Followers

Monday 25 October 2010

New Bromeliads in my garden;

Aechmea weilbachii pendulafolia; I will replant this Achmea into a more attractive hanging pot.



On Saturday was the Gold Coast's Succulent and Bromeliad Annual show.
I went there with two of my daughters which are also avid gardeners. The display was magnificent.
We came home with a "truckload of plants"! Here are some which have to find a new place in the garden.

I liked the vivid colour of Neoregelia Princepts Hybrid.

My daughter Marie-Louise bought me two Alcanthareas, the green Imperalis and the red Rubra.

Vrisea Fosteriana var. Seideliana, a very beautiful plant.

This plant was named Vrisea Hamnea....to me it looks more like a Tillandsia?


Aechmea Vin Rosea is very dark Burgundy.


Guzmania Rememberance;


Guzmania Bakerii, which is quite a rare plant.


Vrisea Hieroglyphica;


Tillandsia
Vrisea fenestralis x Vrisea fosteriana w. Red chestnut;


Aechmea;
Billbergia;



Believe it or not:
“One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like”
George Carlin



Wednesday 20 October 2010

Pelargoniums;

Pelargoniums are quite high maintenance in my climate.They need always attention. Taking off faded blooms, old leaves, pruning and general maintenance for plants growing in pots. Some I grow in the garden borders, but still they need a lot of attention to look good.


I have grown this double, salmon one for ages.







This is a bright red,(in the picture it looks orange) the old fashioned type of Pelargonium, which is still my favourite.

Pelargonium is a genus of flowering plants which includes about 200 species of perennials, succulents, and shrubs, commonly known as scented geraniums or storksbills. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called Cranesbills. Both Geranium and Pelargonium are genera in the Family Geraniaceae. Linnaeus originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium, but they were later separated into two genera by Charles L’Héritier in 1789. Gardeners sometimes refer to the members of Genus Pelargonium as "pelargoniums" in order to avoid the confusion, but the older common name "geranium" is still in regular use, and most garden 'geraniums' are in fact 'pelargoniums', as opposed to true geraniums or cranesbill.
Species of Pelargonium are evergreen perennials indigenous to Southern Africa and are drought and heat tolerant, and can tolerate only minor frosts. Pelargoniums are extremely popular garden plants, grown as annuals in temperate climates.

The first species of Pelargonium known to be cultivated was Pelargonium triste, a native of South Africa. It was probably brought to the botanical garden in Leiden before 1600 on ships which stopped at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1631, the English gardener John Tradescant the elder bought seeds from Rene Morin in Paris and introduced the plant to England. The name Pelargonium was introduced by Johannes Burman in 1738, from the Greek πελαργός, pelargós, stork, because part of the flower looks like a stork's beak


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonium please click if you like to know more about Pelargoniums.

Believe it or not;
Planting
One for the mouse
One for the crow.
One to rot,
and One to grow.

Photos from my garden TS





Thursday 14 October 2010

SkyWatch Friday;Where the sky goes on for ever;



Desertscape; Breakaway, out of Coober Pedy. In the aboriginal Language of the area it was called Kupa Piti, meaning "white man's hole in the ground."

Go and click here SkyWatch is around the next corner.

Photo TS.

Sunday 10 October 2010

Bold and Red;

In 1989 I received 2 Hippeastrum bulbs. One produced red, the other red and white flowers. The red one had more cup shaped, roundish petals the other more pointy star
like petals.
All my Hippeastrums are grown from seed collected from the flowers in my garden.. Over the years they have hybridized and have come up in different patterns, colours and shapes. Also in very soft pink and all white with a few red stripes.
















Hippeastrum is a genus of about 90 species and 600+ hybrids and cultivars of bulbous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas from Argentina north to Mexico and the Caribbean. Some species are grown for their large showy flowers. These plants are popularly but erroneously known as Amaryllis, a monotypic African genus in the same family.

If you are interested in growing Hippeastrums click here

Believe it or not:

Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.
E. B. White




Thursday 7 October 2010