The Rainforest Garden

Finding Winter Color for Florida

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:32:00 +0000

You wouldn't know it by the drab dead grass and weeds lining most of our streets, but winter in Florida has unexpected magical surprises in store. Camellia blooms, oranges and bright displays of cool season annuals can turn any depressing scene into a winter wonderland! I was blown away by the creative use of winter color and evergreen foliage at my favorite garden center, so I decided to take some shots with my cell phone camera and take you along for the ride.

Petunias on a rainy winter morning

Violas

Ornamental Kale

Annuals

I used to think that winter bedding plants were tacky, but eventually I realized just how useful they can be if used carefully. They've really grown on me. You could swear it's springtime at Hagan Ace in Orange Park. While the sky was steely gray and drizzling, the cheery bright displays of violas and dianthus were unrelenting. Most annual displays around town seem to be a mishmash of contrasting bright colors in random arrangements, but I like to combine similar colors or just keep it monochromatic: Purple petunias and johnny jump ups look much more soothing with lavender alyssum, ornamental cabbage and dusty miller.

Primrose

Ajuga, or bugleweed

Heuchera, or coral bells

Mondo Grass

Perennials, Groundcovers and Bulbs

The term 'winter color' usually brings to mind temporary displays of bedding plants, but there are long lasting alternatives that can be left in place all year long. Hurricane lily and other lycoris species might bloom in fall, but they keep their deep green leaves all through winter, looking similar to mondo grass but with a white stripe down each leaf. Mondo grass and border grass also stay green in winter, though they tend to flop over until spring.

I was really excited when I found Hagan Ace's display of deep purple hued Ajugas and silvery Heucheras, plants that I never appreciated enough as winter color before. Their unique colors and textures would look terrific with ornamental cabbages, neoregelia bromeliads or just about anything else that could contribute to the quilt of colors and textures.

Primroses and Alstromeria were two perennials that I have never grown before, but rest assured that they came home with me that day. Alstromeria are typically grown in California where they don't have to deal with the humidity, but I am nothing if not adventurous. Besides, the grower is located here in Florida. The Primula was also new for me, but I was sold when the nursery manager told me they tolerate shade. Even though they aren't supposed to make it through our hot summers, it will bring my balcony happiness until spring.

Nandina 'Firepower'

Camellia

Madonna Azalea

Trees and Shrubs

There are more to winter blooming shrubs than camellias, though they're certaintly the best place to start. My live oak canopied neighborhood is home to some of the tallest and most impressive camellias I've ever seen, and they're definitely the highlight of my winter walks. A close second goes to Mandarin orange trees, with plump orange fruits dangling down and begging to be plucked. I have shown restraint, at least so far.

The unusually warm winter has brought us redbud blooms in January, but far more common are the fragrant flowers of Ligustrums. Along with alyssums, they can make an entire garden smell like honey! Some azaleas also bloom in three seasons including winter, so they're definitely worth a look. 'Madonna' and a few others were blooming at the garden center during my visit.

Swiss Chard

Vegetables and Herbs

A surprising amount of veggies and herbs thrive in our cool winters. Salad greens, lettuce and collards can sit alongside carrots, potatoes, peas and onions. With all of those exciting crops, wonder if Florida vegetable gardeners even have to worry about seasonal affective disorder. How can anyone look at the vivid red and green leaves of swiss chard and feel anything else than pure joy?

Herbs love this weather as well, and Hagan Ace's herb selection was a feast for the senses. Strawberries hung from the arbor over fragrant rosemaries, mints and blooming calendulas. I was forced to buy a 'Lilliput' thyme and a "Lemon Lime' thyme, but I just couldn't help myself. I'll just look at it as grocery shopping!

Feel free to add your own favorites for winter color in the comments below! Oh, and if you're a naturally curious gardener like myself, be sure to join Christopher Tidrick for Linnaeus Day on the 23rd of each month as he explores the mysteries and history of the world one plant at a time. I can't wait to see what he has in store!
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Colored Pencil Botanical Illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

It's time for Sketch a Plant Sunday! Without a doubt, my favorite medium for rendering plants is the colored pencil since you can combine the look of a painting with the convenience and detail of a pencil. You can take them anywhere without a mess, so it's easy to take them into the garden or on a nature trail for plein air renderings of your favorite plants. Lately I've been preoccupied with a few projects, and one of which requires me to draw plants. I won't say what the drawings are for, but they've been an excellent excuse to see the world through the eyes of an artist again.

This pepper was drawn with only a few different colored pencils and one light green marker, an it was a lot easier than it looks. Here's how I did it:

1. Set up a still life or a photo reference. I bought some Anaheim peppers from the grocery store and arranged them on a plate, taking a photo for future reference.

2. Lightly sketch the outlines in pencil. If desired, map out where your deepest shadows, mid tones and highlights will go.

3. Apply a wash of green. I used an apple green Prismacolor marker, but many artists choose to use watercolor. Apply the marker over any part of the pepper that will not be lighter than the color of the marker such as the highlights.

4. Begin drawing in the deepest shadows. Use a deep green pencil to lightly fill in the deepest shadows. Keep the pencil sharp, since a dull pencil will leave a rough texture that would be inappropriate for glossy peppers.

5. Apply a layer of chartreuse over the entire background. The background will eventually be a deep red, but the chartreuse layer will add a richness that can't be attained with just red pencils.

6. Start filling in the middle tones on the peppers. Make sure the pencils are still sharp, and start bridging the gap between the darks and lights. Apple green can be applied over the whole of the peppers with the exception of the highlights, and use olive green or another dark green for the shadows.

7. Color the entire background with two layers of red. The red background will resonate with the red used for the shadows, and since red and green are complementary colors, (opposite on the color wheel) the green peppers will seem to leap off the page! Start with a bright red, and do a second layer of crimson red afterwards. You can apply the strokes in any direction you choose, but I prefer to make a pattern so that the strokes each face different directions. This gives a luminous effect when the drawing is hit by the light.

8. Finishing touches. Firmly apply a white pencil to blend the middle tones with the highlights. This is called burnishing, and it will help give that waxy look typical of peppers. Use a deep olive green for the shadows behind the peppers, since it will combine with the red background to approximate black. I rarely use black in my drawings, but you can use it on the very darkest parts of your shadows to give the peppers more dimension.

See how the chartreuse green shines through the layers of red? Let me know if you have any questions about this illustration or drawing in general and I'll be happy to help!

The World is Your Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:03:00 +0000

A garden follows you wherever you go. It branches out to the soil of friends and neighbors in the form of cuttings and divisions, and when you leave your own patch of soil it also follows, uprooted and shaken up, but ready to start life anew under any circumstances. In 2008 I planted 'the rainforest garden' for my mother, who had lost her ability to walk after complications of a brain stem stroke, a broken back and other ailments. The garden started as a humble patch of soggy dirt against the fence, but quickly grew into something wonderful.

Parrot Notecard, mixed media. My mom does several of these notecards every day.

Our sheltie Panda loves to sit on the patio and feel the breeze

Every week my wife and I visit my mom, and each time I bring in something from the garden for my mom to enjoy. Yes, I'm a grown man, and yes, my wife gets flowers too, but no one really appreciates those minute details like my mother. When I divide gingers or bordergrass, she wants to sniff the pungent and earthy aroma of the bruised roots and feel the texture of the crumbling dirt around the roots. She makes arrangements out of the most mundane sticks and leaves, and delights in the texture of a morning glory or the shrill song of a tree frog. She is without a doubt the happiest person I'll ever meet. She is about to lose her home and her garden, and she is overjoyed nonetheless, excitedly telling me about her distorting wounds and inflated legs as if they're miracles. They really are. She should not be alive, and she knows it.

She lives alone with her sheltie and spends each day hard at work creating art, teaching lessons and blogging about all the things she's thankful for. Since she has no car, she drives her motorized wheelchair to a Publix a few miles away for whatever groceries she can fit in her lap, waving at befuddled kids along the way with a radiant smile. When I visited today with the rest of her groceries, she told me about the severe cellulitus infections in her legs dismissively before changing the subject to the progress of her piano students, how much she loves my wife or the simple joys of drinking tea in the garden with her dog. I'm telling you, nothing gets her down. Doubt and fear pay the occasional visit, but it doesn't last for long.

I have been planting nothing but bulbs, rhizomes, corms and tubers for a while now. I have not broken ground on new beds or planted any trees, and you've probably noticed that the focus of my blog has dramatically shifted away from 'the rainforest garden' at my mother's house. I've known that foreclosure was coming since my parents separated in May, just about a week before my wife and I were married.

She's not the only one facing foreclosures, nor is she the the only one going through a nasty divorce or life threatening illnesses. Life is unfair. Just don't tell my mom that life isn't just, because she'll never believe it til the day she dies. We can do nothing and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can make the choice to create, work and smile every day and do something great with our lives.

Steve's Guana, Acrylic

Mandarin Boat Ramp, Acrylic.

My mother earns enough from home to support herself, even though she literally finds it hard to get out of bed because her legs are so swollen from cellulitus infections that they can barely bend. Her back is broken from the steroids that keep her alive, and the medicine treating those infections worsens the infections in her stomach. Her whole body is in an impossibly delicate balance between life and death, and a careless scratch on her leg can become an angrily red grotesque monster in a matter of minutes. I've seen this happen myself, a lot.

I took this photo of my my mom at the Mayo Clinic parking lot a couple weeks ago. The subject was originally the fall crepe myrtle leaves, but I looked down and saw my mom gazing at the same leaves in wonder and took a picture of her instead, since it sums her up so nicely. Even her own illness is beautiful to her. She regards the horribly twisted and mutated growths on her own body with the same fascination that she sees in a knobbly ginger root. With an attitude like that, how could anyone possibly be sad? When every day is your garden; every parking lot median, every butterfly and every weed in the concrete magical, you will always find joy.

