Anna, you are my kind of gal, I mix everything up too. Mother Nature does the same, so I follow her lead. I love purple, orange, and yellow together. Your garden looks lovely as always. I don't see any clashes. :o)

Anna, your garden is always gorgeous. I love the rainbow of colors and new combinations. And that owl is just hysterical! Thanks for the treat!
Julie in WPB

You have an owl? How cool is that! My yard is a bunch of colors mixed together too. I can't restrain myself to just one color. Your photos look very lush and beautiful.

Another color mixer here too! Your plants are lovely. Love the owl!

Very, Very nice! How did you propogate owls? LOL!

You're garden looks great! I'm completely in love with that owl photo. She is the cutest thing!!!!

Katkin, I used to limit myself to two or three colors for the garden and wouldn't look at plants of any other color. Then I decided I'd just get any plant I liked no matter the color. It's freeing!!! Purple orange and yellow sounds beautiful. I love hot pink and orange together. Talk about clash. It clashes so beautifully though.

Southpaw, our little owls are a hoot! Or should I say whoooot! She always seems to have that look on her face. I find her funny too.

Amberroses, this screech owl couple have nested on our property for the last four years. Mother's day three years ago I asked for a screech owl box and got one. They have come back to this box the last three. We love our happy couple.

Yay for the color mixers! Hats off to us. Now let's see some more pics.

Anna

Anna, it is beautiful. I especially like the groupings in the second photo. Very, very nice! What is the very tall plant with small red or hot pink flowers? It is on the right side of the second photo.

Thanks!
Carol

that "color wheel" thingie in art classes, i flunked. this yard is a true representation of that....but i like it! great pictures...show me more, miss south florida!

this would have been a perfect pic, if the grass was mowed:

Now, that's what I'm talking about, Izhar! Perfect example of all the colors- even the green is vibrant and looks great! Wow, you really do have a very green thumb. Thanks for sharing.

Carol, that's a costus barbatus. It is just starting to show the red bracts and a couple of yellow blooms. They will get bigger over the next couple of months. Nice plant, but borderline cold sensitive in my area.

Wallisadi, I have been incredibly busy lately but will try to get some more pics eventually.

Anna

Anna,
As always, just beautiful.
Your colors blend so well together so stop fussing!!!
and I wish I'd seen the owl when I visited..how great that you got such a good photo.
I can hardly wait to see what today's rain does for my new plants. Wasn't it wonderful?
Those begonias are the best - I'm still waiting for the cuttings to take...we'll see.
Thanks for the photos so I can keep "going" back to your garden!
Hester

Anna,

I love the colors, but I am curious about the owl house. I did not know they did those. Who makes it?

Right now I'm crazy about purple and chartreuse mixing together. I've had trouble taking photos of my plantings. If it's sunny the colors wash out and if it cloudy things look dull. The second photo is really washed out. Use a higher resolution? Any ideas?

Carol B. in Sarasota

Hester, great rain finally. I just took a little stroll and everything looks so happy and perky, fresh.

Trinigemini, the house is by Wild Birds Unlimited. They make different sizes and this size is supposedly specific for screech owls. The bird expert at the store assured me that no other birds would find the size satisfactory. However, last year when the owls were done, the red-bellied woodpeckers moved in. Over winter I would see a squirrel in there. It has been a very, very popular house.

Carol, I think your pictures look nice and bright. I'm no expert, but I think it's all in the lighting and the time of day. I like to wait till the sun is behind me and on the plants, and either early or later in the day= not midday.

Anna

I especially love bright yellow and pink next to each other, but I like all the colors mixed together, not fond of pastels, though.

Carol,
One way you can adjust for bright days is to lower your exposure compensation in your digital camera. This reduces the sensitivity of the camera's sensor. You could also use a photo editing program. Picasa and Photobucket have free ones and I think there are others out there.

I use Photoshop for most of my images and you can really bump up the impact:

Before:

After:

Hope this helps.
Julie in WPB

Love the owl picture! Great gardens everyone. Love it!

Thanks Julie, the difference is amazing. I'll work with my daughter who studied photography in art school. And I have wanted to upgrade to a better camera. I gave decent cameras to the kids for Christmas last year because I wanted one!

CB

Little green guy on green

Green on red

Colors out of control!

Oh, sis,

The native lizard is beautiful! I love those guys.

