Summer Tropicals

Hi everyone!  Hope you all are enjoying your weekends and this fabulous weather we are having.  What a beautiful day it is!  Perfect for a little gardening.  And since I know you are all in the mood to plant, I am super excited to share with you some of our new arrivals down at the garden center. A touch of the tropics hit Garden Supply this week with a big shipment of beautiful perennials and tropicals from Monrovia.  For 84 years, Monrovia has pioneered many new technologies and plant introductions including hundreds of patented plants, making them a leader in developing fabulous plants that will thrive in your garden.

Now keep in mind that since central North Carolina is in Zone 7, our winters are a bit too cool for these tropics-loving plants, but don't let that deter you.  These gorgeous plants will thrive in our hot summer, providing you with lots of drought-tolerant showy blossoms all season long.  Treat them as you would any summer annual.  They do great in your container gardens, many can be grown in topiary form or trained to a trellis, and most offer interesting foliar texture as well as stunning flowers.

These topiary-form tree hibiscus do wonderfully in a pot on your deck or porch.  Just make sure they get lots of sun.

These are the 'Orange King" and "Purple Queen" Bougainvillea.  The 'Orange King' has a strong vining habit providing quick cover and beautiful, showy masses of bronze-orange flowers.  They do great in patio containers and hanging baskets.

The 'Purple Queen' has rich, deep purple blooms which are displayed against handsome green foliage.  It has a compact, upright and spreading form.  Wonderful for planter boxes, fences or arbors.

We also have the Barbara Karst Bougainvillea in both topiary tree form and spreading form.

The spreading form offers a vigorous, showy vine with bright magenta-red blooms.  Gives a fine cover to patios or arbors, and is also a good ground cover for banks.

This next beauty is the 'Sun Parasol' Crimson Mandevilla. It is excellent for patio containers, offering a bushy vine with large trumpet-shaped flowers.

If you are looking for a touch of textural interest, check out this fun and whimsical 'Pony Tail Fern', Asparagus densiflorus 'myers'.

This plants boasts long plume-like stems that hold soft, needle-like leaves.  Its fluffy appearance adds unusual textural contrast to container gardens.

And finally today, I would like to share with you another plant with fabulous foliar structure, the Black Jack Fig.

This attractive garden tree has sweet, elongated fruit in summer.  Its semi-dwarf form makes it a good choice where space is limited.

I hope you all have enjoyed this small taste of the tropics here in the heart of North Carolina.  Puts me in the mind of cool sea breezes, palm trees, and sandy beaches.  Time to bust out the Hawaiian print shirts and head on down to the garden center, as these plants won't be around for long. I couldn't help but notice they were getting snatched up yesterday about as quickly as they could be unloaded. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  We have many more new plants to share with you all, so I'll see you back here soon for more snippets from the garden.