Purple Ornamental Sweet Potato Roots

I can see why these plants are invasive in the places where the winter cold does not touch them. I just hope I got it all, I believe I did.  I just wanted to show you the size of this root; very large.

Purple Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine Root

Jake

Weekend Blooms

Here is a Stella D’Oro Daylily that is still mangeing to bloom through this Florida heat. It continues to just do it’s job with only one break in blooming so far this summer.

Stella D'Oro

Here is a picture of a Magnolia bloom, I wish these bloomed more together instead of one everynow and then. I guess at least it blooms for most of the year.

Magnolia Bloom

For the final bloom I have a purple Morning Glory bloom. These have been blooming most mornings for a few weeks now. On cloudy days, my favorite kind of day in Florida, the blooms stay open a while longer then on a sunny and really hot day.

Morning Glory

Jake

Little and Big

I still find it funny that some plants have the ability to obtain such growth in such a little amount of time, yet some plants sulk and never seem to get around to growing. I have two different plants that are like this and that are two different species.  The two plants are a slow growing Trachycarpus fortunei and fast and very large Colocasia esculenta.

My Trachycarpus fortunei or Windmill Palm hasn’t really seemed to have grown much since I planted it June 2008. It has really put out a lot of fronds this year, which is more then I can say about it last year. It just doesn’t seem to be growing in height or very fast. They are suppose to be able to grow up to a foot a year, yet mine has remained the same since I recieved through mailorder October 2007. Eithier way I still like it and hope that it will one day kick into gear and reward me with speedy growth. I think it could be the constant heat and humidity of summer as this is a Himalayan Palm Tree and not a tropical one. It is very cold hardy and grows better in temperate locations then it does in hot and tropical locales.

Trachycarpus fortunei-Windmill Palm

Trachycarpus fortunei-Windmill Palm

Trachycarpus fortunei-Windmill Palm

Trachycarpus fortunei-Windmill Palm

 

The Colocasia esculenta or Regular Elephant Ear I am talking about is huge. It is bigger then the other two Regular Elephant Ear’s, so it has me wondering if it is even really the same type. The leaves are huge as you will be able to see in the pictures.

Overview of the Elephant Ear

Another Overview

Leaf Compared to Meter

Trunk Compared to Pipe

Thanks,

Jake

Beauties and the Beast

Today I would like to show you two plants that  just love. The two plants are an Unknown Elephant Ear and a Texas Palmetto. I won’t tell you bout the beast, you will see it in a minute.

This unknown Colocasia or Elephant Ear is the best speciemen of this type out of 6 of them.

Unknown Elephant Ear

The Texas Palmetto is of course a Palmetto native to the state of Texas.  The main difference between the Palmetto and the Texas Palmetto is that the Texas Palmetto has a bigger crown of fronds and it is more cold hardy. The source I got my Texas Palmetto from stated they were hardy to zone 7.

My Texas Palmetto survived a freeze after rain outside in Kentucky after a warm February day I left it out in a container and forgot about it. It didn’t lose any fronds, but it did seem to set it back and hardly grew once I planted it here in Florida. This year it seems to have recovered and settled in and has really set off in growth. It is one beautiful palm. 

Before I show you the picture please be sure to take notice that I have just written “Texas Palmetto” four times underneath each other and it was not on purpose.

Texas Palmetto

Okay, so are your eady to see the beast. It is a Lizard and I just wnated to show you how nasty they look. I am not a fan of reptiles like Lizards or Snakes, I do like Turtles. That little red thing is one of the things that creep me out. I didn;t get to close to take this picture, zoom works great. This particular Lizard was hanging out on my front Banana Tree.

Nasty Lizard

 

Jake