by hoot-admin | Oct 31, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
It’s hard to miss the vivid color of blue ginger. In late summer and fall, this tropical plant puts out 10-inch tall spikes of rich purplish-blue flowers. The blooms look great in the garden, but can also be cut and used in floral arrangements. Not truly a...
by hoot-admin | Oct 30, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
It’s hard to imagine a flower border without zinnia! These super easy annuals have been prized by gardeners for generations. Zinnia requires almost no care and will produce crop after crop of spirit-lifting flowers that work as well in the border as they do in...
by hoot-admin | Oct 29, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
Luffas are best known as bath scrubbers, but they actually start out as cucumber-like gourds. Two species are commonly grown in Florida: angled luffa and smooth-fruited luffa. Both types can be eaten when young, but most gardeners grow them for their fibrous interior,...
by hoot-admin | Oct 26, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
Golden Torch is a vigorous and hardy heliconia with large leaves that contrast beautifully with the deep yellow flowers. The large yellow bracts and sepals create dramatic displays all year long and are excellent as cut flowers. It can be grown in partial to full sun....
by hoot-admin | Oct 25, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
Red Rocket, a relative of the Firecracker Plant, has small red tubular flowers perfectly shaped for hummingbirds. In semi shade, the stems can reach 6′ tall with the flower clusters spaced widely apart. However, it prefers full sun for best flowering...
by hoot-admin | Oct 23, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
The Florida Beggarweed is a lovely green annual that was brought to the southern United States to improve the soil and to use as forage or a cover crop. They have many tiny sticky hairs on their stems and leaves so they tend to stick to clothing and animals. If...
by hoot-admin | Oct 22, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
I spotted this beauty growing next to a telphone pole on Harold Avenue between DeSoto Road and 47th Street. I haven’t been able to identify it, but if surely belongs in the year in flowers. Can anyone identify it? Let me know!
by hoot-admin | Oct 20, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
The Dwarf Red Powderpuff Tree produces showy red Mimosa-like flowers continuously throughout the year. This small to medium sized evergreen tropical shrub makes a wonderful container plant and may also be used as a hedge that the hummingbirds are sure to fight over!...
by hoot-admin | Oct 17, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
Hibiscus is a flowering shrub that evokes an image of a vivid tropical paradise. Hibiscus flowers can be many colors and often last for just a day. Individual flowers may be short-lived, but the plant will produce blooms over a long flowering season — nearly...
by hoot-admin | Oct 16, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
American Beautyberry is a well-named shrub growing usually to around 5 feet tall, sometimes taller. Native to the southeastern United States, the most striking feature of the beautyberry shrub are the clusters of beautiful violet to magenta berries that surround the...
by hoot-admin | Oct 15, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
The chalice vine had large, unusual buds last week. I went back this week to see the chalice-shaped flowers that give the vine its name. Also known as Cup of Gold, the flowers bloom in the evening or night and produce a strong sweet fragrance, which smells similar to...
by hoot-admin | Oct 14, 2017 | The Year in Flowers
Red morning glory is a spirited, fast growing, twining, twisting, climbing vine that is a spot on butterfly magnet. The flowers have the typical morning glory shape, but are quite small with a narrow tube around 1.5-in. long and an expanded corolla a little less than...
