What's growing in my garden?

[Sam Wilson]

My Tica wife loves her gardens.  I've converted almost all available yard space around our house into terraced jardincitos.  Right now we've got a nice Casco (or Pata) de Vaca bloom going.  I believe the scientific name is Bauhinia monandra and this small tree plant is sometimes called the orchid tree.  This one is right by our front gate and we get a lot of folks passing by commenting on it.

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Sam

[Sam Wilson]

Someone on the Yahoo! CR Gardening group was asking about shade trees.  Here is one of ours that the kids love playing under:  El Lorito (Cojoba arborea).  Some of the branches are a little narrow for climbing but that's my only complaint about it with our kids.  I think I've harped on it enough that now they are well learned in climbing trees and are careful about stepping on little branches...  ;-)

The other BIG shade provider around here is what is commonly called el Higueron.  There are a lot of varieties of these trees from the ficus/fig family, but they are very noticeable in Guanacaste ranches as the trees that were not cleared from the pastures so they could provide shade for cattle.  We've got as huge one on our fence line that neighborhood kids have been using for a big tree-house for generations now.  I regularly find groups of kids up in it doing their homework, etc.

A pretty popular shade tree among Ticos is the Almedro de Playa (Terminalia catappa).  My wife doesn't much like this tree much because she thinks it causes a mess when its big leaves fall off, but they do provide pretty nice shade without being near the size of the higuerones.

We've got all 3 of these on our farm, but after seeing some of the better fotos of these online, I used the better online fotos rather than mine.  They illustrate the shadiness much better and you don't have to look at the unfinished cleanup brush work on the farm we're got going on right now!  ;-) 

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Sam

[gene]

Nice pics sam...

I too am blessed with trees

Built my casita under a  guanacaste right next to a huge higeron...

Loads of shade...

Btw...we are enjoying a nice little shower now...

It is very welcome!!!!

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

I think this beauty we have blooming in our garden...  (no the other one,) is called a glory bower, bleeding heart vine, or Clerodendrum thomsoniae.  My wife had this non-descript vine planted in a pot over by one of our tapias.  One day I noticed she put a meter long stake in the pot and up went the vine right before it exploded in un millón little bleeding heart blooms.  Ticos around here call the flower, payasitos / little clowns.

So that's what's spreading the love around here...  ;-)

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Sam

[gene]

Wow...

Save maria a cutting...she is trying hard to catch up ..

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Gene

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

In no particular order, and unlabeled (sorry -- I'll try to go back and put proper names on things when I have a chance) in addition to the above fotos, here is also what is blooming in my garden right now:

¡Feliz florece a todos!

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Sam

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

[ Semi-Repost:  I went back in and added names to few I knew - Sam. ]

In no particular order, in addition to the above fotos, here is also what is blooming in my garden right now:

Ave del Paraíso

In Costa Rica these are called el Ave del Paraíso, or Bird of Paradise.  I think the variety I have is the Strelitzia reginae.  It is the the official flower of the city of Los Angeles in los EE.UU and once you get it established it is pretty low maintenance.  I propagate by division although I've heard you can grow them from seed as well.  They do take a couple of years or so to start flowering, but once they begin, it seems like we have them flowering off and on all year.  The blooms do stick around for a bit and they are always an interesting part of our garden.

Corona de Cristo

These are called Corona de Cristo or Crown of Thorns.  The general class is called Euphorbia milii, and I've got several varieties with slightly different shades of pink/red flowers and different thicknesses of the thorny stems.  I think I got my starts by swiping some from a bank parking lot...  jajaja.  My bigger varieties do get up to 1.5 m or so with the smaller skinny ones maybe only 20-30 cm.

Amapola

In Costa Rica and Puerto Rico these are called Amapola, but really Amapola means Opium Poppy in proper Spanish. Of course in English these are called Hibiscus.  I snagged the yellow one from a tree branch I saw hanging over someone's tapia.  With a pinch of enraizador (rooting compound) the branch grew roots and is now in small tree form in one of my wife's gardens.  Its blossoms are double blossoms, like one inside the other.  At any given moment we probably have 45-60+ pichónes (buds) on this amapola, however the rain is pretty destructive on its flowers and rather than last for days (a week or so?) the flowers pretty much are ruined right away.  The open pink hibiscus we bought from the back of a truck. 

Granito de Oro

My wife calls this Granito de Oro but I never could really narrow it down.  That's a pretty common name and I never found any picture which really looks like ours.  This picture doesn't really do it justice.  It is a bit more showy and appears to have a lot more yellow flowers on it that is apparent in this foto.  If anyone recognizes it and knows what it is called, please let me know.

That's about all the documenting I can do right now...  jajaja.

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Sam

[Marie Vigil McCain]

Lovely plants. I tried a pinched of yellow hibiscus  it was mom's  favorite color. From the Santa Barbara Muni, didn't   take. Next time I went the park had a makeover and the plant removed . I I would to know where  the  seeds are 

Located on the Bird of Paradise .

Because of the weather, I'm  indoors  and fooling with Minni tablet, and found the group  learning how to get around the site. At first couldn't find how to post. But I think I fount it. We'll  see if this if this goes tru. Keyboard is a pain in the,,,,,

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[Sam Wilson]

Congratulations, Marie!  Your post made it...  jajaja.

With hibiscus, I've found that rooting compound REALLY increases chances of success.

Sure you can just stick a stick in the ground and many times it will take root, but when using

a pinch of enraizador I've had 100% success.

Regarding the Bird of Paradise...  You can propagate using seed, but it takes a long time

(maybe 1 year to germinate) and then you've got a few years of growth before you see

your 1st flower.  The seed pods come after the flower withers from what would be the head

of the bird where the orange plumage attaches and it takes months for them to mature (on

the plant.)  We always prune the old flowers when they lose their luster and never get to the

seed pod stage.  The seeds themselves look like little black peas with a tuft of orange.

​

Propagating by division is the way to go with Birds of Paradise.  They are pretty easy to divide

into natural clumps, although they still can be a little difficult.  I've probably had 2 out of every 3

take when propagating -- but we are really not that good about babying the baby after we split

some off.  We are much more of "stick it in the ground and wait and see" gardeners.  So I'm sure

we could really up our odds with most of our propagation by paying more attention to the babies.

How to Grow Bird of Paradise

A lot of folks don't know that these are plant cousins of the common banana.

My wife wanted one for years, finally I just bought a potted bird of paradise which I immediately

divided and planted in our garden.  Now we've got 2 large regularly flowering "birds" and I split off

hijos every once in awhile to either plant out back on our farm or to give away to friends & family.

Good luck!

BTW, check out the keyboard Gene got for his phone.  He loves it and I think we picked them

up on Amazon for fairly cheap and didn't pay too much for shipping and import tax.  I can dig out

exact details if you wish, although Gene probably can speak better to that.

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Sam

[Gene French]

Here it is...

Iclever...

Sam is right...i love it..

Good luck and pura vida!!!

Gene

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