Thanks mj! I would love that!
Great info. on the sun, that gives me a lot more to work with.

Took some pics today of my funny little Ponytail palm (not actually a palm at all, in fact). This one is a starving orphan since it was planted about 6ft. away from a huge oak tree. They do get up to 30ft. tall in sun with good care. The Heliconias next to it are looking great after a couple of showers of good rain.

You have a beautiful garden Elaine! I have 2 ponytail palms. They are a few years old.

Love the pictures, very pretty! Cool ponytail palm, its just to cold here in the winter for one of those.

Yeah Pam I think you and Ann are just outside of it's hardiness zone. We grow it here South side of the house and I don't cover it.

Yep, I wouldn't chance one here.

I grow one in a container here. I pull it in to the un-heated garage when we get so low as to freeze. It's done really well. I do have a neighbor a couple streets over that has one in the front yard. They do cover it, but last year I think the frost bit it pretty bad. They cut it back, and darn if it isn't looking pretty good this year with several new growths.

Anybody else keep cuttings that they really REALLY should throw away? I've had these cuttings - mostly gingers and brugs - rooted in water on my patio table all summer, and now one of the brugs is actually going to bloom! I am a cruel plant mother . . . The Rex begonia is happy and thriving, though.


A few of my orchids coming along. Fall is a great time of year for the orchids.

Elaine do you do a stem cutting with the ginger to root in water ?

Weird, my begonia's have done better this year, despite the heat..

Ditto here on the begonias. Ive just let them get long and leggy because they are still blooming so well.

My pinecone gingers are starting to turn red, I just love them.

Yup, those are the ends of some of my tall spiral gingers. After the bloom finishes, they start to make a bulblet near the top, so I cut below the bulblet and put them in water. Roots form just below the bulblet.

I'll bet your begonias have done so well this summer because of all that rain you had. Mine are doing better now that it's been raining a bit more here. July? Nuh uh, they were not happy! I'm thinking partly it's that my begonias aren't great with my high pH well water when I have to irrigate them. I have one circuit of sprinklers that runs off the cisterns, and when the begonias are over there, they do better, too. But it's sort of out of the way for me, and the snails get to them over there . . . can't win!

Pam, take some cuttings off those long, leggy begonias! This time of year they will root really easily, just stick 'em in a pot of potting soil in the shade and don't let them dry out. Here are some of mine, first one is a new start this spring of one Mj gave me, Maurice Amy. Second are cuttings of B. odorata started in May.


Looking Glass, Don Miller, huge plant of Corallina de Lucerna with some Rex begonias to the left.



This one is my namesake, B. Elaine and has nearly black leaves and raised dots.

I do not do well with Begonias. Envy those that have huge specimens.

Speaking of plants, if anyone wants to take a drive to Clay Co tomorrow, the Master Gardeners are having a plant sale at the Extension Office, next to Clay Co fairgrounds. A couple thousand plants, Some real BEAUTIES. Had a great time today helping to organize them. Sad thing is, I have a previous commitment so won't be there tomorrow!!!!! Hoping my DH will listen to my friends & pick up a couple plants for me.

Awwww Jean.

Ooh, wish you had taken some pictures, Jean! Telling us about beautiful plants and not showing us is just like telling kids you have cookies, then not giving them any.

Our MG plant sale is not until October, but those begonia starts in the picture above are for that.

No luck with begonias in the ground, but in pots they do great for me, as long as I get the right light situation for them. So I get them going, then sink the pots where I want them to feature.

I just killed a Reiger begonia in less than 2 weeks flat.

Never have been able to grow "houseplants" or plants on porches type stuff. Black thumb for sure! I can grow 'em in the ground but not in the house or pots on a porch.

I am hopeless with houseplants too, Ann. Other than in winter if I have orchids blooming and cold weather looming, there is never a plant inside my house any more. My plants in pots outside are mostly sitting in the border, in the shade. Some of them are sunk pots, which keeps them cooler and more moist, too. I forget to rescue them half the time when they outgrow their pots though.

Reigers also have not done well for me, but the big cane begonias and some of the Rex ones seem to love warmth, shade and regular water. I got this Rex as a start in a crowded 4in. pot from Home Depot a year or so ago, divided it into a dozen pots, and it has just grown and grown. I've given big starts of it to at least 6 friends.

It's pretty too Elaine!!!!

I did a Reiger years & years & years ago, on our back porch in Hobe Sound. That one actually did great & boy! was I ever surprised. So the grocery store had some (that was probably my mistake) & I brought home a pretty red one. It began dying the day I brought it home.

No telling how long it had been in the cold a/c at the grocery store after being born and raised in a greenhouse. That one's surely not your fault, Ann!

That's what I keep telling myself. I do know they had been there for a while & I really should have known better than to buy it. But fall is coming & nothing will be blooming & I kept remembering that lovely yellow one I had years ago that actually lived & bloomed it's little heart out, so I bought it.

Lesson learned.