The last photo has a lot of the same color combinations as some of my areas. I bet the butterflies love that grouping.

Sis3, those pictures of the green anole are adorable. I'm with Anna; I love the native lizard. And your riot of bright colors are breathtaking. I have been way too inhibited. Anna, you are right. This is freeing. Carol B, Anna, Izhar, Sis3, you are all so inspirational! Thank you.

CB, I got my entry level dslr last year for my birthday and took a class. What a blast it has been. Love it.

Julie in WPB

I love everyone's pictures, particularly the owl. Here's a couple of mine.

Kara

I love everyones pictures!

Anna,
You should have a garden tour. Your pictures are always so beautiful! I can only image it in person.

I love the owl house and the owl in it. How neat that it gets used year round.

Kara -
I love your garden! If you look at some of my posts with pics, you'll see we garden the same way. I guess I'm still trying to have a New England cottage garden like I had 20 years ago - you seem to be there!
Thanks for the pics - and I love all the treasures that aren't plants that you've spotted around.
Thanks for the photos,
Hester

Thanks, Hester. I love cottage gardens and have found that they work very well in florida as long as you pick the right plants.

Kara

Beautiful photos everybody! I would love to have some bird and owl houses here. I bet they would do well. I'm not sure about attracting the owls with all the poultry we have but they are out there anyways. I can hear them at night.

Karalynn, I love your flower 'bed'! Your garden is a beautiful example of a Florida cottage garden. The zinnias are just lovely, and you really pull off using all the colors together very nicely. Sorry for the late post- I've been out of town for a few days.

SJN- the adult screech owls are only about seven inches tall or so, so they are not a big threat to poultry, I wouldn't think- maybe a small mouse?

Ariel- I spotted a baby on a begonia branch near the ground and another peeking out of the house about a week ago. Haven't seen any of the owls since, so I think they are done with the box for now. Will try to notice more tonight.

Thanks for posting, everyone.

Anna

These pictures are beautiful, what zone ?

I love all the colors too! And i can see I am in good company. Great photos!! I mix it up in a big way in the butterfly garden. but then in the front of my house I have a pink and yellow garden. The soft pink rain lilies, hibiscus, polyantha rose, and a love and peace rose which is yellow and pink but isn't blooming (another week) and a yellow rose which is out of the shot I took but is blooming, and a cracker rose which isn't blooming. And some alyssum which reseeds itself so I just let it go. And if you look hard you'll spot the cappelini onions too. Yes...weird I know but i have onions in my front flower bed between the roses.

Many of my plants are gifts from swaps. If you see yours...thank you!!

Anna - clashing is good, no rules, no worries...lovely garden and pictures. I'll trade you an owl for an otter ;-)

Izhar - I can't get over the contrast between the grass and the flowers. The only grass we can get to grow here with that bright green color is a temporary rye type grass during the winter. What kind of grass is that?

Carol - I'm with you on the chartreuse and purple, I've got to get some of that ornamental sweet potato.

Julie - nice photo clarification, I do the same with the "Auto Fix" feature on Photo Bucket about 90% of the time.

Julie - great pictures, how I wish I had some of the native green anoles here. The dang Cuban ones have done them all in here unfortunately :-( I love your colors too ;-)

Kara - I've got such small spaces to work with and really want to do what you're doing. I posted about a year ago about my interest in setting up a cottage garden....

Tom

Oh my gosh, these are fantastic pictures.

I love all of the colors.

FlowerLady

I'm arriving late to this party but have to say once again beautiful garden Anna. So "Florida" in bright tropical colors. I resisted orange in my yard for a long time but darn it orange is natural here and it looks so bright and cheerful in blazing sunshine.

Love love your owl, whooo wouldn't.

Denise

Anna
Beautiful as always!! What is the palm in pic 1 ??
I gave up on the color wheel a LONG time ago. If a plant flowers and it's healthy and is NOT magenta it's beautiful lol
Izhar I'd second the ?? about the type of grass?? Apparently your climate is much like S. florida but you obviously have MUCH better soil . One more ?? How the heck do you mow the grass?? gary

Izhar, my first thought re your lawn was, "it sure isn't St. Augustine!!" You'll have to forgive us Floridians if we go a little nutty over soft, narrow bladed, rich green grass. Most of us haven't seen it since we retired from our northern states.