Beautiful photos! Love the plants and how they all look great together

Olya

OH WOW! That first picture blew me away!

And that ornamental pepper... I may have to beg a cutting from you on that one... What a cool plant.

Thank you, Olya! I'm so glad you enjoyed the photos. I have so much left to do out there, but I'm beginning to like how the parts I've worked on are shaping up.

Marcia

Awww, thanks, Nicki! I don't know if the pepper will work from cuttings or not, but it sure has lots of seeds. I'll see what I can find out. It is such a pretty plant. I love it next to Margarita sweet potato vine. They'd be pretty in a hanging basket together.

Glad you liked the first picture. Wish I had more roses blooming right now, but the rest of the bed is okay. I still have LOTS of weeding to get done. Been working on it EVERY day! (It got really bad while we were away...not that it was great before we left, by any means. But it seems to have exploded that week.)

Marcia

Marcia

Everything is so beautiful! I love love love that clematis crispa! There should be fairie's living in them! Do they grow in zone 10?

On the coleus post, there is a tall purple/black plant (or tree?) in the middle of your coleus bed, do you have info on it? I love the purple/black plants.

Thanks for any info!

Jamie

Marcia, it's all so beautiful! The pictures make me want to come there and just sit on your pretty blue bench for awhile!!! Never would have thought of putting the canna in a water pot...love them, but wow..they spread just too fast! That's a great way to contain them!! You're so clever! Hmmm..I'm wondering if I have some of that african blue basil...someone gave me an unknown and it sorta looks like that one....... Good job..things look really great.

Marcia, your plants are lovely! I am looking forward to Kate's swap, hopefully I have plants you want to swap me for, because I lovelovelove all of yours ;-)

Evelyn

Beautiful! I love the Grandpa Ott's morning glory. I saw the black pearl ornamental pepper for the first time this past weekend at the Winter Park Farmer's Market, and it was pretty cheap-- $2.50 for a half gallon plant. I'd never seen that before-- very interesting. Where do you get the native clematis?

I hear you about the roses. Not much really blooming for me, either right now. A few scattered, and small, blooms. The heat saps them. Mine want to be fertilized, too. I've got some alfalfa tea brewing just for them! My neighbors can hardly wait... smirk...

But anyway, with your other smaller blooming plants mixed in with the roses, it looks like tons of color to me. Plus those coleuses as a backdrop add so much color it's wonderful.

Here's a photo of mine - it's a bit more "overgrown" at this point since this photo was taken last month...

beautiful and thoughtful garden Marcia. I'll bet the bees and butterflies abound.
thanks for the photos.
Denise
p.s. thanks for the rudbeckia seeds. they've been seeded for a month or so but nothing popping up in the pots yet.

Great photo's! I love that rudbeckia too. :o)

Beautiful! Just the look I am going for! Between your first picture and Nicki's I am just blown away! Where did you get your clematis from? I would love to add one to my garden. Also, what did you build your trellis [on the end of the porch] out of? I like the look and have just the spot for something like that. Keep up the good work! You inspire me!

nova

Oh, Marcia, your garden looks beautiful! The coleus looks stunning, and the rudbeckia triloba is really pretty. Gotta love that clematis... too cute.

Nicki, each photo of your garden just enchants me more. Love the birdhouses and the trellis. Are those hot pink pentas or zinnias out front? Gorgeous.

Anna

great stuff, marcia. i too love that idea of cannas in a water-filled urn. definitely add that next year...

some peppers are really beautiful!

(that's a tabasco pepper, several years old. i cut it way back each spring and harvest the peppers to dry and use as crushed red chilies.)

i've seen that purple one in catalogs and have meant to grow it. i don't see why cuttings wouldn't root, considering the pepper's very closely related to tomatoes, which root if you look at them funny... something to try, in any case. if you remember, save me some seeds.

Thanks, everybody! I'm glad you guys enjoyed seeing the pics.

Ill, I will try to root the Black Pearl pepper plant. It will be fun to try a cutting or two. And I'll save seeds, as well. Next year, I would like to have a lot of them scattered here and there. LOVE your tobasco pepper. So pretty!

I have tried to grow cannas for years and they always give up in the sandy, dry soil that I've always had so much of. I finally started growing them in containers with NO drainage holes, and now they are lush and full, all the time. Then I sat some potted ones in a pond one year, and saw how well they did like that. So when I brought home the purple one with the red flower, I decided to put it in a big urn full of water, and it's been there six months now, blooming steadily.

Nova & Zarbiya, Nicki gave me a start of the clematis two years ago. I don't know if she rooted it, or what, but it forms wonderful seed heads, so I'm going to try to start some from seed and see if I can get some. It is a native plant, but not one I've ever seen sold anywhere. I think she said she found it growing along her fence, but I'm not sure.

