Heliconia

[Mikey]

While visiting one of our local arboretums several years ago I noticed an area planted with many Heliconias that were in bloom and many of which had produced seeds.  Many Heliconias will not flower here in SoCal because we don't get the required heat and humidity but these Heliconias obviously must have been a higher elevation plant, perhaps native to the Andes area...  In any event, some of those seeds managed to find their way into my pocket      and I planted them in pots.  Within weeks they had germinated and in October '05' I planted them in the ground in a tropical section of my garden.  You Floridians may not be impressed but I'm really jazzed because two of my plants have now matured enough to flower.....and it's just in time for the garden tour on Sunday 

[Jerry]

Mine survived the winter in an unheated greenhouse, but flowers?  Never!
You have a touch for Clematis as well.  I gave up long ago.
looks marvelous!

[Sonny]

Looks great!  So rewarding to grow something from seed and see it thrive.  I'm sure the visitors to your garden for the tour will be impressed. 

[Sean]

Looks amazing, I am in hopes that one day the one from Marilyn C that is in MikeW's back yard will bloom as well.

Cheers,
Sean

[miguynmkoi]

You're THE Gardener!  I look forward to seeing it on Sunday! 

[Bonnie]

Cool!

Good luck with the Garden Tour Mikey..

[tinkster]

Hope the tour goes great.. am sure you WOWed them as usual. 

tinkster

[Mikey]

The garden tour went well and we took in a few hundred dollars to help out the designated charities.  We meet with the coordinator tomorrow to turn in the money.  I was told that the Sunday tour has fewer people and we had about half as many people as last year when we had it on Saturday.  It gave me more time to relax and talk with people.  Annette and her DH came by and visited......  Ooops, I just realized I didn't take a photo of them....  sorry....

[miguynmkoi]

Thanks for allowing everyone to visit your beautiful garden.  It is compact compared to public arboretums but your plant variety is as amazing.  Many visitors were introduced to the "root beer" plant.  Mike told us to tear a piece of the leaf and rub it between our fingers to release the aroma of root beer! 

You can't really tell from his photos but Mike's pond is large and his fish....beautiful and huge!  Same with his turtles and turdle island...larger than the photos show!  Mike gave me some hornwort straight from his pond, lucky me.  Hey Mike, in the hornwort there were some some shrimp like things swimming around and hiding in the plant, what are they? 

Thanks for the private tour too!  I also forgot to leave a donation (bad girl!  )  I will send one directly to the charity in the morning.

I'll check the photos I took and see if any turned out and post them here in the morning too. 

[miguynmkoi]

It was a beautiful day for the garden tour at Mikey's Garden and Pond.  My photos do not fairly represent the beautiful blooms or the wonderful scents in his garden.  Check out the pond....Turdle Island is probably the size of my laptop.   The big orangy/yellow koi in front is at least 20+" long!  I really like the idea of the meandering stream from your settling chamber to the pond.  Wish I got a photo of that.  Got too busy reading the labels of all your plants! 

My DH thinks it is very unfair of me to restrict how much food we feed out fish.  Thanks Mike, you just gave Vince the license to feed! 

Very enjoyable!  Thanks Mike!

[Mikey]

Annette: You really should remove that green filter from the lens of your camera otherwise folks might think I have a pea-soup pond     Those little critters you speak of look like mini brine shrimp and I've had them in the pond for many years.  I thought everyone had them and I have never bothered to try to find out what they are.  Anytime I dump a bunch of hornwort or water hyacinths into my compost pile I see lots of those little guys wiggling about.

[Bonnie]

Thanks for the pix Annette.. Mikey I don't believe I have ever saw a pix of your whole pond??

Everything is just beautiful, even though I'd love to see more pix!

How cool of the money to go to charities.. bet you brought in the most because of your looks and personality huh?

[Sonny]

Thanks for the photos Annette!  Looks like a great event Mikey.  I bet it is a lot of work to get ready for something like that.  Was the Heliconia a big hit?

[Mikey]

Bonnie: That photo of Annette's pretty much shows the entire pond.  To get everything, mini-stream that is out of view, I would have to get up high on a ladder      There are gardens on the tour that are much nicer than mine.  The problem with hosting a tour is you can't see other gardens....   soooo, I'll take next year off so I too can visit the other gardens.

Jim: I forgot all about the Heliconia and I didn't hear anyone say anything about it.  It was tucked away in the back and people tended to be looking down, not up....  The big plant hit, as far as comments were concerned, were the peony poppies.  This year, as last year, I had numerous questions about the name of those flowers.  The kids of course loved my "Bunny Tails" grass......as did a number of big kids   The kids also got excited as seeing the turtles poking their heads up out of the water.

[Bonnie]

Mikey you do have a house roof don't ya!

[Jerry]

Since you still have the money, how about a few games of 9 ball?



It all looks great!

[miguynmkoi]

The kids of course loved my "Bunny Tails" grass......as did a number of big kids

The Bunny Tail grass was very interesting and fuzzy cute.  I like plants that bring a little conversation.  We were talking like crazy in Mike's garden as each plant had features of great interest.

I would say Mike's stream and pond take up the whole length of the yard.  Not one inch of wasted space.  And "Yeah where's our picture!"  El stupido me!

[Mikey]

Mikey you do have a house roof don't ya!

  Using the roof worked ten years ago but now I have bamboo, an umbrella tree and giant bird of paradise that block my roof view...

The Bunny Tail grass was very interesting and fuzzy cute.

I had some saved from last year that I meant to cut into quarters and give to tour people who wanted some and I forgot all about them.....

Annette: I believe it was you that asked what kind of wisteria I had because even though it had finished with it's first massive flowering it continues to send out spikes of flowers in several places.  It was sold to me as Wisteria sinensis Purple ‘Cooke’s Special’

[miguynmkoi]

Thanks Mike!