I'm just wrapping up a week long stay in the San Diego area.  The primary reason for the trip was to attend the Triathlon America Conference, a conference geared for the business of triathlon. Seeing how I was going to be so close to California's nursery region, I had to tack on a few extra days to my trip to do some plant collecting.  I only made a few acquisitions the first day, but by late morning on the second day, I already had the back seat of my rental car full.After day two I decided ...

Brugmansia Rosalie is an Angel Trumpet that tends to display its blooms in a horizontal fashion.  Occasionally it produces blooms that display upwards, as if designed to collect rain. Perhaps the bloom pictured below was designed to gather rain and water during our current dry spell?  :)Rosalie is a great Angel Trumpet for our hot Florida climate.  As with most pinks, the color deepens as the bloom matures.

Last week's freeze was the biggest cold event in over 20 years according to the local media.  I'm hoping that it will be at least another 20 until we have another one!   For those of you who do not think it gets very cold in Central Florida, I thought I would share a few photos from my winter wonderland here in Clermont.Citrus really took a beating this time.  I spot checked a bunch of oranges on scattered trees and all showed signs of cold damage.I had to rely on constant watering to ...

With record setting cold blanketing Central Florida this week, nothing was spared from Mother nature's wrath.This orange tree happened to be on the outer fringes of my outdoor brugmansia growing area and got caught by my sprinklers during the sub freezing weather.  The sprinklers were on to provide a protective ice blanket for my brugmansia during the freezes.  I'm not sure if it has gotten cold enough to damage the citrus yet, but many of my brugs took a beating.  We have a hard freeze ...