I dug up the turmeric roots in the last post so that they could be planted at my mother in law's house so that my wife's own mother will soon have a rainforest garden of her own. I can't dig up the tabebuia and orchid trees and the other common trees and shrubs might be more trouble than they're worth. All of the gingers, alocasias, cannas and other roots can be cut back and lifted, the bromeliads can be brought along for the ride, and I'll just have to try and rescue my treasured palms in the front yard. I'll leave plenty for the next owners, don't worry!

These passionflowers are blooming on a heavily fruiting holly tree in the back yard

The sleepy hibiscus plant is exploding into bloom, just in time for Christmas

My mother won't be without a garden, because every day will be a garden for her to embrace and nurture. Who knows! Maybe she'll own a home again someday and I'll have bulbs and divisions in standby mode, but until then every view and fragrance wherever will be hers for the taking, wherever she may be. Happiness is a choice, and Nancy Asbell's mind is made up.

How to Grow Turmeric

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 04:57:00 +0000

I'm not sure why turmeric isn't more popular, considering that growing your own, Thai food and DIY projects are all the rage. Curcuma longa is a tropical rhizome with an intriguing past that looks just as great in the garden as it tastes on the table. The whole plant is edible; the roots are boiled, dried and ground up to produce turmeric powder, the leaves make a wrap for steamed fish, and even the flowers can be eaten as an exotically beautiful vegetable, like lettuce with a kick. Oh, and did I mention that impersonating turmeric is a crime in India?

Why You Should Grow Turmeric

First of all, its large ribbed leaves create a lush and tropical look in any garden, and it's easily dug up and overwintered in northern climates. It has been the toughest and most reliable plant in my garden, with one rhizome increasing to hundreds more over the course of a few years with no effort on my part. The large green and white inflorescences nestled between the leaves are beautiful both as cut flowers or enjoyed in the garden. Besides it's appeal as a garden plant, Curcuma longa is also incredibly useful in the home and kitchen.

This might be one of the world's healthiest foods; so healthy in fact that I wouldn't hesitate to call it a miracle drug. Not only does it contain a healthy serving of iron and manganese, It's proven itself as a cancer treatment, both preventing and destroying cancerous cells. Curcumin, turmeric's active ingredient, actually lowers cholesterol by working in tandem with the liver to remove harmful cholesterol from the body.

Turmeric's antiseptic and antibacterial properties make it useful for cleaning and treating wounds, and its anti-inflammatory properties allow it to treat arthritis, psoriasis, headaches and even blood clots! Think of it as Motrin, but with none of the harmful side effects. None of these health benefits are new to South Asians, who've been cultivating the plant and using it for over five thousand years for both treating ailments and treating themselves to some delicious curries.

Despite it's status as one of the world's healthiest foods, turmeric is probably most widely used as a dye. You see turmeric every day as a food dye in mustard, margarine, chicken soup or just about anywhere else a golden color is called for, but it can also be used to dye Easter eggs, saris or even skin. If you've ever accidentally stained a tablecloth or dish towel with turmeric powder, you've already been acquainted with it's efficacy. I've even used some small rhizomes as a sort of sidewalk crayon or chalk!

The fact that turmeric is both yellow and a spice has given it the unfortunate nickname of "Indian Saffron" for it's use as a substitute or knockoff of the much costlier spice, saffron. This isn't to say that saffron is better than turmeric; it's just different! Turmeric has it's own unique flavor; warm, peppery and earthy, tasting nothing like saffron. Saffron is harvested from the stigmas of Crocus sativus and has been used for for thousand years (almost as long as turmeric) in Europe and central Asia, but is now mostly used for Spanish dishes like yellow rice.

Even so, the yellow rice mixes sold at the grocery store are made with lots of turmeric and barely any saffron at all. Even Mahatma 'Saffron Yellow Rice' lists turmeric as one of the top ingredients in the saffron flavoring, with real saffron followed only by the silicone dioxide used to prevent caking. It's amazing that passing off turmeric as saffron is don with such ease nowadays, especially considering that in the medieval days of Germany offenders were executed; burnt alive or buried along with their illegitimate spices under the safranschou code. An article in the Times of India looks like the coverage of a drug bust until you realize that the contraband is in fact rice husks and bad turmeric, not meth and coke.

Curcuma longa's leaves, close up

How To Grow Turmeric

Growing this miracle drug couldn't be easier, and anyone can grow their own provided it receives enough moisture. Curcuma longa is naturally deciduous from fall until late spring, which makes digging and overwintering abundantly easy. You can buy it on Ebay by searching for Curcuma longa, but I bought mine as 'hidden ginger.' There are different kinds of hidden ginger, but only the rhizomes of Curcuma longa, Curcuma zedoaria and Curcuma aromatica should be grown as spices.

Turmeric in the garden

Moisture, Sun and Soil

Turmeric will handle anything you throw at it, returning from drought and sailing through floods. Mine grows in the dry shade under the house's eaves as well as constantly soggy soil. Garden literature will tell you that it requires moist and well drained soil, but it thrives in the clay and muck of my back yard like a weed. Turmeric can grow in full sun, but only if the soil remains constantly wet. Otherwise, provide mid-day shade. If the plant is stressed by drought or too much sun, the leaves will hang limp and develop burnt tips.

Climate

Gardeners in zones 7b through 11 can grow turmeric in the ground over winter through its dormancy period. Everyone else can just dig up the rhizomes in fall and store them in a cool place over winter. I've seen a few sources which erroneously state that turmeric can only be grown in the tropics, but anyone can grow it as long as the roots don't freeze.

Planting and Overwintering

Plant turmeric in spring once all danger of frost has passed, or in northern climates, start it in a container. The pleated leaves will eventually become plumes four feet tall in ideal conditions, and green and white cones of yellow flowers will emerge between the leaves in summer. After a stem has finished flowering, cut it to the ground to encourage new growth. By late fall the leaves will begin to decline and turn yellow. Cut them back if desired or let them die back naturally.

North of zone 7b, dig up the rhizomes in fall, rinse off excess soil with a hose and nozzle, snap off mushy and rotting pieces and let the rhizomes air dry before storing them dry peat or sawdust until spring. Check on them periodically for rot or pests.

Turmeric is to the left and middle, along with some other rhizomes.

Processing

I haven't found a universally accepted method for making turmeric powder, but the general consensus seems to be as follows:

1. Clean the rhizomes thoroughly
2. Boil rhizomes for 45 min.
3. Peel off the skins
4. Dry in shade for at least a week
5. Break up rhizomes with a hammer
6. Grind rhizomes using a mortar and pestle, or a food processor

Again, I haven't done this myself yet but I plan on trying it myself soon. If you happen to have a recipe, please share!

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The Five Dollar Butter Dish Terrarium

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:18:00 +0000

The butter dish was five dollars, and the moss was collected for free from an abandoned parking lot. The Hatiora cuttings were taken from my balcony, and the white piece of coral was just found on the beach, also a freebie. The whole project cost me five dollars and only took about a minute to make, but the end result is in my opinion, a miniature work of art. Here's how I did it.

I was strolling through the grocery store the other day and came across something I hadn't seen for a long time: A butter dish. You know I'm a really hardcore gardener, because the first thing I envisioned inside wasn't butter at all, but plants! Doesn't it just make the perfect terrarium?

How to Make Your Own

First I pulled up some moss clumps from an empty parking lot. I then broke them up into smaller pieces and fit them snugly into the butter dish in a pleasing arrangement. I've found that it looks more natural if the pieces of moss are laid at an angle.

Next I tucked in some of my trusty epiphytic cactus cuttings and a sunbleached piece of coral to resemble a little coral reef. If you're using coral or seashells, make sure they're thoroughly washed clean of any salt residue from the sea.

When you place the lid over the moss garden, the edges of the moss might get flattened. Don't sweat it. Since moss prefers to breathe most of the time, leave the lid off of the dish every now and them. Keep the dish just watered enough that the moss stays moist without water collecting at the bottom.

That's it! Have fun, let me know if you have any questions and be sure to tell me about your own interesting terrarium projects!

With lid

Without lid

Better Garden Photography with Cell Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:24:00 +0000

Okay, so I lied. I’m adding another part to this photography series, specifically for those shooting with a ‘point and shoot’ camera or a cell phone. Great photography is not about having the latest and greatest high resolution digital SLR camera out there; it’s about being creative and involved in your world, using the camera as your voice. Besides, the technology has improved dramatically in a very short period of time, making it hard for most people to distinguish between photos taken with a $100 camera vs. a $1000 dollar one.

It's easy to be creative and spontaneous with a cell phone. This is a fire hydrant.

I’ve made it a goal to take photos of everyday beautiful life on a daily basis, on my way to work, on morning walks or when I’m out doing errands. They don’t have to be pretty garden shots. I just try to showcase the minute details of the generic urban landscape that stand out to me as beautiful. I see wonderful things every day, but it’s all a matter of perspective. Luckily my cell phone camera gives me the perspective I need. Here are some ways that you can make the most of your humble cell phone for great pictures.

Cell Phones help you to be spontaneous. This is moss growing in a parking lot.

Get a Good Perspective

Cell phones and affordable ‘point and shoot’ cameras have made it possible for us to as many photos as we’d like without waiting for the film to get developed. You can take the photo, review it on the screen and trash the bad shots until you get a good one. They’re perfect for obtaining unusual perspectives since they’re small enough to reach into the foliage or at ground level.Try shooting from the hip, so to speak.

