A Delightful Day

After far too long, an entire day was available for me to spend in the garden.  And what a beautiful day it was.

Cool temperatures and clear skies brought enjoyment to even the most mundane of gardening chores.  Florida Fall colors greeted me as I moved around tending to trimming and weeding.  The red berries of the native rouge plant, Rivina humilis, are so prolific they make up for the spots of fungus on the leaves left by the incessant rains of last month.

Tillandsias enjoyed all that rain and are now showing off their fall colors.  These have to be the easiest plants to care for in my garden.

The red firespike, Odontonema strictum, is at the height of its glory.  The fact that freezing temperatures kill it back is actually a good thing.  Winter weather keeps this monster from taking over the whole garden.  It always grows back quickly as soon as the ground warms in spring and is ready for late summer blooms that last until that first frost occurs.

Opening its blooms right on time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season, is the Christmas cassia, Cassia bicapsularis.   When all the yellow blossoms are open this little tree is quite a spectacular sight.

One of the gardening chores urgently needed was righting the sweet almond bush, Aloysia virgata,  which had been blown sideways during a recent windstorm.  While propping and staking it, I decided to trim it up into a one-trunked tree.  Hopefully, that won't prove to be too much for it to handle all at one time.

These sweet smelling flowers are present all year but in the spring and fall they are more abundant.  The more this little tree is trimmed the more it produces its sweet perfume.

Nothing is better than a delightful day in the garden!

A New Trend

I'm not known as a trend-setter, a trend-spotter or even a trend-follower. There is a definite trend, however, in my choice of color within my garden this year.

Ever since I chose 'Chinese Red' for my front door color, the color red has been my choice in foliage and flowers as well.  Red Flash caladiums were added to the White Christmas caladiums in the front entry-way bed. 

My view when I open my front door is full of  beautiful color as the sun shines through the heart-shaped leaves. 

It seems like I'm spotting the color red everywhere I look.  This angel-wing begonia's profuse red blooms really brighten up a shady corner at the top of  the drive-way.

Another group of red caladiums, Freida Hemple this time, are located to the right of the drive-way.  Some of the bromeliads sport red fingernails while others will have bright red cone-shaped blooms later in the summer.

Even the geraniums I'm babysitting for vacationing friends fit in with the new trend.  This red color is all over the place.

The back gardens are filling up with the new red color trend.  My new love, blood leaf irisine, lights up the dark shady corner in four or five spots now.

You don't think it's possible to have too many red caladiums do you?  I may be pushing it this year.  Honestly, I didn't realize that all the new bulbs I planted were red.  These Freida Hemples snuggle up nicely with the dwarf chenille.

In the new bed under the big oak tree, a native rouge plant is sporting cute little white blooms that turn into red berries.  Depending on how large this plant gets and how it does in winter, I'm thinking of adding some more of these.  Anyone growing this please share your experiences with it.  So far, I really like it a lot.

The new trend for my garden is the color red.  Do you have a trend going in your garden?