Grant that white flower is beautiful!!
Ariana

This post was edited by Junglajungle on Thu, Nov 7, 13 at 10:41

Wilhelm Langguth Geranium

Bougainvillea Baby Sophia

Solanum rantonnetti

Thanks for looking.

Ariana

The Cascalote tree is flowering.{{gwi:421009}}
Agave colorata contrasting with red flowering Russelia equisetiformis.{{gwi:421011}}
Crescentspot? butterfly on dyssodia.{{gwi:421012}}
Another butterfly favorite: Tithonia fruticosa.{{gwi:421013}}

My Cascalote tree is also blooming. Don't have any pictures though. It is a great tree; love it.

I wish it would cool off more; too hot for this time of year.

Hi all,

I just got back from ten wonderful days in Hawaii so I probably should have waited until returning before starting this thread, hah, so sorry for the late reply. Jungle, your flowers and plants are GREAT, thanks for posting them. I've been resisting buying any zonal geraniums for about a month now, knowing that I was heading to Hawaii for over a week and would worry about new plants, so now that I'm back I'll be Geranium Shopping soon. Happily, all of my scented geraniums survived the blast furnace summer (barely, lol, but they did, as usual, and are now looking good again). Great bougie and solanum too!

Great pics and great garden, Jon, I love it. That cascalote is really pretty and a sign of our cooler weather to me. I really like how you've paired fine-leaf plants with that wide leaf agave. They really highlight each other. Great stuff!

I saw that Tithonia for sale at the autumn DBG sale but didn't get one. Can you share how long you've had yours and how you keep it happy long term? Really fun to see!

I had a house sitter while I was gone, but they refused to deal with the garden, so none of the non-citrus plants got any irrigation for over ten days until I got back last night. I'm pleased how well most of them did. I try to keep them all on a pretty restricted water regime (leafy or not) just so they don't miss me too much when I'm on the road. Here are a couple that looked really good this morning, without a single drop of water in ten days.

Bougainvillea 'Bambino Baby Victoria', one I've grown in this pot for a few years. I love it, so durable and with the variegated foliage, pretty all year:

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Aloe rudikope, variety 'Little Gem' just starting to bloom on the east side of the house. If locals plant early-, mid-, and late-season aloes, we can have aloe flowers from early October through late May. So fun, easy, and generous with flowers. Wilson the tennis ball included to show size.

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Finally, a double flowered form of "confederate rose", Hibiscus mutabilis, which greeted me this morning, my first morning out in the garden since I left on Halloween. Such big, fluffy pretty flowers:

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Here is a link that might be useful: Pics (so far) from my garden, November 2013

Grant, great pics as always. My Tithonia has been in the ground for two and a half years. It's planted on the west side of a block fence and gets about 5 hours of scorching afternoon sun a day in the summertime. It gets drip irrigated twice a week when high temps are over 100 degrees.
It looks downright ratty in the winter, best to have something better looking planted in front of it. Mine froze almost to the ground last winter but it's eight feet tall now.
It is more resistant to insect damage than Tithonia rotundifolia. The whiteflies here will kill those by July.

Looking good here, I love all the color. I finally have something interesting to post. My Dutchman's Pipe Vine is very happy these days and yesterday I counted six buds, some babies and some ready to pop open. None completely open yet but the buds are so stunning I'll post how they look as they develop.....first, the baby.....this will be a bit like "Find Waldo"

Side view:

And finally, the front. The flower will produce from the seam you see in this picture. I'll post when it opens. This vine has been struggling for several years as it was too hot in the spot I planted it. But a thevetia shrub has grown into a full tree behind the vine and is giving it the shade it needs to be happy. Aren't these just grand?? (Well, I guess you'll need to wait to see the final flower to be truly impressed......coming soon.)

She popped! about 5" top to bottom, about the size of my hand.

View from the side, the sac remains attached. Awesome eh?

Very cool giant pipevine flower marymcp! Good job. I've grown the native Watson's pipevine and Aristolochia fimbriata for butterfly caterpillar food but their flowers are puny in comparison.

When I checked this vine late yesterday afternoon I counted more than a dozen buds in varying stages of development. It's so impressive. That is one happy plant right now - and I've been forgetting to water over in that corner all summer so maybe I was over-watering in the past. Dunno.

Hi all. Marymcp, where in your yard is the Dutchman planted? what exposure I mean? It's a lovely plant and I love that big flower. I would love to try one. I keep looking at them in catalogs, then pass..lol..thanks for your help.

