Over the long holiday weekend my wife and I decided to take our kids, dogs and bikes down to Campland on the Bay near Sea World to enjoy the warm weather and get more use out of our trailer. While down there, my lovely wife granted me a free day as long as I took my son with me….
Well the title says it all. My Brazilian Red Cloak really is going off this year. I believe the hard pruning I did two springs ago and the unseasonably warm weather all year are the main contributing factors. My neighbor even stopped over to ask what that plant was called in my backyard “that looks like it…
There are two easily confused Umbrella Trees that have been grown for many years in Mediterranean climate gardens. One is Schefflera actinophylla and the other is Schefflera pueckleri—if I were to label them with the most recent nomenclature. However, any old-time gardener will instead remember Schefflera pueckleri as Tupidanthus calyptratus instead. I actually still have an issue with the name change. So…
In the summer of 2010 I went on a flowering tree buying spree. I wanted to add a few hard to find, but even harder to grow, flowering trees. One of the plants I acquired was a small Fernandoa magnifica that I purchased from Top Tropicals in Florida. Other than a few photos found on the Internet, not much…
One of the main reasons I started my blog was to introduce new plants to people and hopefully give them a few more brushes from which to paint their landscape. Back in the spring of 2007 I was lucky enough to purchase my first Meryta balansae. At the time no one was known to be…