Shooting star flowers

Shooting Star

Grandma flowers

When I close my eyes and take a deep breath of these flower's sweet fragrance I am instantly transported to a time when I used butter as lip gloss (I know, stoopid kid, eh?), hadn't a worry in the world, and the best sound I could hear was my grandma yelling from the kitchen's door "Bread and jam are ready! Come eat!" Bread and jam were homemade of coursy.

Antique rose given to me by my pal Juliana. Thank you dahlin'!

The most reliable rose for Central Florida

Iceberg Floribunda Rose. This pup gets black spot every now and then but all I do is manually take off the affected leaves. Other than that I prune it without rhyme or reason about twice a year and it is doing great! No special watering or fertilizing...just throw in a few smashed egg shells and banana peels every blue moon and she is happy as can be. I guess the key is that if you live in a humid environment like I do you must, must, must get the roses with the best possible root stock for your area, in this case the best is Floribunda.

Hydrangea

Polygala Myrtifolia aka Sweet Pea Bush

Heliotrope Marine Blue

Heliotrope Marine Blue

Something about white flowers, eh?

Candle Bush Cassia

First blooms...finally the caterpillars decided to allow some parts of this plant to flower! Beautiful, fast-growing, drought tolerant, butterfly host plant...but if you hate ants or plants that reseed or may look untidy-then this one is not for you.

Mexican Sage

Love its purple flowers. Since we are not in the best zone to grow lavender (too humid) this is my next best choice. Hummingbirds love their flowers.

Fire Bush

En fuego! This is one of the shrubs I find most rewarding. Beautiful foliage, beautiful fruit, low maintenance, and birds and hummingbirds love it. Oh, easy to propagate as well, just cut a young branch during the warmer months with about three sets of leaves or so, take the lower sets of leaves and any fruits out (so that the plant's energy goes into making roots), set it in water away from direct sunlight but with plenty of filtered light. Wait a few weeks, and you should have a new Firebush. One last thing: when taking cuttings to propagate it is always best to do so early morning or later in the day...can't remember why and too lazy to look it up, but it is true.

Buddleja davidii - Butterfly bush

I bought three of these plants from Burpee last year. Only this one survived. Let's see how it does through the summer...

Butterfly plants

Candle Bush Cassia, Bush Daisy & Butterfly Milkweed...butterfly heaven!