Lake Mary Gardens

I have been watching a bud develop on my hardy hibiscus seedling grow out for the past week. I was anticipating the bloom so much that I took a picture of it every day! This beautiful flower was on one of the taller plants with dark green shaded with red leaves. It was light pink with a raspberry red center that flared into the petals. I believe the notably high temperatures caused all the plants in my garden to experience heat stress. I am guessing the slight lipping in this bloom was caused by the extreme weather.

Hardy Hibiscus 6 days to a bloom

We have had the battle of the bugs the past two weeks. The whiteflies have descended upon my garden with a vengeance. I have been busy washing them away from beneath the leaves with water and following up with neem oil and pyrethrins. I mixed the solution more diluted than the package called for and only sprayed in the late evening. So far, it looks like I have good insect control and the plants look lovely except for a bug chew here and there. To view more seedlings visit my hardy hibiscus page.

Hardy Hibiscus Part 2 Results

Hardy Hibiscus Bloom

This week I was excited to discover that the day lily pods from my purchased daylilies are splitting open and the seeds are ready to harvest. The plants I bought this year had larger flowers, bigger pods and much larger seeds than Little Business Red and Red Ribs. I’m not sure what two of the varieties were because they did not look like what I ordered. One daylily was Tuscawilla Snowdrift which did not set any seeds. The two daylily plants with seed pods ready to harvest right now are a big red one and a yellow one as seen in the pictures. I am still waiting for two other daylilies out of the five varieties I bought this year to bloom so I will update those later.