Happy Birthday Emily!

Emily is 10 years old today.  She's got a white face but is still so cute... here she is in her tropical garden.

Life is good...she had a hard summer last year, but nothing like a winter in Florida to make all the aches and pains go away!

My Spring Garden in Florida

My cassia trees have been blooming for about 3 months now.  It is so beautiful to look out the window and see yellow flowers.  .  The leaves are so delicate, they remind me of spring up north.  I underplanted them with purple lantana. But, they are still small.  Red crown of thorns is in the background.

 I put this orchid on my sable palm last May.  It just bloomed.  Yea!  The yellow allamanda has been blooming for months now - once I got the landscapers to stop trimming it.

Color In The Garden

I am teaching a course at Palm Beach State College in Boca Ratone called 'Color in the Garden'.  Here's some of the pictures I used in the talk. 

Warm Colors - Daylilies and Coreopsis from my garden in Maine.  What a cheerful sight.

Coneflowers and Black-eyed Susan's from my garden in Maine. They go well together because they are a similar shape.  Pink shows up well in front of a grey fence.

Golden dew drop tree has beautiful blue flowers followed by gold berries.  Underplanted with blue lobelia and white osteospermum daisy like flowers and euphorbia 'diamond frost'.  Looks great in a white planter

by a white fence.  Both Mom and I bought the tree here in Florida.  

Yellow allamanda and pink bouganvillea - a surprisingly pleasing color combination.

A monochromatic color scheme - 2 shades of purple petunias

Using primary colors - blue argeratum and yellow zinnias with white.  Even the butterflies like this one!

Happy Easter

Sometimes you just need a bunny...