My Naked Lady (Amaryllis belladonna) has started blooming here:



Bloomed last year at exactly the same time (both times the first bloom has opened on 10th Feb)!

Beautiful! I cannot seem to get mine to bloom at all. I've had them for years and the foliage is always healthy but no flowers. Others around here have no trouble, just me.

Mine are intermittent, Alice. I have several in a large pot and last year, only one bloomed. This year a different bulb has. Still trying to work out exactly what I need to do to improve conditions for them.

Good to know I am not alone. It is unusual, the hippeastrums are like weeds here and a number of native Amaryllis do very well. Oh well......

Joshua, those blooms are spectacular!! Very showy!

One of my favorites!

Gorgeous amaryllis, Joshua. I have some broms and brugmansia blooming, thanks to the nice rain we had.

A better shot of the Brug. Milk 'n Honey that was perfuming the whole back yard last night.

Just lovely. I don't grow brugs but there are plenty of them around the neighborhood and all are brown sticks this year.

I was out scraping bark with my fingernail today. I think at least some of the stems on the Croton Zanzibar are alive, others not so much. If it lives it will look pretty skinny this year. All the bougies seem to have green in the stems and a tropical hibiscus is putting out leaves. I lost a big Bouvardia that has been outside on its own for a good 17 years. That was a shock as we have certainly had freezing weather before and it did fine, it is native to the mountains of Mexico. Won't know about the Jatrophas for a while. I just ordered 50 bales of pine straw to cover up the bare spots.

Heh, I just went into the garage to check my Brug ( quite dormant) and the Epiphyllums ( they looked great) and a Jade was still in full bloom. Watered everything. Spring is only a few weeks away!!

I love your Brug, Elaine!

Alice, it sounds like not all was lost during the freeze!

I looked at my big mango tree today and it looks dead. The old leaves are not falling off and it failed the scraping test. It is over 20 feet tall and at least that wide. I remember protecting it when it was young several years ago and I thought it was big enough now to tough it up but I guess not. I won't plant another one.

Jim

Sorry to read that, Jim. They do get huge, too big to protect I suppose.

Aw, that would be such a shame, Jim. Don't lose faith, though. It may yet put out some new growth. It takes a lot to kill a tree that big.

Patty's been helping me get the garden presentable this week, and we found a young one under my mango tree that is almost 4ft. tall (which tells you how much weeding we did ) It's a baby 'Carrie' same as yours, so if you want to try again for free, I'll save it for you. I know you've had tons of wonderful fruit from that tree, and we may not have another cold winter for years.

Sounds like your squirrels are going to be very unhappy this year.

Yeah, I might not have to buy the squirrel gun after all.

As for a new mango tree, I just don't want to go through the protecting and worrying of a new young tree for another 10 years only to see it get whacked on a cold night in January. Besides, I may not have the ten years to do it.

Jim

Hey, it is depressing but it is not that bad, you are still a youngster. Look at it like this, IF the tree does not recover you still have some prime gardening real estate and you can plant something new and special in its place.

Yeah, my mind is already coveting the possible real estate bonanza. Just to show that all is not lost, the yellow tabebuia is blooming atop the OC:



Dwarf azalea:


Regular azalea:


Avocado blooms:


Jim

And those are gorgeous! I always love the yellow Tabebuia!

Beautiful Jim!
As our Florida highway crews work to widen one of my main boulevards, they are planting an amazing array of trees.in the wide median strip, one is Tabebuia...They are in large masses and in full glorious bloom.