Update on the Monarch Caterpillars

 They are getting fatter everyday.  I'm missing the third one.  Where could it be?

Today

A couple days ago

A few days before the above

More Tropical Plants at the Butterfly Estates

Welcome to Butterfly Estates

Great murals on the walls outside

And the colors inside the butterfly

 greenhouse were fantastic, too.

All the colors of an

artist's palette.

The butterflies were too busy

to catch in a photo.

I loved their slogan:

A beautiful garden is a

work of heart.

The Unfamiliar Becomes Familiar

The mystery of the odd-looking blooms from a plant at the Manatee Park has been solved!  Today I visited the Butterfly Estates in Fort Myers downtown.  I showed the tour guide in the butterfly conservatory and she was very familiar with the plant.

It is Giant Milkweed, a tropical version of our New England Milkweed plant.

It is not native to Florida but the Monarchs love it.

And the Monarchs stay in Florida year-round.

The leaves look familiar, but those blooms are truly unfamiliar.

It is now identified for me after much searching online.

It is hardy in Florida and can grow to tree-size.

Lesson learned: Just ask an expert.

This Wildflower is Familiar

It's a Butterfly Weed plant I bought at a plant sale

at the Caluse Nature Center in Fort Myers.

It was covered with these lovely orange blooms as shown above.

The next time I looked at the plant, it looked like the photo below.

The seed pods (which I hadn't noticed at all) 

were splitting open just like familiar Milkweed.

Closer inspection showed this:

A Monarch Butterfly caterpillar eating the leaves and pods!

What luck--and in February!

More Tropical Gardens in February

The Bougainvillea were beautiful at the Edison Home and Gardens in Fort Myers.

The bright bracts remind me of Poinsettia.  

The flower is actually the white, waxy center.

At the Manatee Park, this plant attracted my attention.

I don't know what it is, but these tropical plants have odd features.

There are more familiar plants.

This little Spring Beauty-like flower 

sprinkles the lawns here just as they do at home.

This single specimen was under a banyan tree at the Edison-Ford Homes.

I found out they are called "Florida Snow".

Click here for more about Florida Snow.

It is a wildflower--or a weed--depending on your viewpoint!

And speaking of Banyans or Fig Trees...

We don't have anything like this at home.

That's a statue of Thomas Edison and my grandson, Robbie.

Note the tree in the background.

That's what is unfamiliar!

Tropical Garden Visit in November

We did not have much of a fall season in Connecticut.  The foliage colors were less than brilliant.  The garden died back slowly and then snow and 9 degree temperatures finished it off quickly.  but today we enjoyed fall-like temperatures and overcast sunshine in a tropical botanical garden in Naples, Florida.  A strange way to relive fall!

Giant Lily Pads

Exotic hues of water lily blossoms from fushia to 

almost neon violet and chartreuse like this one did

not recall fall in New England!

Bird of Paradise and a green lawn

and an outdoor patio orchid garden

told me we weren't in CT anymore!

My favorite part of the Naples Botanical Garden was the 

Southeast Asian gardens.

And I walked the labyrinth while I meditated too.

The gardens included glass creations by 

Hans Goto Frabel

who blows glass by hand

with borosilicate glass.

A really remarkable Garden Moment!

Mid-September and the Hummers Are Still Here

We've been expecting the hummingbirds to leave by the 15th, the traditional date, but we're still seeing them!  They could be other hummingbirds from up north now migrating south past us.  They are hiding in the asters and sipping in the butterfly bush.  I watched a Cooper's hawk snatch a lone goldfinch at the feeder yesterday.  I'd hide too because it was not a pretty sight to watch from my window.

There is something else new in the garden--morning glories!

They should be Moonflowers by the tag, but they seem to be blue--and open in the daytime.

The Monarchs are busy in the Sedum blooms.

And the bees love the asters.

With 3 inches of rain this past week, the garden is having a moment of renewal.