautiful AV blooms! I haven't grown AV's in a few years now and I love how you display yours. That two-tiered rolling stand is really nice and I also love that pedestal!

I need to find another one of those, I may have picked that up at Ikea. It comfortably holds 7 AV pots without crowding them. I have two of the pedestals one is just slightly shorter, they were given to me years ago and they have come in very handy. I painted the other one tan thinking I might stencil it but never did and am not really sure I want to now. I have about 20 of them.