ellen I live in a sea of green. The mountains and the hills are teeming with life, all green. It is sorta like peeking through that overfilled window sill of plants that all need re-potting. So, my quest is to bring some other colors into the mix.
I recently went to visit a garden here on the island that belongs to the leaders of my leather back turtle volunteer team. They have a beautiful tropical paradise, AND they gave me a few cuttings of purples. One is this coleus. I love the magenta stripe in there. Right now, I have it in an easily accessible spot so that I can watch over it in hopes to keep it alive and free from dog inspections.
Keeping up with the purples, this salvia, that I started from seed when we first moved here two years ago, brings me nothing but delight. I have harvested seed from it and tossed it here and there in hopes that I would get lucky and have a volunteer or two. I think I will have to baby the seeds a bit more to get another plant or two. The purple stands tall, and the huge black carpenter bees love it.
You can see above that those big ole bees love the yellow luffa flowers. My luffa gets a little out of control. Plus, the fire ants seem to enjoy using it as a super highway. Adds just the right amount of fear to the mix, so that I have to work up a small bit of courage to cut it back. It vines quickly up and around most anything it can find, here the sunflower.
This cleome was a nice surprise. I had been wondering and wanting cleome, but was not sure it would make it. Even though we are tropical rain forest, some things just don’t want to live here. This small seed must have fallen into the bag of garden soil I put down to make a new bed. Low and behold, I have beautiful white cleome. Here’s hoping I can get some more seeds to take off!
Last but not least, I have a new vanda orchid blooming in an avocado tree. I bought a few of these when we first got here. I know one was destroyed by one of the five ever innocent looking dogs. I’m super excited to have these up in the trees. Hoping to find a few more vandas in some different colors. I think the one I had, that magically disappeared, was red. So many new plants to try.