Learn to Use the Settings

Even the most basic camera has some settings to tinker around with. Try shooting the same subject with every setting available and see how they differ from each other. A party mode would be ideal for indoor low light settings, while the landscape mode would be good for most outdoor shots. When in doubt, just use the automatic setting.

Sometimes the only way to light up a shot is by using a flash

When to Use Flash

Most garden and outdoor photos look harsh and flat when a flash is used, but sometimes it works in your favor. Sometimes there just isn’t enough light to capture a decent shot, and other times the flash can create a neat effect. Usually, however, the flash just seems to drain the life out of any botanical subjects. If I’m trying to take a photo indoors, I’ll usually bring in a bunch of cheap desk lamps to get the lighting I want. Hey, it works.

Finding Focus

One of the quirks to pocket sized cameras is the inability to focus on your subject. You could be trying to get a shot of your favorite flower, only to find that the background is the only thing that comes out in sharp focus after each shot. Even though the composition won’t be gallery worthy, put the subject in the middle of the screen or pull the camera back a bit and you’ll have better luck getting the shot. You can always crop later!

After the Shot

After taking a good photo, explore some other creative options. If you have a smartphone, try downloading image editing software directly to the camera! Otherwise, you'll have better tools at your disposal if you import photos to your computer and edit them to your heart's content using Photoshop, Gimp, and other image editing software. This can be a big help when the shadows aren't dark enough, or the image has too much contrast. In Photoshop your most powerful tool is Curves since it allows you to tweak the shadows, midtones and highlights while maintaining a natural looking image. When in doubt, just play around and have fun with it. That's how I learned!

Teabag Seed Packets and a Teapot Terrarium

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:59:00 +0000

I say it's high time that we gardeners had a tea party, Rainforest Garden style. Serving your friends some tea and cookies is always great, but why not let them gaze at a teapot terrarium as a centerpiece, or send them home with DIY seed packets disguised as tea bags? If entertaining friends isn't your thing, skip shopping this year and give your friends and family homemade seedbags for the holidays! They're cheap, easy and very, very fun. Here's how to make your own:

These seed packets are more than just that; they're seed bombs too! A large seedbag (I like that name) contains just enough soil to get a few seeds started, and the coffee filter envelope is permeable enough to let water inside, and bio-degradable enough to let growing plants out. Plant the seedbag just as you would plant a small container, but leave the whole bag intact.

All you need is a coffee filter, seeds, soil and string, and the labels can be hand drawn on any piece of scrap paper and stapled to the end of the string. Any coffee filter will do, but I used the flat kind that's already folded at the bottom. It you're using one of the bowl shaped coffee filters, just fold it in half before step one. The label can be stapled on the end of the string.

If the instructions are a bit vague, that's because it's in beta testing (so to speak) and everyone will find their own ideal dimensions and technique. You will go through a couple before getting it right, but you'll get the hang of it! If you're still having troubles, leave a comment if you have any questions. I'll do another post after I've heard more feedback and arrived at the perfect dimensions, and maybe even design a cut-out template to use as a stencil!

Teapot Terrarium

This glass pitcher makes an ideal terrarium and it even comes with a lid to keep in moisture. I bought it at Books-A-Million with a terrarium in mind, but then the gears in my head started creaking to life and a typical terrarium just wouldn't cut it anymore. How could I make this terrarium even more like a tea pot? With a tea bag, of course!

For the 'tea bag' I just wrapped some Hatiora (drunkards dream) in sphagnum moss with twine. I placed a layer of glass pebbles inside so that I could water the 'tea bag' without it sitting in water, and I let the twine and label hang over the edge of the teapot. That's it! Think of it as a miniature 'Rainforest Drop.'

Learning to Take Better Garden Photos, Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:18:00 +0000

You'll notice that the title isn't 'How to Take Better Garden Photos.' It's about 'Learning to Take Better Garden Photos' because like most of you, I'm still learning! My recent trip to the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens was not all about the animals, or even the plants: I spent my time learning ways to take better photos with crisper details, better exposure and more creative composition. In part one of three, I focus on how to make the most of your equipment for great garden shots. Next I'll cover techniques before moving on to composition.

Digital SLR cameras let you adjust the focus and aperture to take better 'close ups' of flowers

'Point and Shoot' or Digital SLR?

A resourceful photographer can take excellent photos with any camera, regardless of price. Many of the photos on this blog were taken with my cell phone or 'point and shoot' and look just as good as many photos on my fancy camera. My wife's pocket sized 'point and shoot' takes great photos even if the photographer has no idea what shutter speed and aperture mean, so why bother with a DSLR? In a word, versatility. When your cell phone takes an awful looking washed out and blurry photo, you're pretty much out of luck. If you shoot that same lousy image with a DSLR, you're able to try again after manually focusing on your subject and adjusting your exposure.

This camellia was in deep shade, so a tripod was needed to prevent a blurry photo

How to Shake Off the 'Camera Shake' for Good

Have you ever taken a whole day's worth of photos at the botanical garden, only to find that most of them were blurry and unusable? When you're shooting photos in dim conditions, your camera's shutter has to stay open longer to capture the light and record an image. This means that during that long 'click' you hear your camera make, it's recording a blurry image that's been smeared around by your trembling hands. A tripod keeps the camera in one place so that it's recording an image from the exact same spot.

If you don't have a tripod, many cameras have a 'sport' mode that's usually indicated by an icon of a running stick figure. The sport mode uses a faster shutter speed and results in less camera shake, but since less information is captured during that short fraction of a second, the image can end up dark or grainy. Since we're taking photos of a fairly slow moving garden, it's best to skip the 'sports mode' and fast shutter speed, and just use a tripod.

I took this photo of plumbago several times to see a well exposed image on the screen

Preview for (Almost) Perfect Photos

If at first you don't succeed, digital cameras let you try and try again. Nowadays, most digital cameras allow you to see a preview of the image on a small screen after it's been taken. You would think that this would mean the end of bad photos, since we're now able to make sure that we took a good shot before moving on to the next flower, but unfortunately I'm just now taking advantage of this feature.

Here's how to use the preview to take perfect shots every time: Take the photo, preview it on the screen, and zoom in to make sure that it's in focus. If you're not happy with your shot, adjust the focus, exposure settings or mode until the little picture in the preview screen is just right. Another option is to shoot in RAW format, if your camera allows it. RAW format images can have their exposure adjusted on your computer after the photo has been taken.

A crisp image like this was made possible by reading the manual and adjusting the diopter dial.

Get to Know Your Camera

On my trip to the zoo I discovered something amazing about my camera for the first time. When I was researching newer models, a feature that stood out to me was this miraculous dial that compensates for bad eyesight! The next day, I saw that very same feature on my own camera, turned the dial until the view was sharp, and Voila. I can now see things clearly in the viewfinder for the first time. Years of slightly blurry landscape shots and strained squinting into the viewfinder are finally over for me.

Your camera probably has features you've never known about either, and the best place to find them is by looking in the manual that came in the box. Sit down for a spell and try out each feature on the camera before taking it outside for a test run.

To isolate the topiaries, I shot from a distance with a telephoto lens.

Other Equipment

These are just some of the tools available to garden photographers, but they are the necessities. Don't leave home without them!

One of the perks of the digital age is the ability to take an infinite amount of photos on memory cards before uploading them to your computer. Invest in at least a few memory cards, just in case you lose one or your card runs out of space while you're on the road.

Lenses are one of the best reasons to upgrade to a digital SLR. Wide angle lenses are perfect for getting the full view of intimate garden settings, while telephoto zoom lenses let you focus on a specific plant in the distance. A standard lens with a medium focal length is helpful for isolating a plant against an uncluttered background. For the best close up shots, choose a macro lens and think of it as a magnifying glass for your camera.

Get a spare charger just in case. It's pretty disappointing to arrive at your destination only to find that your camera is out of juice.

If you're shooting outdoors in the garden, rain is bound to sneak up on you sooner or later. Get a waterproof bag or a camera cover so you can stick around for the rainbow. In a pinch, bring along a trash bag and some ziplocks.

With a wide angle lens, the palm in the foreground would have shifted to the left.

A telephoto lens helped me position the plants in a pleasing arrangement.

Tropicanna Black

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:51:00 +0000

I like to think of the Tropicannas as a trilogy of summer smash hit movies filled with action, drama and catchy titles. Tesselaar is the Australian based production studio where stars are born before being marketed to the masses with catchy names and full color plant tags. The most recent installment to this trilogy of blockbusters is deliciously dark, edgy and even has a surprise twist ending! The purple flower spikes erupt in a fiery explosion so intense that… oh, did I spoil the ending for you?

These silky smooth chocolate leaves are courtesy of Tesselaar Plants

Background

Our story begins in a faraway land, across the Atlantic Ocean. (Feel free to skip ahead if history bores you) The popularity of cannas peaked in exotic obsessed Victorian England, before being abandoned in favor of the muted color schemes made popular by designers like Gertrude Jekkyl. Luckily, cannas managed to survive in neglect until slowly gaining a foothold in the 80’s with new colorfully variegated cannas arriving to match the gaudy and wild taste of the decade. Cannas were recovering from the post-war funk, but it wasn’t until the late 90’s that they reached rock star status. Come to think of it, they were more like glam 80’s rock stars rather than grungy 90’s rock stars. Moving on.

