Fall is here and the leaves are changing in South Florida

Fall has arrived in South Florida and the leaves are changing (not really) only the Plumeria tree does the fall thing around here.  This is the time for all the Plumeria trees to start to drop their leaves and go bare for the winter, the only sign we have that the season is changing.

Soon all these leaves will be on the ground

Garden time has been hard to come by around here.  Between bad weather and a demanding nine to five job, my garden has seen very little of me.  I worked on my side patio, moving, changing and adding new containers.  I will soon start to work on my vegetable garden, I’m waiting for cooler weather sometime in October.  This year I am changing the entire concept and that will take time and lots of work (stay tune)

Pictures from around the garden this week.

This bromaliad aTillandsia deppeana, was a nice surprise seven flowers in a small container

It would not be a tropical garden without hibiscus flowers, this one is my favorite

This side of the house gets shade all year around, perfect for this bananas and black elephant ear plants 

My newest addition, this coleus is call "Fishnet Stocking" 

The purple Allamanda vine is using the the starburst tree to grow high up, I like the look.

I am ending this post with a photo of a male Julia butterfly, sucking the nectar from a firebush flower.

After the rain, the rain lilies bloom

It has been a long couple of weeks of daily rain; tropical storm Hermine passed south of us but her effects lasted for days.  Today is the first sunny day with no forecast of rain and this morning the rain lilies decided to make an appearance. 

Not much gardening this week, the rain limited the time outside.  I updated a couple of beds in the front of the house.

 Most of the plants in my street garden are pollinator friendly, here I have a combination of milkweed, firebush, blue porterweed and yellow buttercup flowers.

 I let the lantanas grow wild in this area of the garden, I don’t have the hart to cut it back, and the butterflies love these flowers.

Update on Zika

Last week the Miami Beach botanical garden closed its door and decided to pull out all their bromeliad plants, the garden is located within the Zika designated area.  This is worrisome for me; my garden is about 40% bromeliads.  If this disease gets out of control I can see, how the state will mandate the removal of all bromeliad plants from local gardens.  They did it before with citrus trees when canker threaten the citrus industry, this time the consequences are much more costly especially to unborn children. 

So why am I planting more bromeliads?  Because I don’t like to throw away any of my extra plants.

I hope you all have a peaceful and restful LABOR DAY.