Hi ....raven, I have two vines, in different spots. The one that gets sun is not happy. This one that is happy now, used to get lots of sun until the hedge along the chain link fence grew up and is giving it lots of shade from the afternoon sun. So I'm thinking shade. HTH. Go for it!!

If I could figure how to propagate it I'd offer you some but I'm not sure how. If you know, I'm willing to try.

Fun pics and posts! Thanks for the info on your Tithonia, Jon, I appreciate it. I may have to test drive one myself.

LOVE your giant pipevine, Mary (and I hate how auto-correct keeps changing it to pipeline, LOL). The pics are just great! I'm surprised yours doesn't have any pipevine caterpillar damage. It's like an all you can eat buffet for them, LOL. The foliage, buds and flower pics are so great. I'm super envious. What do the flowers smell like? I've read in books and online that up close they have a little funky smell?? Either way, gorgeous specimen and so fun to see. Thanks for the cultural information too. Shade sounds like the key. Does it get cut back in winter??

I've only got the native, A. watsonii in my current garden and love it (though it tolerates lots of sun). You're giving me a craving to try a biggie now too, LOL.

Thanks again all, happy gardening!
Grant

Hi all, sheesh, where did these clouds all come from? I'm not a fan, LOL.

Here's a couple of pics from the garden today:

A big ol' clump of Aloe 'Cynthia Giddy' just covered the buds and blooms. Such an easy variety for sun or partial shade.

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Here's a closer look at her almost-red flower buds. They should open in a day or two. The hummers are trying to pry them open a day early this morning, LOL.

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Here's an Aeonium that struggled as they all do, through our long hot summer, but now is awake, happy and eagerly growing now that temperatures are lovely again. In summer they enter a heat induced semi dormancy and really just want shade and almost no water. Ironically, now that it's cooler they want MORE water since they're actively growing. This one is 'Voodoo', a hybrid between A. undulatum and x arboreum 'Zwarktop'. It's so fun to see them awake and happy again after they sulk all summer, LOL.

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Happy gardening all!
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden November 2013

Thanks Grant, I certainly enjoy seeing your gardens as well. You've done a good job of embracing the succulent and cacti varieties and you give me good inspiration.

Here's a pic of the entire vine. You should be able to recognize the leaf shape to differentiate it from the yellow emu bush that is in front of it. Notice the huge thevetia behind giving it plenty of shade. You are looking westerly in this photo.

If you look really close, you'll see some of the buds.

A little more eye-candy, this whiskey barrel planting came out well. Lots of double petunias, surrounded by bright blue lobelia, with a tomato plant tossed in for good measure.

Hi, no, don't know how to do that marymcp, beyond my skill level at this point. But I may just have to try one. I love the pictures everyone puts on here! so nice to see how they look in their settings. I have lots of trees now, so can try some more things that don't want our late day sun..I will let you know how it works out..Plant in spring I would guess? Thanks for all the help..

Grant, I have not seen any caterpillar activity on the vine. While looking for info re: propagation and planting times, I found this:

The South American A. littoris (also known as A. elegans) is also sometimes called dutchmanâÂÂs pipe, as well as calico flower. Be aware, though, that this species is not food for pipevine swallowtail larvae, in fact, it kills them.

...raven, if I get any seeds I'll post and let you know, my guess would be spring planting.

Thanks Marymcp, sounds great. I am already pouring over spring catalogs, lol..

Interesting information, Mary, thanks for taking the time/effort to post it. Interesting about it being toxic to the caterpillars! Good to know!

Here's a plant that's looking good now, as it does every single day of the year, good ol' Euphorbia rigida in my front garden. I have several of them out front. Some get full sun all year and some get full sun in summer and mostly shade in winter. All grow, thrive and bloom for me.

I water them once a month in winter and once every week or every other week in summer. That's it. The only real maintenance is a quick once-a-year trimming of stems that have bloomed and set seed. Stems that bloomed will die (but there are always other stems that won't bloom until next year), so I trim them back to about 3 inches (new side shoots sprout from the base of the fading just-set-seed stems). So easy. The trimming is once a year, and takes a whopping 5 minutes a plant. I don't know why everyone doesn't grow these! In any case, here are a couple of kinda bad pics from this afternoon, LOL. That's an Agave parry and a "cardon" cactus (Pachycereus pringlei, a muuuuch faster, bluer growing relative of the saguaro) to the right in the first pic. Happy gardening all!

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Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden November 2013

Oh, and here are the first three of about a hundred lemons on my 'Improved Meyer' lemon tree in the back garden. Please share or email me lemon recipes, LOL!

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