At the turn of the millennium, the Tropicannas had arrived. They took the gardening world by storm with their distinctively orange striped leaves popping up in print everywhere as the perfect tropicalesque ‘thriller’ plants to add excitement to the border. Tropicanna Gold (the sequel) was released in 2003 with a perfect one-two punch of golden striped foliage and flaming orange flowers. Now that these party animals had made their way to big box retailers, entirely new color combinations were now possible to the average Joe gardener, at least to those who’ve never heard of cultivars like ‘Phaison’ or ‘Durban’ before. Variegated cannas were nothing new, but pushing them out to nationwide retailers with celebrity personas and marketing elements was just the star treatment that cannas needed to undergo a full scale revival. Hallelujah!

Tropicanna Black: The Dark Side of Tropical

After the dust had begun to settle, Tesselaar introduced a dark horse in 2007 with near-black foliage and blooms that melted from deep orange to a bloody crimson red: Tropicanna Black. Out of all three Tropicannas this one is the most subdued and versatile, but nothing if not bold and badass. If this was the third movie in a trilogy, it would be something along the lines of “Revenge of the Dark Side,” “Fade to Black” or maybe even “Shadow’s Flames.” If I was a gardener in my gothic high school days, I would write whole poems about it in my journal of bad gothic teenage poetry!

Like many ‘black’ foliage plants, the leaves develop a deep purple to burgundy that just approaches a true black. There are cannas with darker foliage (My mother in law’s ‘Australia’ cannas are darker) but Tropicanna Black is especially useful for its size; just tall enough to put those blooms at eye level, but not too large for container plantings. Oh, and if you couldn’t tell by these photos, the blooms are as red as my black and beating heart. Sorry, I lapsed back into bad teenage goth poetry there for a bit.

Mine were planted alongside the equally bold leaves of an Alocasia macrorrhiza, but for the best effect, contrast these big and beautiful black leaves with the fine textures of grasses and ferns. I would love to see this deep burgundy canna planted amongst plants with white variegated or silver leaves such as snowbush, silver buttonwood, viburnum or texas sage. Speaking of sage, how about incorporating the deep purple colored leaves along a sage painted wall?

Growing Tips

Tropicanna Black and other cannas are easy in any climate, but here are some tips. Cannas will have better foliage color and blooms in full sun, though Tropicanna Black can handle more shade than its two predecessors. Provide the richest soil possible and never let the soil dry out for too long. They can survive a drought, but trust me. It doesn’t look pretty. Cut stems off at the base after flowering to get new growth at the base. If you’re growing cannas in zones 7 and up, dig them up in fall before the ground freezes. Cut back the stems to about four inches from the root, and let dry before storing them in a cool dark place until spring.

See the difference between the Black and Gold Tropicannas in early summer?

How They Stack Up

When Tesselaar sent some trial canna rhizomes to my doorstep this March, I was still mourning the loss my last cannas and chomping at the bit to give all three varieties another go. I always end up losing them to nematodes, viruses and canna leaf rollers and never see them through to a decent bloom.

Tropicanna Orange isn't half bad either!

Here’s how all three did in my garden. The original Tropicanna Orange was planted in a drier spot and a soggier spot. The one planted in the drier front yard died, while the canna planted in moist and rich soil bloomed once or twice earlier in the year before slowing down in fall. Tropicanna Gold was planted right next to Tropicanna Black, but I never got a single bloom all year, thanks to leaf rollers and rotting stems.

A macro shot of Tropicanna Orange's flower.

The Tropicanna Black rhizomes were planted literally inches away from the miserable Tropicanna Gold plants, but had already formed a substantial clump and bloomed several times in the same amount of time. It could just be a coincidence, but these black cannas had succeeded in the same spot where I had lost other generations of cannas to a host of problems, problems that weren’t even touching this vigorous clump of Tropicanna Black.

My ridiculously corny verdict? Cue the 80’s rock star music and get out the popcorn, because Tropicanna is back in black!

Fall is Full of Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:23:00 +0000

While much of the country is closely checking their forecasts for the next helpings of snow and frost, fall in Florida is a gardener's dream. We don't get to enjoy the blazing colors of fall leaves, but we Florida gardeners are also too entranced by the still burgeoning blooms to really complain. It's bittersweet knowing that a frost will blot out the color within months, but now is the time to be thankful; to celebrate a second spring of garden color.

'Ice Cream' banana peeks out from an informal privacy screen. This planting is almost maintenance free.

My tropical corner of zone 9a, planted with cold hardy bromeliads and palms.

Passionflowers bloom behind red spires of firespike.

Since 'my' garden is thirty minutes away at my mother's house, I don't get to enjoy it as a typical gardener would. I usually visit my sanctuary after work, checking on my plants with the aid of a flashlight while my family patiently waits for me to show up to the dinner table. Weeds proliferate and bromeliads disappear in my absence, and I'll often end up trying to tame the unruly passionflower vines in the last moments of daylight. Yesterday I was able to wander around the garden in (more or less) daylight, the way it was meant to be experienced.

A few weeds never hurt anyone.

I spend more time keeping these beautiful morning glories in check than anything else!

It's important for you guys to know that I only tend to this garden every few weeks, because a lot of people seem to have this crazy idea that gardens require constant attention to look halfway decent. Wrong! Sure, there is a 'living mulch' of dandelions in a few places where there should be groundcovers or wood chips, but the beds are so densely planted with prolific tropicals that the weeds aren't given much territory to conquer. While I walk around the garden, errant passionflower tendrils are ripped out and the yellowing leaves of my deciduous gingers are cut to the ground. I remove a few branches from the bottlebrush trees and weeping yaupon hollies to maintain their shapes, but never much more than that.

These figs weren't as tasty as the breva crop earlier in the year. I wonder why.

I can't grow vegetables without finding them dead on the next visit, so everything in this garden was planted to thrive on weeks of neglect and survive under extreme circumstances. The backyard suffered from drought this summer, while other summers drowned it in flooding rain. We suffer from hard freezes almost every winter, and temperatures never fail to reach a hundred degrees in summer. Traditional edibles are out of the question with my busy schedule, but unusual plants like lemongrass, arrowroot, galangal, turmeric and fig trees never complain about my absence. To tell you the truth, I have suspicions that they don't even notice me when I'm there.

These bottlebrush trees are finally beginning to look like trees and the firespike is blooming like crazy.

The clump of Alocasia 'California' is miniscule this year, thanks to the drought.

Black Tropicanna is a star performer this year.

The clerodendrum in the background is from my friend Penny!

Colocasia 'Elena' reverting back to its mottled 'Mojito' roots.

Even in drought, this established Alpinia nutans (cinnamon ginger) is taking over the philodendron.

Better late than never! Billbergia pyramidalis provides some intense color to the courtyard.

Tibouchina urvilleana (princess flower) contrasts brightly with the firespike.

Fall is a wonderful time in my garden, because the flowers are in full force and the foliage of tropical plants like gingers and alocasias are lushest before the freezes of winter. I was treated to rare treats such as a late bloom on my Billbergia pyramidalis bromeliad, and consistently loud flowers like those of the black Tropicanna, firespikes, tibouchina, glorybower and passionflowers.

Even without the fall foliage, there are still other cues to the changing season that northerners would appreciate. Bright red berries are beginning to obscure the foliage of my holly trees, providing convenient 'cut flowers' for the table as well as food for the birds. My mom's potted hydrangea's faded flowers are coloring up to a papery rose, and big sycamore leaves are making their way to our yard from around the block. I happily rake them up and create a natural blanket of mulch for my tropical plants to prepare for the coming winter.
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A Tour of the Balcony

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 02:47:00 +0000

I'm exhausted! Today I finally got around to doing everything on the balcony that I've been putting off for the last several months. I deep cleaned every nook and cranny, mounted plants on cork slabs, re-potted seedlings, re-arranged plants, and threw away plants that weren't pulling their weight. That's right, I was so hellbent on attaining balcony perfection that I was willing to ditch any plants that weren't worth keeping. What have I become?

I trashed those sickly Neoregelia carolinae bromeliads (they're common anyways) and the unhealthy rhipsalis baccifera (I have healthier ones) that hung like limp spaghetti from the balcony ledge and a few other stragglers as well. And you know what? It felt good! Life is too short, the balcony is too small and my time is too valuable to waste on weaklings that I could care less about. Please tell me I'm not entirely heartless.

Apart from cleaning house and saying goodbye to some puny plants, I also got around to mounting some epiphytes on the cork slabs that I bought at the Tropiflora fall festival. The small one up top is a medley of tillandsias, below and to the left is a larger slab that's mounted with a cattleya and some dischidias, and below that is Vriesea 'Komet' sharing a medium slab with some cuttings of the Rhipsalis baccifera that i took before I ditched it.To the right is a staghorn fern perched in a metal bucket, and to the far left is one of my rainforest drops. Actually, it's the one from the banner in the sidebar!

Remember my little vertical garden? It's becoming better established now and could technically be mounted flat on the wall, but I'd rather wait until after winter. Besides, it looks nice where it's at for the time being! Maybe I can outfit it with a custom frame by then to really make it pop.

This is one of my newer purchases, a dischidia. It's an epiphytic vine related to hoyas and milkweed that likes to hang in long strands like pearls. I hung it over the sliding glass door since it hangs straight down and doesn't get in the way. How's that for vertical gardening?

I don't know how I'd get along without these wire baskets that I salvaged earlier in the year. They make it possible for me to utilize the ledge as a place to garden and they stay put in heavy winds. Even the nor-easter that we had a few weeks ago was unable to make them budge! All of my seedlings, cuttings and mature plants can be nestled together so that watering is a breeze and they're as close to the sunlight as possible. They're like window boxes, only more versatile! I also have an Oncidium 'Sherry Baby' hanging its chocolate scented flowers over the ledge for neighbors to enjoy, but I forgot to take a photo.

