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Blue Ginger

Blue Ginger

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...
Orange Zinnia

Orange Zinnia

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...
Luffa

Luffa

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,...
Golden Torch Heliconia

Golden Torch Heliconia

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....
Red Rocket

Red Rocket

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...
Beggarweed

Beggarweed

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...
Unidentified Flower #1

Unidentified Flower #1

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!
Dwarf Red Powderpuff

Dwarf Red Powderpuff

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!...
Pink Hibiscus

Pink Hibiscus

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...
American Beautyberry

American Beautyberry

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...
Chalice Vine Flower

Chalice Vine Flower

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...
Red Morning Glory

Red Morning Glory

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...