We don’t have many friends because… well, there isn’t anywhere for them to sit!
We usually spend Saturday mornings running around Midland trying to find things we can buy, plant or just look at lovingly. 😉 It is an obsession.
As you well know, we worked on the pool project this past weekend and so we were in search for various “tropical”-y type plants that would look good around the pool. It is hard to find plants sometimes that are tropical in nature – but can stand the 100+ temps around this place. Most need shade or something… and so it took us a while to find good fits.
Oh… but we did find some good fits… no worries. 😉
This is what the back of the truck looked like by the time the day was over… well at least one side of it. The other side looked similar to this…
I know… we are bad huh? Oh well. Thank you Uncle Sam, for providing us with a nice fat budget for our pool project – we will tip a beer for ya when the time comes. Por favor believe it. 🙂
So let us run down what we picked up and in turn had to pot and place in the garden area for the time being… until we get it finished up and ready for the pool and such. Here we go…
In the second pic, so starting left to right across the back of the truck (where you would have to sit if you were our friends)…
That first vine is a “Ruby Star Mandevilla”, which should get rather big (up to 20 ft.) – so we planted it in the back corner so it could climb on the fence we put up and eventually be a nice addition to our area out there.
The next plant is a “Paddle Plant” – which we saw a while back and had to get. We loved this little guy and so as soon as we decided to purchase the plants for the pool… this was the first one picked up.
If you switch to the first picture now, you we will continue left to right.
You can see a few “Caladium” leaves poking their heads out and we picked up a few of those that had several leaves of their own (they are young’uns) and we planted them all together in one pot. We are worried that they will have the biggest problem adjusting to the heat. Hope not, but if any of them have a problem… it would be them.
You can see something with a purple-ish bloom on it. These are “Lisianthus (Eustoma)” which also may have a bit of an issue with the heat and sun we have to offer here in Texas. We actually bought 3 of these guys and potted them in their own pots… so we could use them to accent different areas with some color.
Next to that in the front is a cool little plant called a “Lily of the Nile”. I am sure most of you have seen these before – but they put off some big bunches of purple blooms that we cannot wait for. A great plant for our pool area.
In back of that one, we have a “New Zealand Cabbage Palm” – which was too cool for school. So we had to pick it up. It was about 25$, but for the size and everything… one hell of a deal. This is one of our favs.
The final plant on the right is my favorite of all and probably the coolest plant we have ever bought in my opinion. This is a “Japanese Aralia” and personally… it kicks butt! This one had some issues yesterday with the heat, but we watered it a bit more than expected and it perked back up. IT WAS 100 DEGREES YESTERDAY! Everything had issues! haha
So we got all these guys and went and picked up pots to pot them in and after some hard work… we had them sitting out in the pool area. Now of course they are not where it should be yet, since we haven’t got everything finished out there… but they are chilling in the shade for the meantime. You will see a few other plants there, some “Marigolds” (to keep the mosquitoes away) and a plant that I don’t know the name of just yet (Shala does) hanging. Also in the back, behind everything are 3 “Cannas” we planted all in one pot. See below for the end result (for now).
Great finds! That Japanese aralia is a pretty tough plant, here anyway. I have abused a couple and neglected them in unwatered pots for a while, but later planted them out in the yard, and they’re now about 8 feet tall and look happy and vigorous.
@Megan – yeah we were happy with them. You have us worried about the Aralia though… eeek!
Yesterday it looked like a sick puppy until I hit it with some water. It perked up after that though.
What great things you picked out. Some of those plants I have not seen here but maybe I just overlooked them .My caladium has actually surprised me and has withstood more heat and sun then I thought it would. I think my balcony gets pretty hot. i need to purchase a termostate one day and see if I am right about ti getting hot. It gets sun from 12 and onward. Good luck with them all hope they survive the heat of Texas.
@Priscilla – Thanks for stopping by! And our Caladiums have done remarkably good so far, actually the Lisianthus are having the hardest time. Hopefully they can get past the initial shock of these past few days. 100 plus for 3-4 days straight is enough to push anyone over the edge.
What great plants. I sure wish that I could spend my check from uncle sam on these projects! I had to use the money for practical things like paying off some of our huge pile of bills. I did manage to squeeze out a few dollars for a couple of fun small plants, but nothing as fabulous as you got!