Here's one oncidium that I did remember to get a shot of! Believe it or not, it's wrapped its roots around the metal shelving, effectively convincing me to bring the whole shelf indoors when the freezes arrive. I'd hate to damage those roots!

This landscape in miniature is home to two stoned crabs... wait, let me explain. The sand colored stones are really ghost crabs that became encased in coquina limestone, leaving a recognizably crabby shape. Isn't that just the coolest thing you've ever seen?

Well, I hope you enjoyed the little tour! Now that I've cleaned it up, I'll actually have room to walk around, write and eat my breakfast again, just in time for this wonderful Florida fall weather.
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A Very Botanical Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:26:00 +0000

This year we kicked the jack o' lanterns to the curb, sent the mums to the compost heap and took a slightly different approach to fall decor. The wonderful thing about plants is that they're always ready and willing to sacrifice a limb in the name of good, clean halloween fun. Seeds, cuttings, leaves and flowers are all fair game, whether you're going for spooky or subtle. I know it's a little late to post Halloween ideas, but better late than never!

If you like to get a reaction from your Halloween decor, it's all about taking things out of context. We have a lot of fun assigning the bits and pieces of plants with improbable names like 'dead man's fingers' and 'pressed snake specimens,' displaying them around the house lit by candlelight.

Pressed Eel Specimens

These flattened and preserved eels are really just the stems of an epiphyllum cactus that I've rooted in water. They were stems that had gotten floppy and weak, so I decided to try rooting them in water before giving up on them. You could alternately call them giant tapeworms, I suppose.

Dead Man's Fingers

These are the propagules (rooted seeds) of red mangroves that we collected from the beach. We used these for a Halloween party a couple of years ago before they rooted and doubled in size. They were left out in a frost over winter, effectively making them into dead mangrove fingers.

Wart of Giants

These are the seeds of a South American tree by the name of Sacoglottis amazonica. Their common name in Spanish is 'cojon de burro' and is even more disgusting than the name I've assigned. These seeds were collected from the beach as drift seeds and placed on a flat bed scanner for their close up.

Frog Bones

No frogs were harmed in the making of this plant. This is a type of epiphytic cactus (like epiphyllum) with stem segments that closely resemble bones. Green bones. They even tend to fall to pieces when stressed by receiving too little or too much water, creating a boneyard of stems on the soil's surface. I usually remove them to root elsewhere! This photo was made extra spooky by staging the plant against a lit up lamp shade.

Medusa's Locks

These spiky and snakelike stems belong to Huernia, a relative of the common milkweed and the not so common carrion flower, another creepy plant. My wife doesn't like this plant because it looks creepy, so what better reason to incorporate it into your Halloween decor?

Eye of Golem

While they do resemble stone eyes, these are actually the seeds of Caesalpinia bonduc, a spiny shrub related to dwarf poinciana that grows near the shores of South Florida and the West Indies. The seeds often make their way to the ocean and drift as far as Scandinavia before landing far from home.

If you prefer to simply celebrate the changing of the seasons, simple displays of foraged pinecones, seeds and branches can create an engaging indoor landscape within the confines of a single tabletop. Here I've combined a scattering of miniature pumpkins with some sea beans (Entada gigas) that we've collected from the beach over the years.

Bare branches in vases of water always look elegant, but the look can easily be adapted for fall when you add a dash of colorful leaves around the base, mimicking the fallen leaves of nature. Just replace the leaves as they lose their color, and the display will look fresh all season long.

Bat flower is also a natural addition to Halloween decor.

An Interview with the Surviving Orchids of the Great Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:21:00 +0000

My wife doubts the legitimacy of my 'business trips' to botanical gardens, so I just tell her that I'm conversing with the plants themselves, interviewing them about their noble lineage (the hybridized plants anyways) and their favorite meals (Bone meal washed down with compost tea). I'm just going straight to the source for all the dirt I need.
Last weekend I visited Mckee Botanical Gardens to interview the orchids about the frost killings of 2010, gaining valuable insights into their lives. What I found was shocking.

The idyllic site of the orchids' slaughter

McKee is located in Vero Beach, Florida. It isn't quite as tropical as the Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Miami, but the massive banyan trees and naturalized orchids should be enough to tell you that the tropics are right around the corner. I could see where the most tropical orchids and trees had lived before the harsh winter reared its ugly head, but I had to look hard to see any signs of a struggle. Everything was blanketed in green as quickly as a snowstorm would blanket a garden up north, but I knew better. I had to listen to the plants' stories.

Relatively cold winters withstanding, there were still plenty of epiphytes around to interview. When pressing them for details of their brush with death this winter, they often hesitated as their minds became flooded with uninvited memories.

A dendrobium who wished to remain anonymous openly wept as her memories thawed. "I'm sorry. I'm not crying... it's honeydew secretions from the scale insects, that's all. I'm glad this is happening. It's good to..." She trailed off. "It's good to get closure, you know? I'm lucky to be alive."

Encyclia tampensis didn't need much provoking. "Oh, God. It was awful. I'm tellin' ya, cattleyas and oncidiums just droppin' from the trees left and right, like whiteflies hit with a fumigator. I'm checkin' out this pretty face across the path, blooming for the first time with her whole life ahead of her. Then it got dark and the air got real still, and cold too. I was freezin' my ass off I tell ya! Anyways, so I hear this screamin' all over the garden. It was so gawdawful, like listening to..."
"Go on." I coaxed, "It's okay."
"I woke up and everyone had melted. Like that Edvard Munch painting 'cept the screaming had ended and they just hung limp, still clinging to the branches. The sweetheart across the way was... I'm sorry. I gotta photosynthesize and stuff, man. Could we just wrap this up already?

There were cattleyas lounging on on a stone wall, oblivious to the carnage that took place only months ago.
"OMG! Are you here to take our pictures?" said one cattleya, arching her stem to offer a better view of the rosy flowers.
"Were you here during the freeze last winter? I'd like to ask for a minute of your time."
They all looked baffled. One piped up. "I don't think he speaks English! Does anyone know what freeeze and win-tor means?"
The other orchids chattered about my vocabulary before changing the subject. "I dunno, but it sounds totally LAME!"
"This guy's boring."
"I know, lets have a pollen fight."
"Win!"
"I'm so glad we all decided to ditch the wood and become lithophytes!"
"Hey, does it feel a little cold or is it just me?"
"What's cold mean again?"

I asked the nearby bromeliads for their story, before being interrupted. "Shh! We've been eying that wall for years! Just let them get complacent with the current climate and we'll buy up the property at rock-bottom prices after their bubble bursts."

This palm canopy is being tested as a protective measure against frost.

I contacted a meteorologist, who verified what the bromeliads already knew. "Yeah, it's gonna freeze again. And again. And again."

The mortality rate for orchids rises steadily each year, though it's probably accounted for by the greater population orchids in cultivation. Despite the chilling numbers of orchids frozen to death, overwatering remains the leading cause of death among orchids, followed closely by "Big box retail sales associates."

Bromeliads buying up choice real estate at McKee Botanical Gardens.

A Gathering of Beachcombers

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:15:00 +0000

This weekend my wife and I attended the Sea Bean Symposium, an annual gathering of beachcombers that call themselves 'The Drifters' and search the world's beaches for beautiful sea beans and drift seeds. For those of you who don't know or remember what sea beans are, check out this post from last month and prepare to be amazed. If the cheerful crowd at the symposium was any indication, sea beans have the magical power to make anyone happy and carefree. Just a hunch.

My beautiful wife admiring the sea bean jewelry of Nan Rhodes!

So, what could you expect to find at a 'sea bean symposium?' There where hundreds of different drift seeds on display, along with anything from glass fishing floats, sea glass, egg cases, sea bean jewelry, books, shirts, educational displays and even washed up toys. The collective spoils of the exhibitors beach walks was mesmerizing, to be sure, but what really won our hearts was the human element.

These... are all sea beans.

David McRhee's jellyfish presentation elicited many 'ooh's and 'aah's.

I saw smiles all around the room during the presentations. The attendees gasped in awe at the slides of sea glass and jellyfish as if they were fireworks. They tried to simmer down to a hush during the presentations, but then shot up to ask questions at every chance available. It was like being surrounded by a classroom of excitable children! They furiously jotted down their notes, filling the pages with terms like 'slag glass' and 'mesoglea' like college students would, that is, if the class was on something that college students really cared about. Free food or hooking up, perhaps. I've never seen a group of people so focused on a slideshow!

These Botanical Interests seed packets were FREE!

Beachcombing is a lot like gardening. Walking the wrack line in search of unsung treasure is just as meditative and fulfilling as nurturing plants, but unlike gardening, it can be accomplished in a matter of minutes and resumed at the time of your choosing. When you're focused on the endless painting of sand and shells beneath your feet, your mind is wiped clean of all worries and completely at ease with the world and all of its imperfections. It's as if while foraging, your instinct has taken over. You start to get a feel for where the sea beans turn up, and the feeding birds alert you to a productive strand of wrack. Frosted shards of sea glass are not just that, but rather some kind of currency or pendant that you could use to show off your hunting prowess.

This reversion to a primitive state might seem a bit Lord of the Flies, but beach combers are a generous lot. Just as a gardener would be more than willing to share a surplus crop or some passalong plants, sea beaners love to share their finds with others. One time I met a family from New York on the beach who had found their first hamburger bean, and I was so excited to tell them about sea beans that I gave them my favorite sea bean, a beautiful speckled red hamburger bean that I had polished to a fine gloss. I couldn't have been happier. One bean is nothing, though. At the symposium there was a basket of free beans and even a pile of free sea glass for the taking, and every now and then I'll find sea beans, shells and sea glass scattered near the boardwalks for others to find and collect. Whenever sea beans are needed for an educational project, sea beaners respond with open hearts.

