Fertilizer Friday: March 7 (Orlando Tropical Flowers)

Boy, I like the sound of that "March"! It certainly is the most hope-filled month of the year: hope that warmer weather is not long off; hope that green grass is coming shortly, hope that shoots of crocus and daffodils will be poking up any minute now. Plus, we have St. Patrick's Day, that announcement of spring and fun, accompanied by Irish whiskey, good Irish cheddar, and cabbage, potatoes and corned beef. Yay, Spring!

Anyway, as promised, here are some Fertilizer Friday photos (http://www.tootsietime.com/) of the flowers I saw in Orlando, Florida on my recent trip (I actually have current photos of real flowers this time!). These are all from my trip to the Harry P. Leu Gardens, which I haven't finished writing the post for yet -- I will tell more about these extensive botanical gardens in a few days when I post about my visit.

Camellia japonica 'Abundance' 

Another beautiful camellia from the Harry P. Leu's collection of
240 varieties of camellias.

A white one (sorry, no cultivar info)

A flower from the fascinating Popcorn Cassia
(Senna didymobotrya) that I saw in the Leu's Cottage
Garden. The leaves apparently smell like popcorn
when rubbed, which I wish I had known while I was at the
garden, as my whole family would like to have smelled it.
The tree was not labeled and I had quite a time trying
to look it up on Google images.

A hollyhock or some other sort of Malva
(who knows what will grow down in tropical lands?)

I had to include some roses -- I'm always so excited
to see them blooming in the middle of winter!

Some sort of flowering vine, again not labeled....

Two florets from the "Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow" tree
(Brunfelsia pauciflora), a tropical tomato relative
that has dark purple, pansy-like flowers that fade to lavender-purple
on the second day and to white on the third, so that it looks
like it has multicolored blooms. Fascinating -- I'll post a photo
of what the overall effect of the whole tree looks like on my next post.

Anyway, I feel better that I was able to post photos of real flowers this time, and somewhat interesting ones. Thanks for reading!

Fertilizer Friday: February 21

It's again Fertilizer Friday at http://www.tootsietime.com, and although I've again been hard-pressed to find any flowers around my house this week, I'll do my best:

A strange hibiscus that I've had for some years now:
The flowers were all red at first, but then these yellow
and red ones started blooming after a few years.
They must be from the root stock, but I think
it makes the plant so much more interesting that I
haven't tried to remove the root growth.

Here's one of the red flowers, a couple days after the yellow one bloomed.
You can see the faded yellow one at top right still on the plant.

My husband's mother gave all the women in her
family paperwhite bulbs for Christmas. I'd read
that the smell was off-putting, but these actually
don't smell too strongly and I kind of like them.
This ends the real flowers section of this post.

Desperate for other flowers to include, I remembered the
pipe cleaner flowers that my daughter made last year.
Here's one bouquet...

...and here's another. They may not be real, but I've found that
they're actually a good enough substitute to get me through
the winter without buying cut flowers.

One more of real flowers, outside, so we'll remember how lovely
spring will be when it arrives. 

We'll be in Florida all next week, so I may not post again for a bit, but I'll try to have some good photos of Disneyworld flowers when I return. Happy Fertilizer Friday!

Fertilizer Friday: February 14

So, I'm joining the "Fertilizer Friday" group at http://www.tootsietime.com/ for their weekly sharing of flower photos (which has nothing directly to do with fertilizer, apparently, only flowers). But it looks like fun, so I'll give it a go.

Since it's February, I don't have anything flowering in my gardens, but I took look around my house and found some (almost) blooms:

My dill plant is just about blooming. Not very showy
flowers, to be sure, but they did smell pretty good!

I'm not even sure whether these are blooms or some other
part of the cactus (or whatever cactus-like plants these
were that Wal-Mart sold me for $1 each several years ago).
But they are colorful things on top of a green, stem-like part
of a plant, so perhaps they could count as "flowers"?

OK, so I'm getting a bit desperate here.
My 10-year-old daughter made this from
an origami kit she received for Christmas,
 and I thought it was quite pretty.

So I'll resort to last year's flower photos. I bought all
these snapdragons (4 flats) at an Amish flower auction
last spring. They were so beautiful and bloomed all over
my yard until several frosts shut them down in November.
They may reseed this spring, however. I'll keep my eyes out....

And one more: blue hyacinths from last April.
I can't wait for spring again!

Happy Fertilizer Friday!