Attack of the Gulf Fritillaries!

With all of the rain we've had recently, it's such a pleasure to see the growth in the gardens.

In the backyard behind the pool, we have our three "color panels" starting to take shape! The two outside panels have different colors of bougainvilleas.

The smaller shrimp colored bougainvillea on the left panel.

A big bright magenta on the right.

The center panel was planted with a small purple passionflower vine. With all of the rain, it has grown in leaps in bounds! Yesterday, I was able to catch it's first bloom; however, it was mangled from falling on the ground in the torrential downpours.

So I trained the vine up onto the wood panels and hoped that the future blooms would open up in the next day or two and show beautiful blooms. I checked again when I got home...

Sadly, not mangled by the rain, but eaten by caterpillars. Upon closer examination, little caterpillars littered the passionflower.

I checked online and found they are gulf fritillaries. Gonna leave them for now and see if they stick around. Even though they ate the passionflower vine, it looks like it's going to be ok and continue growing,. Just decided that if they've already had their fill, perhaps they will be able to grace our backyard once they become beautiful butterflies!

The Great Bougainvillea Revival Part II

I last updated the blog with the bougainvilleas about 2 months ago when I noticed that the Shrimp colored bougainvillea was coming back to life. (Read the Great Bougainvillea Revival) So another update is in store!

Checking on it this morning, not only is it filling in nicely, it is finally getting flowers! A couple flowers just emerged from the green clumps of foliage! I did notice that the flowers look darker than they used to before we transplanted it across the yard - no matter though, they are still going to be beautiful!

Here comes the rain again!!!

Here comes the rain again! And this time it seems perfectly planned! So far we have gotten rain the last three days and everything seems to be happy in the yard without having to run up the water bill finally!!!

Caterpillars ate up the tomatoes, so anything that was on the vine that they half ate, we dropped to the top of the pot, cut down all the vines, covered with compost and allowed the fruit to reseed itself. With all the rain, we finally have baby maters starting again!

We started the oak garden #2 last week by planting shrimp plants, clerodendron (starburst/shooting star), and set out all of the rest of the plants to fill in. There's a wonderful mix of spider lillies, amaryllis, hydrangeas, Hawaiian tai, bromiliads, and aloe just waiting to be planted, but placed where we want them. Although we have yet to plant the Hydrangeas in the oak garden, they have already started to bloom.

And just next to the oak garden # 2 we planted figs. Three of them: Two from mom's old place in Palataka that we have had in pots for nearly a year and one that was from our favorite- the clearance rack at Lowe's! I am so happy that we found a place to get these into the ground. We planted them on Saturday and with the three days of rain, they already have buds that are ready to shoot new growth!

Bougainvillea number 2 from the transplants is starting to fill in. I saw all kinds of green shoots last week and now it has little magenta blossoms starting to find their way out! It will only be a matter of time before the one color panel is covered in a sea of green and magenta bougainvillea!

The first Oak Garden on the south side of the back lawn is finally coming back. The lack of rain and lack of me regularly watering it made it struggle hard. This was one of our gardens from last year. Yet again filled with more amaryllis and other bulb lillies. I also have coleus surrounding the oak tree. Since the rain has come, it looks like everything is springing back!

I am so happy to have rain again!!! It really seems to be making the yard open right up! I can hardly wait to see everything in full bloom!

The Great Bougainvillea Revival

About a month ago Sam and I decided that we needed to "rearrange" the yard. By rearrange, I mean move the two bougainvilleas from the shaded area right next to the fence to the new "color panels" that are behind the pool. So we trimmed them both lightly, tied them up carefully (getting thorned and scratched terribly).

As they were moved, the first one that was transplanted had very little finger roots, but just one long tap root that was unfortunately severed during our relocation. The second was a larger shrub that had plenty, I mean PLENTY of roots that outstretched about 10 feet in diameter. Needless to say, we were thankful for our Florida sand again. Both of the bougainvilleas were transplanted with plenty of compost soil and fertilizer to minimize the transplant.

The second lost a lot of leaves, but with daily watering, bounced back after a few days and had plenty of new growth within a week. The first one however, lost every leaf, was watered daily and about three weeks later, nothing... I expected that it was just dead.

Thinking the worst, I decided it was time to start the process of removing the dead tree. I pruned shrub back to about 2 feet tall and we burned the cuttings (The thorns on these bougainvilleas were like daggers!). And lo and behind, what happens?! A week later after cutting it back and stopping the water to a "dead" plant, shoots of green emerged from the twigs! I even planted other vines behind it!

Sam and I are very happy to see that the Shrimp colored bougainvillea survived the transplant, but now I have to find another location for the purple trumpet vines.