My favorite part of the symposium was the awards ceremony. As we watched old friends share their updates from the last year and present gifts and awards to each other, an intricate network of histories unfolded before us in a matter of minutes. We were taking part in a family reunion. Indeed, many of the members really were family, and I don't think I've seen so many happy married couples together at one time before. Maybe beachcombing is the key to a happy marriage!

The symposium is a gathering of Drifters (literally the name of the group) that end up on the shore of Central Florida once a year before riding the unpredictable tides of life until the next year. I'm itching to use a corny beach metaphor, so let's just say that they're all washed up and forgive me for my lack of restraint. Email me or leave a comment if you have any questions about the legendary Drifters and their magical sea beans!

Glass fishing floats from the Pacific

The biggest drift seed of all, the coco de mer or 'double coconut!' It's a symbol of um... fertility.

The beach!

These are all Dioclea spp. sea purses, and each one is different.

Princess Epiphyllum

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I'm sure you've all heard of 'queen of the night,' the epiphyllum cactus with spineless flattened stems and huge white flowers that bloom at night, right? Well, let me introduce you to another epiphyllum with subtler charms. Her name is Epiphyllum pumilum, but I think that she deserves her own common name, a name befitting of her graceful nature and dainty form. How about 'princess epiphyllum?' Her flowers are nowhere near as large as the queens, but she more than makes up for it. You'll see.

Princess epiphyllum might not have the glamorously enormous blooms of Epiphyllum oxypetalum, but she has several things going for her. First off, if Disney movies and trashy romance novels are any indication, it's way cooler to be a princess than it is to be a queen. They just get to sit pretty and have fun all day while the queens are busy conquering foreign lands and trying to make more babies! On a less fanciful and anthropomorphic note, Epiphylum pumilum rocks for its profusion of blooms and elegant form.

Princess epiphyllum blooms during the day with such a profusion of spicily scented flowers that you'd swear that it was covered with a flurry of big fat snowflakes. The overall form is similar to other epi cacti: a mess of flattened stems rambling every which way as if it hasn't yet made up its mind on becoming a shrub or a rambling vine. Somehow the narrowly pointed stems of E. pumilum manage to pull off a tidier, more graceful appearance than that of her relatives.

Here's another reason I love this plant. These flowers bloomed on cuttings that were rooted as early as this winter, indicating that it would be a profitable choice for commercial growers looking to get retail ready plants in a year or two. In case you didn't get that, it can bloom after less than a year! I could just be me, but the fact that princess epiphyllum blooms during the day, is easy as dirt, has yummy smelling flowers, an attractive form, and is also quick to bloom... these features tell me she's a winner.

The Absolutely True Tale of the Evil Carrion Flower

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:56:00 +0000

When people learn that I'm a garden writer, they tend to do a double take.
"Really?" they say, before feigning interest and pressing for details. "So what do you write about? Tomatoes? Roses? Petunias?"
Watching my cool factor take a nosedive before my very eyes, I tell them about the coolest, most badass and masculine plant I can think of before they pass judgement on my girly hobby. Carrion flower is the kind of plant I would fall back on, since there's nothing more unexpected than a flower that mimics rotting meat to attract swarms of flies.

My Stapelia gigantea started out innocently enough. I bough a small rooted cutting for a dollar at a plant sale, and left neglected along with a pot of other succulents at my mother's house.

Then the creature took on a life of its own, sprouting new stems, clambering out of the container and spilling out onto the concrete in a bid to take over the patio! The unnatural growth was disconcerting enough, but things only got stranger after the plant had settled in.

In October of last year, my mother noticed these unusual ballooning growths in the shapes of turbans rising from the rampant stems. They kept inflating until after only a few days later, they unfurled into platter sized flowers with skin colored flesh, hairs covering the petals (yes, hairs) and squiggly lines the color of dried blood circling all around the center, a black hole that seemed to get closer and closer until it was right up to my nose! I recoiled in disgust at the gag inducing smell, vowing to never again tempt fate by bringing my face so close to what would be certain death. Never again.

After I sniffed the putrid petals a second time, and a third time... and quite possibly a fourth time, I noticed flies descending upon me in ravenous hordes, threatening to swallow me up in buzzing little wings. I jumped back from the flower in horror, fearing that I had let my naive curiosity become my downfall, swatting away the flies before they could lay eggs in my eye sockets. I recalled stories of botflies in the Amazon that lay their eggs in the sores of unfortunate travelers. When the explorer has found the discomfort unbearable, he would often scratch at the writhing wound until the maggots could be released from their human prison.

Actually it wasn't all that bad. I had gotten used to the smell by then and the horde of flies, well, there were only about two or three flies. Come to think of it, the flies looked pretty peaceable and friendly! They were laying eggs alright, but they steered clear of my nostrils and instead opted for what to them was a dead ringer for an open wound on a carcass: the carrion flower. After the little houseflies dropped their payload on the target, they happily buzzed off with their little heads filled with buggy thoughts of baby flies and whatever else it is that flies think of.

They were tricked by the wicked carrion flower. By the end of the day, each flower shriveled to the floppy shape of a popped balloon with the doomed eggs still in place, ready to one day hatch and die of starvation. The carrion flower has achieved its evil wishes, and the flies that intently buzzed between the flowers of faux fermenting flesh were instrumental all along.

Stapelia gigantea relies on flies for pollination, just like its milkweed relatives rely on butterflies. Like the dark doppelganger of what we consider a typical flower, Stapelias produce flowers with the kind of aroma and grotesque appearance that only a vulture could love, all in the interest of survival by any means necessary.

Now how cool is that?

Who can guess what the little white clusters in the flowers are? That's right, fly eggs.

Off the Wall Ideas for Orchids on the Walls

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 01:49:00 +0000

Hanging orchids on walls is nothing new, but with the popularity of gardening it just might become the next big thing! While I've been growing orchids on my wall for a while now, this wall at Polasek Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park takes it to another level. I don't know about you guys, but I can't think of a better way to decorate a wall in the outdoor room than by decking it out with orchids, bromeliads and other epiphytes.

A Few Reasons to Let It All Hang Out

Walls are a great way to show off a whole collection of orchids and bromeliads, and you can even swap plants out when they're out of flower. Just imagine the possibilities!

Ideal for small spaces. This one's a no-brainer. Vertical gardening is the way to go if you have limited space, and the simple display of orchids arranged on the wall is much neater than having them clustered together on shelves.

You're not limited to orchids. While epiphytes like bromeliads, orchids and ferns are best since they're drought tolerant and lightweight, other plants will work as long as you provide a little more water and support.

Orchids on walls are ideal for gardeners outside the tropics! Just bring the plants indoors when it gets cold and bring them back outdoors when things warm up a bit.

Watering can be hassle free. Water the baskets up top first and let the water trickle down to the pots down below. Install misting sprinkler heads above for easy irrigation and a cool jungly look.

Orchids are displayed in plain view. While hanging baskets from the ceiling gives you an ant's eye view and makes watering difficult, orchids on the wall are within easy reach. Place the blooming orchids at eye level for the best effect.

To Make Your Own

First of all, use your head. Don't overburden your wall with more weight than it can handle.

On a brick or concrete wall, drill a hole with a masonry bit and use masonry anchors. Here are some instructions from Ace Hardware.

On wooden walls, use screws and wall anchors, and caulk the edge of the hole afterwards to prevent moisture from seeping in and rotting the wood.

Acres of Bromeliads at the Tropiflora Fall Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 02:20:00 +0000

The one dollar bromeliads, artisans, barbecue and plant vendors made for an amazing day, but acres of bromeliad filled shadehouses to peruse made it a perfect day. I've always wanted to attend one of Tropiflora's plant sales, but was never able to make the trip. I was already attending the FNGLA Landscape Show on Saturday, (more on that later) so Mrs. Rainforest Gardener and I made a vacation out of it and drove down to Sarasota the next day.

There was also loads of inspiration to be found, and even driftwood to make your own 'bromeliad trees.' The driftwood was out of my budget, but the cork bark rafts were affordably priced at a few bucks each. I bought three.

The bargain tent had bromeliads priced to sell at anywhere from $1 to $10 depending on the plant, and many were in really good shape. The closeouts consisted of overstock, as well as a bunch of hybrids that never quite panned out. While I did buy some of the bargain bromeliads for my friends, I focused my efforts on the vrieseas and aechmeas, particularly the cold hardy ones. Neoregelias were really popular among the visitors, (especially the Ray Coleman hybrids) and Tropiflora had plenty to go around if you were willing to negotiate the spiky aisles. Neos are a painful bunch...

These photos of the shade houses are courtesy of my wife. When she wasn't helping me decide on my purchases or getting photos, she was reading magazines under an awning in the shade. After I spent a fair amount of time running back and forth between bromeliads, we enjoyed some of the best barbecue we've ever inhaled.

Here's the haul, all for $25.14 after using a $5 off coupon. After using the gift certificate that I won from Plant Chaser's blogaversary, I paid a grand total of fourteen cents for nine bromeliads and three cork rafts. My favorite buys were Vriesea 'Astrid,' Vriesea vagans, Vriesea corcovadensis and Aechmea caudata 'Melanocrater,' all cold hardy in zone 9a.