Denise, hope your seeds start for you. If not, I'll send ya more.

Beth, you can come over and sit on my bench any time. Then you can tell me the secret to getting cannas to spread. I suspect I have just never had rich enough soil for them. I really only put them in water because it kept them alive for me.

Marcia

Marcia,
WOW!!
Such beautiful Flowers. The color of the morning glory, the hairy flowers,birdbath,the bench, and how the colors interact.
You have really done a master piece. You ought to play the music from fantasia, you already did the magic.

Nicki, Your garden is so old fashion looking. Beautiful.

Felix

Jamie, I'm sorry I forgot to answer your question about the purple "tree" in the middle of the Bali hut coleus bed. It is a false roselle, hibiscus acetosella. Also called African Rose Mallow. A friend gave me this one a few weeks ago, and it has really taken off. Mine hasn't bloomed yet, but check out the pictures at the link below. I have a real fondness for the mallows, since hollyhocks don't do well here. Can't wait for mine to flower!

Marcia

Here is a link that might be useful: False Roselle

Nova, Mark made that big trellis for me out of bamboo. It won't last forever, but I like the airy, open look of it. I don't have much growing on it yet. Nothing has been really happy in that spot, except alamo vine, which I have pulled out, due to its invasive nature. I have a smallish confederate jasmine struggling on one end and a larger, nicer looking coral honeysuckle on the other. I hope they eventually start to fill it out.

Marcia

Very pretty pics Marcia!

Gary

about that Roselle, mine bloomed in spring, but since then not one single bloom, it just grows like crazy. Reading up online it says Roselle blooms repeatedly. Anyone know more about it? is it just a spring bloomer?

Evelyn

Your garden looks great! Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful garden, Marcia! Love all the pictures. That clematis is too sweet and the peppers are so dramatic! Very nice job. How long have you been working on your garden? And I'm always amazed when I hear that someone has trouble growing cannas. I must be lucky - I have them in all sorts of conditions and they just take over. Good thing I like them!
Betsy

evelyn,
my roselle bloomed in spring, too. pretty blooms, but very subtle. if i were to use it in an arrangement, i would probably pull most of the leaves off the stalk. otherwise, the bloom tends to get lost in the mass.

my guess is that it grows in hot weather but blooms in cooler weather. it's a great plant, but grows MUCH LARGER than anyone might expect. it also benefits from staking, since it has a tendency to flop a bit. i just cut mine back to waist-high, hoping that the new growth will be more upright. but it would be a great plant to grow for a little shade in the summer.

thanks ill-mannered, and yes you are right it grows taller than one expects and it does like to flop. I am growing it not so much for the flowers but for the look of the leaves.

Evelyn

I've seen that false roselle used as a hedge, and it's really pretty. It does grow fast. These folks must prune it daily!

Marcia, the clematis I dug you was a seedling. I've never tried rooting it. I found the plant growing along my fenceline in the back yard in almost full shade. I had no idea what it was - it was a strange little thing. It was very exciting! Mine dies back in the winter. I need to look around to see if there are more seedlings along the back fence. I'll try to have some for trades. If not, collect the seeds and see what happens.

Ill - that tabasco pepper is cool. Looks like I'm going to need to start adding peppers to the garden... They're quite pretty. Gotta get that Black Pearl from Marcia... The leaves alone are worth it.

Thanks, Gary & Lady! Glad you like the photos.

Evelyn, we will have to learn together on the false roselle. It's new to me. Thanks for the info, Ill. Mine has one very tall "branch" shooting straight up in the center and several shorter ones around the base. I'm going to cut the taller one back to encourage the others to grow, and I'm going to root the cutting. Maybe I'll have one to share at Kate's swap.

Ill, I haven't planted the REAL roselle that you gave me, but I'm hunting for the right spot. I want it to do well.

Betsy, we've been in this house three years. When we first moved in, the backyard was barrren. There was a huge spreading oak in the center, which we loved but lost after Charley came through, and a lot of dead grass. And not much else. Here are some "before" photos to show you that even though I've only worked about 1/3 of the backyard, I HAVE made some progress.

AFTER: (The same bed)

The front yard was just as bare, except for some straggly pittosporum hedges by the garage and some very unhappy lorapetalum under the windows. And the big circle of trees, of course.

I have not done much in the front yet at all. Nothing, really, except my hedge of abelia, which is thriving and actually blooming now.

Marcia

wow. impressive.

All the photos are such an inspiration. Thanks for posting. I do love to see what everyone is growing!
Brenda