Wowow! Thank you Elaine and Lin for sharing your photos. You both have so much varieties they are all beautiful to me!

I don't have that much variety. I'm now down to orchids, plumerias, succulents and glads (no blooms yet). I do have 3 adeniums. I have given up trying to grow shade loving plants.

Linn your Nephentes is beautiful, and if they eat mosquitoes even better

Lin you shoud post that beautiful Adeniums
In the Asenium forum. It is pretty and I love that it is double.

Here is what I have:

A no ID cactus in bloom in my office, kept it pretty dry to avoid bus blast:


My boat succulents:





My baby seedlings from my own Dwarf Pink Singapore plumeria:



My plumeria blooms

Lovely, Gigi. The cactus has amazing flowers and I love your 'boats'. But really . . . look at all the different shapes of petals on those beautiful plumeria!

Lin, I'm definitely heading back to Lowe's tomorrow to get a Buddleja. The one they have must be your "Honeycomb" or similar because it was white petals with yellow centers like that. I could smell them from 8ft. away. An extremely sweet fragrance like honey. I can plant it in the bed right in front of my window, that gets the shade of the house in winter, for a bit more cool weather. It's a contained bed - pavement all around - so no danger of it escaping. I'll be able to see what butterflies come to it without leaving my desk.

Buddleja is invasive from seed, not from roots. B. davidii can produce millions of tiny, lightweight, winged, wind-distributed seed that can be broadcast far and wide by a windstorm. One flower cluster can produce upward of 40.000 seed.

Luckily, from what I have read, seed produced during summer are not released until the following spring, so trimming the plant back hard in the fall not only encourages heavy bloom the following year (they bloom on new wood), but effectively controls their invasiveness (as long as the clippings are properly disposed of).

I understand there is a wide variation in the fertility among different cultivars. I don't know about the 'Honeycomb' variety. I know it is a hybrid, and I remember some species have no wings on their seed, and seed of some hybrids have single or deformed wings and are consequently relatively non-invasive except possibly in a localized area.

I have two dwarf "seedless" varieties, the 'Tutti Frutti Pink' and the 'Heavenly Blue', and they do have a nice fragrance. For a while I couldn't decide which of the two was the more fragrant. Interestingly, I finally realized the most fragrant one was whichever one I smelled first. Apparently some desensitization took place quickly, such that my first sniff smelled really nice, but after that the fragrance seemed really faint.

Ah ha! Velly interesting, Ron thanks. I will want my Buddleja to stay fairly small anyway, so will be happy to keep it pruned in winter.

Lin, I LOVE the color o your Desert Rose...I've never seen one like that, it's beautiful!

Not sure who asked about the FIG....I have one that has been in the ground for a number of years and it's never made any figs...usually I feel lucky if it has leaves! Anyone have any advice for me...I'm in Sarasota.

What is all this business about Cuban frogs and freezers? I'm gettin kinda grossed out here....

I took some pics this morning of the yard...not much in bloom right now but LOTS of green....

here's my little house (what you can see of it!):

welcome to my garden:

the view from my front door (what I see through the french doors):

A few plants:

the view out my dining room window (still 'in progress'):

Thanks Patty, I got that Desert Roseo and another from Home Depot not too long ago and a third plant was left by the former owners of our house. The third one had no leaves and some soft stems; my sister was helping us clean around the house before our tenants moved in and she was ready to pitch it in the trash because she thought it was dead. I quickly grabbed it and brought it home, cut off the rotted stems and dusted the cuts with cinnamon, re-potted it in a well draining soil and placed it on my deck where it soon began sprouting new leaves! It's still rather spindly looking but coming along.

Patty, your garden looks like my kinda spot, especially love the view you see through your french doors ... is that chair for me? I could sit there all day! That pretty Dieffenbachia looks like one I used to have Dumb Cane (Dieffenbachia 'Camouflage')

Awwww.... thanks Lin!

Good save on the Desert Rose! Sometimes it's amazing to me how resilient some plants can be. A little hint I learned at my orchid society meeting....mix your cinnamon with plain old white elmer's glue before putting it on cuts....the glue helps seal the cuts better and it keeps the cinnamon from washing off with the first watering!

Believe it or not...that chair bellies up to the front porch and it is where I sit to re-pot orchids and all my other plants too! Anytime you would like to come sit in my yard I have a much more comfortable rocker on the porch and a chaise as well....you are welcome any time!

FYI---I even planted that Live Oak in the center of the front yard! 1988....I bought 3 for $21 in 1 gallon pots!

Patty that's a great collection you have. Very nice strategic view of your collection!

Thank you Gigi!

Beautiful garden areas, Patty. I am surprised people don't just drop by and "borrow" what they like.

How cool that you have that lovely Live Oak shading your house now Patty.

Thanks Ken. I think the reason I don't lose plants to rotten people is that I live on a dead end street. I am one of only five houses. We don't get much traffic or exposure.

Yes Ann, it is finally nice to have the tree big enough to shade the front of the house (which faces east, so was always very, very bright and hot). I shoudl have planted one in the back of my house (the other 2 I bought at the same time are in the side yard) because I had to take down a huge Bishofia (?) tree last year who's roots were threatening the foundation of my bedroom and now the back of the house is in FULL afternoon sun and even with sheers and dark purple drapes on the french doors it still gets to be like a sauna in there during the late afternoon!

This is what the front of my house looked like when we bought it, back in 1987:

What a difference Patty!

Oh man, a Bischoffia!!!!! Wait till you hear this one..... talk about coincidence..... A dear friend whose last name is Bischoff of course just had to have a Bischoffia tree when they saw one at a nursery one day. it was fate right? The tree has their name! This was years & years & years ago -- I think they've been in their house well over 30 years now. It was just a tiny thing when they planted it. You know how big it got & how fast it got that way right? They had troubles with it for years & years but hated to have it taken down. First, it was massive & would cost a fortune so over the years they had things done to mitigate having to take it down like having it root pruned etc.... but they really did have problems with it getting into the septic & also compromising their pool & pool deck. It's too bad b/c they are beautiful trees.

Really excited about this one!

(Follow link to see more pics)

I've been semi-obsessed with this plant since seeing it in an Australian exhibit at a conservatory in Columbus, Ohio many years ago. I finally obtained seed from AustralianSeed.com. I'd had the seed for four years before even trying to grow them, as I couldn't figure out how to set them up and have any hope of success here in Florida.

I'm now 3/4 successful with this plant:

1: Getting seedlings from seed
2: Getting seedlings well past the seedling stage into healthy, growing plants
3: Growing out the plants to maturity and blooming

I have one more stage to go before I'll feel really successful...

4: Obtaining viable seed from my own seed-grown plants

So far, so good!

Beautiful Ron!

That is such a cool plant, beautiful flowers! The blooms remind me a bit of:

Lin, for me it was the other way around!

Ruttya fruticosa aways reminded me of Sturt's Desert Pea, and every time I would see one (or photos of one) I was reminded I needed to get that Desert Pea!

Been catching up on everyone's garden pics.
Patty I love your deck/garden area. Very inviting ,and Ron that Sturt's Desert Pea is pretty cool.

Here's a bit of what's happening here.

Caladiums in a Strawberry Jar




Several Hoyas






Philodendron Orange Marmalade