It was a wonderful event. The vendors were diverse, the staff helpful, and the food, like I said, delicious. My one complaint is that my car was too small to carry home all of the bromeliads I would have liked!
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My Moss island Project

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:30:00 +0000

I've always been concocting crazy ideas to create the look and feel of a rainforest on my balcony by covering branches with epiphytic plants. This is one idea that I've been tinkering around with for some time, but have just now gotten around to completing. Think of it as a 'Rainforest Drop' of a different sort. I simply wrapped the rootball of an ardisia plant with moss and twine, and then added the same rhipsalis that I use on the drops. Pretty cool, huh?

I guess this is an idea that's halfway between my epiphyte planted Rainforest Drops, and Japanese kokedama balls. The moss will eventually naturalize and fill in, the ardisia will be treated somewhat like a bonsai, and the rhipsalis will just get a little haircut whenever they look unkempt.

Unlike the Rainforest Drops, you can use any plant you'd like for this project. Keep in mind that you will need to water it more often than you would for a plant in a container, but it's worth it.This 'Moss Island' can be watered by filling a saucer or by watering the island from above. I suppose it could be suspended in mid air, but I think the wide saucer balances out the tall shape of the ardisia. I also prefer the asymmetrical shape of this over traditional kokedama moss balls. If desired, the whole shebang can be placed on any platter as a centerpiece like I've done here.

I'll post a 'how to' on my next moss island project, but here it is in a nutshell.

1. Place the rootball on a sheet of newspaper.

2. Start piling sphagnum moss and potting soil around the rootball.

3. Wrap twine around the root ball and moss tightly.

4. Begin tucking in living moss once the overall shape is attained.

5. Tuck in small plants if desired. I used rhipsalis.

That's it!

The Big List of Freeze Tolerant Bromeliads

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:33:00 +0000

As many of you know, I'm big on finding cold hardy bromeliads. People just assume that because I live in Florida, coconut palms and tropical plantings are the norm for me, but here in Northeast Florida, we get temperatures way down to 20F in winter. Luckily there are tons of freeze tolerant bromeliads out there, with some hardy well into the teens! I've compiled a really big list of cold hardy bromeliads from existing resources online and in print, as well as some personal and anecdotal experience. Take this list to the nursery with you!

Billbergia pyramidalis

Aechmea 'Melanocrater', Neoregelia 'Red Bands' and Neoregelia spectabilis

This list wouldn't be possible without the help of Barry Landau, Chris George and others from the Planet Bromeliad Facebook Group. If you're on Facebook, be sure to join us there and on Planet Epiphyte to get in on the discussion! Anyways, here's the list as well as a few photos of cold tolerant bromeliads for your consideration. Please tell me what has worked or hasn't worked for you and I'll be sure to make a change to the document.

Bromeliads Hardy to the Low 20's Fahrenheit with Protection (Zone 9a)

Finally, a really big list of bromeliads that can take hard freezes! This is a collaborative list of bromeliads that have proven to survive hard frosts with protection, and a guideline for those growing in marginal zones. I have combined several large lists into one, and each resource is listed at the bottom of the page. I have avoided websites that simply repeat the data from another website for obvious reasons.

Legend
+ represents an individual or resource that can vouch for the bromeliad's hardiness in the low 20's.
- represents an individual that can vouch that the bromeliad is not hardy in the low 20's.

___________________________

Abromeitiella brevifolia

Aechmea apocalyptica ++++
Aechmea aquilega
Aechmea 'Blotches'+
Aechmea 'Blue Cones'
Aechmea blumenavii ++
Aechmea bromelifolia +
Aechmea 'Burgundy' ++
Aechmea calyculata ++
Aechmea 'Cappuccino'
Aechmea caudata ++++
Aechmea comata +++
Aechmea 'Covata' +
Aechmea cylindrata +++
Aechmea cylindrata - giant form +
Aechmea distichantha +++++
Aechmea distichantha forma albiflora +
Aechmea distichantha var. schlumbergeri +
Aechmea distichantha var. schlumbergeri X caudata 'Melanocrater' ++
Aechmea distichantha x planerophlebia +
Aechmea fendleri
Aechmea gamosepala ++++++
Aechmea gamosepala 'Lucky Strike'
Aechmea 'Gympie Gold'+
Aechmea 'Happy Mule'
Aechmea 'Jeanne Eunice'
Aechmea kertesziae ++
Aechmea lamarchei
Aechmea nudicalis-
Aechmea ornata
Aechmea ornata var. nationalis
Aechmea pineliana var. minuta+
Aechmea pineliana var. minuta X maculata
Aechmea recurvata +++
Aechmea recurvata 'Red Form'+
Aechmea recurvata var. benrathii+
Aechmea recurvata var. ortgiesii
Aechmea 'Red Bands'+
Aechmea 'Suenos'
Aechmea triangularis +
Aechmea winkleri +
Aechmea wittmackiana+

Billbergia 'Catherine Wilson'+
Billbergia distachia +
Billbergia distachia var. maculata
Billbergia horrida
Billbergia meyeri
Billbergia Nutans +++
Billbergia 'Party Pink'
Billbergia Pyramidalis ++
Billbergia Pyramidalis 'Kyoto'+
Billbergia Pyramidalis 'Striata' ++
Billbergia sanderiana
Billbergia 'Santa Barbara'
Billbergia saundersii
Billbergia 'Theodore L. Mead'
Billbergia vittata
Billbergia zebrina

Brocchia reducta

Bromelia balansae +
Bromelia flemingii
Bromelia pinguin
Bromelia serra
Bromelia serra variegata

Canistropis billbergioides

Cryptbergia 'Red Burst' ++

Deuterocohnia meziana +
Deuterocohnia schreiteri +

Dyckia brevifolia ++++
Dyckia 'Cherry Coke' ++
Dyckia chloristaminea
Dyckia cinerea
Dyckia encholirioides +
Dyckia ferox
Dyckia fosteriana +++
Dyckia fosteriana x brevifolia
Dyckia ibiramensis
Dyckia 'Lad Cutak'
Dyckia leptostachya
Dyckia maritima
Dyckia microcalyx
Dyckia 'Naked Lady' +
Dyckia rarifolia +
Dyckia 'Red Planet'
Dyckia remotiflora
Dyckia remotiflora var. angustior
Dyckia remotiflora var. montevidensis
Dyckia ursina
Dyckia velascana

Fascicularia bicolor +++
Fascicularia spp. canaliculata ++

Hechtia argentea +
Hechtia marnier-lapostcllei +
Hechtia mexicana
Hechtia lundelliorum
Hechtia stenopetala +
Hechtia texana ++

Neophytum 'Ralph Davis'

Neoregelia 'Beau Geoff'
Neoregelia 'Bettie Head'
Neoregelia compacta
Neoregelia concentrica +
Neoregelia 'Hannibal Lector'
Neoregelia macwilliamsii
Neoregelia 'Marcon'
Neoregelia 'Pot Luck' cv of concentrica
Neoregelia 'Red Bands'
Neoregelia spectabilis +

Nidularium fulgens +
Nidularium procerum ++
Nidularium regelioides
Nidularium 'Rusty'
Nidularium rutilans +
Nidularium terminale

Ochagavia carnea +
Ochagavia elegans
Ochagavia lindleyana

Puya alpestris ++
Puya assurgens
Puya berteroniana +
Puya chilensis +
Puya coerulea +
Puya coriacea
Puya dyckioides
Puya ferruginea
Puya floccosa
Puya gracilis
Puya laxa +
Puya macrura
Puya mirabilis +
Puya raimondii
Puya roezlii
Puya spathacea
Puya thomasiana
Puya venusta
Puya violacea
Puya wrightii

Quesmea 'Lymanii' ++

Quesnelia arvensis +
Quesnelia quesneliana
Quesnelia testudo ++++
Quesnelia testudo albo-marginata+

Tillandsia baileyi ++
Tillandsia bergeri
Tillandsia dianthifolia
Tillandsia fasciculata
Tillandsia grandis
Tillandsia ionatha ++
Tillandsia recurvata +++
Tillandsia tenuifolia +
Tillandsia usneoides +++
Tillandsia utriculata +

Vriecantarea 'Inferno'

Vriesea atra +
Vriesea barilletii +
Vriesea bituminosa x saundersii +
Vriesea 'Black Beauty'
Vriesea carinata ++
Vriesea corcovadensis +++
Vriesea ensiformis ++
Vriesea ensiformis var. bicolor
Vriesea 'Flamme'
Vriesea flammea ++
Vriesea friburgensis +
Vriesea friburgensis var. paludosa +
Vriesea frigurgensis var. tucumanensis +
Vriesea gigantea +
Vriesea incurvata +
Vriesea 'Komet'
Vriesea lubbersii +++
Vriesea 'Lucille'
Vriesea 'Mariae' +
Vriesea 'Mon Petit' corallina x flammea
Vriesea philippo-coburgii +++
Vriesea platynema +
Vriesea 'Purple Cockatoo'
Vriesea 'Purple Pendant'
Vriesea 'Rex'
Vriesea rodigasiana +
Vriesea 'Rosa Morena'
Vriesea scalaris +
Vriesea schwackiana +
Vriesea schwackiana x fosteriana 'Red Chestnut'
Vriesea 'Seminole Chief'
Vriesea simplex +
Vriesea sucrei
Vriesea vagans ++
Vriesea 'Velma Wurthmann'

Resources

Book: Bromeliads for the Contemporary Garden, by Andrew Steens

Website: http://fcbs.org/articles/cold_sensitivity_of_bromeliads.htm
Website: http://fcbs.org/articles/ColdHardyBroms.pdf
Website: http://www.oasisdesigns.co.uk/bromeliads.htm
Website: http://www.yuccado.com/all-plants/bromeliads.html

Anectdotal: Steve Asbell
Anectdotal: Chris George

Aechmea 'Blue Cones'

Dyckia 'Red Planet'

Neoregelia spectabilis

Modern Hydrangea Arrangement

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:18:00 +0000

I hate hydrangeas. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word for my uneasy relationship with this traditional looking flower. They're useful enough, but they're just not my style. Hydrangeas also have this tendency to change colors based on the soil's acidity and can take on an unwanted muddy hue. My wife wanted green hydrangeas for the wedding, but we ended up with these insipid looking greenish white fluffballs instead. While I might not like hydrangeas, yesterday was my mother in law's birthday and she happens to like them. Here's how I gave a traditional flower a much needed update.

