One of my spindle palm’s “flower” is dying as you can see how the one on the left has collapsed. (The stalk just folded.) I’ll have to hack it off which isn’t easy since it’s so fibrous. But the good news is that a new bloom looks imminent! See how it’s shedding it’s sheath.
And how huge it is!
Okay, so it’s fauna, not flora. But it’s a rainy, gloomy Monday and I thought this critter would cheer me up.
These things are highly poisonous to dogs that attempt to chow down on them, so we relocate them to a vacant lot or forest preserve. Fortunately we’ve only seen a handful in the 18 years we’ve lived here. Trying to get this one to pose wasn’t easy. Hence the hands in the shot.
Used heavily in municipal landscaping, the ixora is another hardy shrub that does well with little attention. These also come in a dwarf variety that sport a ton of blooms in either a dramatic orange-red color or yellow. It also makes my list of “not a favorite” but is great for a hedge (trimmed to a uniform shape) or along the wall of a house. I prune them as needed, but not intensely, and mostly just let them grow and do their thing. I had this one that I transplanted from the side of my house to a pot in the backyard. It has since died due to a total lack of watering. (I told you it wasn’t my favorite! And I have since replaced it with some stunning ground orchids which I’ll feature later.)
But again, to attest to the incredible beauty and variety of the flora down here, just look at how these common little flowers still manage to amaze.
Like the lily I wrote about earlier and for which I showed sort of a “time lapse” scenario, the flower of the ixora blooms bit by bit, too. I find it fascinating!
On my list of “Not My Favorite Plants,” along with the common ginger, is the croton. I guess it’s just a little too common as they’re used widely in commercial and municipal plantings. But because they come in different varieties — dwarf and curly leaved are two — they can add interest to your garden when used in the right location. And the croton does have some good attributes. They are hardy and so do well with little attention. They are colorful — greens, reds, oranges and more. And they are bushy, so provide for some degree of privacy.
I recently planted three small plants and noticed part of one that’s a brilliant yellow! Albino, I ask? This alone may be enough to move crotons onto my list of favorites. It’s just too weird and wonderful!
The plumeria, or frangipani, is a deciduous tree that loses all its leaves in the winter and it resembles nothing but a bunch of branches, as the “trunk” is roughly the same size. And it does take on strange shapes because the branches break off fairly easily if bumped hard enough. So my plumeria is growing mostly sideways now! I guess it’s too close to the grill and so gets in the way. But it does make an interesting shape against my neighbor’s house, which on this side features a shuttered up bedroom window. I like its oddity!
This one started as a stalk which we planted in a large tub and is doing well. My brother bought it for me at a Farichild Tropical Garden Plumeria Festival when we were first working on the backyard. It’s a deep red and gives off a lovely smell. I wish I had bought a lighter shade of flower, however, as this one is so dark that it tends to blend in with the dark leaves. Oh well. It’s part of the family now.
The flowers are used in Hawaiian leis, I’ve heard. I’ll take pictures when it loses all its leaves later in the year. It really looks strange then!
I forgot to include photos of the two ornaments I’ve bestowed on my spindle palm. They just seem appropriate — as I said, this tree really has a character all its own. This ornament is from a trip I took to Turkey.
And this one is from Santa Fe, NM.
sofloflora 