All I did was buy a single hydrangea bloom from the grocery store for $3.99, and clip some cast iron plant (Aspidistra 'Milky Way') leaves and a few stems of 'drunkard's dream' rhipsalis from my balcony. I overlapped the cast iron leaves to make a dramatic arched flare, and used the rhipsalis to form a lacy spray just to soften things up like one would use a spray of baby's breath flowers. It took about five minutes to make, and conveniently enough, it also matched the birthday cake.
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Germinating Easter Cactus Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:47:00 +0000

Have you ever seen fruits on your Easter cactus and wondered what that's all about? These are actually fruits chock full of seeds waiting to be eaten by a bird and spread to some distant tree They can also be spread by plant geeks with too much time on their hands. Yes, I know that it's much faster to take cuttings of Easter and holiday cacti, but what if you want to make some crosses? What if you're just obsessed with epiphytic cacti and want to start them from seed just because you can? Here's how!

1. Gently break apart the fully ripe fruit with your fingers. The flesh should be juicy and translucent.

2. Slowly smear the opened fruit on a paper towel. The seeds will stick to the paper along with the pulp. You may choose to let it dry.

3. Roll your finger over the seeds with a slightly moistened finger. The seeds will seperate from the pulp and stick to your finger.

4. Gently brush off the seeds off of your fingers over a fresh paper towel.

5. Evenly spread the seeds over the paper towel. This will give them more space between each other as they grow.

6. Fill a flat tray or pot (a Chinese take out tray works well) with potting soil or seed starting mix.

7. Lay the paper towel over the tray face up and tear off the edges of the paper towel so that it easily fits in the tray. The paper towel gives the seedlings something to grab hold of, and it also has helped with fungus gnats in my experience.

8. Carefully water the container so that the soil and paper towel are lightly moistened. The seeds will stick to the towel after watering.

9. These seedlings are actually Rhipsalis baccifera 'horrida' (and Hylocereus in the back) but the technique remains the same with Rhipsalidopsis/Hatiora. Once the seedlings get too big for their tray, transplant them to separate pots.

That's it! Eventually you'll be rewarded with flowers like this for your efforts, but for now be patient and enjoy them while they're little. They grow up before you know it.
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Repotting Plants on my Balcony

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Am I the only one who waits way too long to re-pot plants? My excuse for the moment is that they've just been growing too quickly to keep up with lately, and potting soil is getting right up there with gasoline on my list of expensive natural resources. A recent trip to Lowes yielded some very cheap (and chic!) containers, so I had the perfect motivation to go out there and clumsily spread dirt all over the balcony in an attempt to re-pot some pants. Now I just have some sweeping to do...

I got this Furcraea (I think) as an offset growing on a spent flower stalk at Disney during our honeymoon. I checked with one of the cast members and he said that it was okay, by the way. I rooted it in about an inch of potting soil and watched it grow at an alarming rate despite the fact that there was hardly any soil to speak of! This morning the plant became so top heavy that it actually fell out of the pot. Until I find a bigger container, I figure this recycled plastic one will do just fine.

These are the super-cute containers that we purchased at Lowes the other day. The little fuschia pot begged to be planted with something bright to set off the intense hue, so a rhipsalis hybrid made a perfect match. The tillandsia on top is normally white, but was recently watered so it looks gray in the photo.

The large white container is an exact replica of the one adorning a dracaena in our house, but this one was planted with a purple leaved Vriesea sucrei hybrid to complement the small purple container. The white pot also pairs with the white (when dry) tillandsia.

Here are some of the tropical shade loving plants on my balcony. I set some heavy metal baskets (freebies from work - were going to be trash) on the balcony ledge to organize my plants and to keep them from flying to their death on windy days. Those metal baskets aren't going anywhere! Once cooler weather arrives, the balcony will once again be the perfect place to write, read, draw and dine. A little sweeping wouldn't hurt either.
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Retro Houseplant Illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:33:00 +0000

I've always been inspired by 'mid-century modern' architecture, fashion and design, but after watching the show Mad Men I've become especially enamored with the simple and playful illustrations of the age. I remember looking at old books on houseplants and gushing over the sleek illustrations of Monstera deliciosa and Ficus decora amid the clean lines and deep wood grain backdrops of modern homes. I used to love looking at the work of architects like Luis Barragan and Paul Rudolph, or the illustrations of Charley Harper.

This style appeals to me because I love the clean and optimistic simplicity in the bright offset colors, sleek lines and simplified forms, and vector illustration is my strong suit anyways.

First I drew out the outlines in a light 4h pencil, and then I drew over those marks with a fine drawing marker. I went back over those lines with a wider marker to give the drawings a solidified and inviting look that's easy on the eyes.

Then I scanned the drawings and loosely blocked in the colors in Adobe Illustrator (this could be done in marker, watercolor or goache as well for an old school approach) and made sure to leave some overlap and whites showing to give that quirky offset look that I love so much. Where I wanted the lines to show through, I blended the shapes with the 'Multiply' blending mode. Lastly, I took the illustrations to Photoshop for cropping, and I played with 'Curves' to make sure the backdrop was completely white.

My wife joined me last night as well, and her subject was a potted nerve plant. She likes to use a combination of colored pencil and marker for a textured and more realistic, yet loose impression.

Sea Beans and Drift Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Rainforest Gardener) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:03:00 +0000

Besides using houseplants, decorating with drift seeds is my favorite way to bring nature into our home. If you're scratching your head at my crazy talk of sea beans and drift seeds, here's an explanation. Sea beans are large legume seeds from the tropics that wash up on beaches far from home, but the name could be applied to any durable floating seed found on the beach. That definition is fine and dandy, but where did they come from, and how did they get from a rainforest in Brazil to a beach in North Carolina or Florida?

Sea Beans come from many regions of the tropics, but for simplicity's sake, let's use sea hearts as an example. Imagine Tarzan swinging through the treetops in South America on the way to a date with Jane. He's hitching a ride on his favorite species of vine, Entada gigas, since he likes the flexibility and strength it offers in equal parts. Tarzan is a connoisseur of fine vines.

Anyways, in his clumsiness he knocks some huge seeds loose from the Entada gigas vine. The hard seeds bounce off the heads of his forest friends and splash into a muddy river before floating to the surface, and heading all the way downstream to the mighty Amazon.

Some seeds germinate on the river's shores, while others miss the mark entirely and end up as castaways in the Atlantic ocean. Only then do they begin to ride the ocean currents thousands of miles to strange lands were the inhabitants no longer speak Portuguese or Spanish.

Often, the sea beans continue to circle about the ocean's currents or get stuck in the Sargasso Sea before they finally end up stranded on the beach. Usually they arrive along with the rafts of sargassum weed in fall, but sometimes strand after nor-Easters. Some sea beans germinate after getting buried by sand and rotting seaweed, but they never survive in the salty sand and frigid winters.

Sea beans have been found as far north as Scandinavia, but in the United States they're far more likely to wash up on the shores of Florida and the coast of Texas. They're also common in tropical regions all around the world.

Here are some of the drift seeds in my own collection, along with their names. This is only a small selection of what's out there! Some, like the starnut palm, are ridiculously tropical and exotic. On the other hand, the black walnut isn't even found in peninsular Florida. Because of the direction the currents travel in, it had to travel down a river like the Mississippi, into the gulf of Mexico and past the Florida Keys to end up on an East coast Florida shore like mine.

1. Sea heart - Entada gigas
2. Mary's bean - Merremia discoidesperma
3a. Gray nickerbean - Caesalpinea bonduc
3b. Brown nickerbean - Caesalpinea globulorium
4. Sea purse - Dioclea spp.
5. Hamburger beans - Mucuna spp.
6. Starnut palm - Astrocaryum spp.
7. Unidentified palm
8. Manchineel - Hippomane mancinella
9, Crabwood - Carapa guianensis
10. Sea coconut - Manicaria saccifera
11. Jamaican naval spurge - Omphalea diandra
12. Black walnut - Juglans nigra
13. Laurelwood - Calophyllum calaba
14. Bloodwood - Pterocarpus officinalis
15. Coin vine - Dalbergia ecastaphyllum
16. Blister pod - Sacoglottis amazonica
17. Soapberry - Sapindus saponaria
18. Acorn - Quercus spp.

Amazing as it sounds, there are still drift seeds that remain unidentified to this day! Some can only be identified after germinating the seeds and growing the plants long enough to observe the flowers. Being the gardener I am, I have germinated a few sea beans myself but haven't been able to overwinter them outdoors through the winter. I would grow them in containers, were it not for the fact that they outgrow their pots in a single season!

It's best to just marvel at these miraculous seeds the way they are, singly or in a bowl. I love to run my hand through the glossy seeds and imagine the journey that they've endured, and envision passing them on to my grandchildren someday when rainforests wouldn't be as plentiful as they are today.

You can also use just about any durable seed to make displays like these including buckeyes, walnuts and even coffee beans! While a single seed would escape the notice of most, an entire bowl or platter filled with a single species makes a huge impact and starts some great conversations.