Our roses are in their second flush.

Finally have some things blooming

Yellow-orange canna

Native wild petunia and a bit of purple trailing lantana in the background.

Some bulbine I rescued when the apts. next door were digging up their entire landscape. I wish I had gotten there in time for the Coonties and Amazon Lilies!

Giant native four-o'clock Second pic shows the beautiful magenta stamens. This plant will get very large, maybe 8 feet tall - and bloom until fall.

Speaking of four-o'clocks, here are the magentas. I planted a pack of mixed seeds, and these are the only ones that came up.

I was shocked that this purple salvia survived the winter.

My two Magnolia trees on the front lawn are covered with 11 " wide, very aromatic white blossoms ! Sitting on the lanai ( 15' away ) in the AM and reading a book these days is a joy,..especially with that intoxicating but mild scent !

My two mango trees are also loaded with promising looking fruits,.. mid/late June looks like I'll be getting lots of exercise hauling them all in ! ( smile )

Last but not least, wifey's butterfly garden is bursting with all kinds of different colored blossoms. Am not into the various plants, but the butterflies are, and they're putting on a daily show as they giddily flit from one to another,.... all visible directly behind the 10 ' x 20 ' lanai !

Cannot help but enjoy living here in South Florida, especially at this time of year ! :)

Joe, the magnolia in front of my apartment is slow to bloom this year, and the blooms seem to be falling off, but we have two more on the property that are blooming like mad. I always look forward to the blooms every year. It reminds me of home in SC, where magnolias grew wild everywhere.

I bet that butterfly garden is beautiful! Mine is still getting up to speed, but the four-o'clocks, lantana and salvia are blooming and the butterfly weed has buds. I need to find some sort of vine to plant on the trellis there, then it will be fine. I was hoping that the cypress vine would reseed itself, but I see no evidence of seedlings, so I'll probably go with morning glories.

Just a couple more. BTW, my pics are resized to load faster, so cllick on them to make them larger.

Purple showers. I don't ever have a problem with these getting out of control. I got cuttings from a guy down the street, and he said that the nursery told him these were hybrids that didn't spread from seed or run too bad. The only problem I have with them is that they aren't in a sunny enough spot, so they tend to flop over. I'm going to root cuttings and put some into the butterfly garden this year.

Not a flower, but my Neo "Fireball" bromeliad is coloring up nicely. This is the only spot I could get it to color up completely. It has to come inside in the winter, and it reverts back to green, but colors up once it gets back in the sun. My friend sent me one little pup of this 3 years ago, and it struggled for awhile, but now it's gone wild!

Bleeding heart vine is 10x more lush than any of previous 10 years.

Cosmos planted in February in hanging bowl... I should move it to something deeper and move out of sun, as it dries out daily. But it is so regal up on the pedestal!

Irma, those are beautiful! I have a tiny little 6-inch bleeding heart cutting I rooted over the winter, and it isn't growing at all right now. They grow so slowly until they are well established. I had on at my old house that was gorgeous, but I haven't seen many here.

Thanks dg! Had no "winter" this year in my yard... everything is blooming like gangbusters!

Wow!!! Gorgeous everybody!!!! Joe, please refresh my memory, what is that last picture. I've always wanted to grow one here in Florida but didn't know if I can grow them, I thought they prefer cooler weather? Please share your tips, indoor or outdoor, pot or inground! Also where can I find them for sale...Thanks in advance!!

Joe, love your white hibiscus and that Clivia (last picture) is amazing! Mine got eaten by slugs a few years back. I saved most of it, but it hasn't bloomed since. It was a stubborn plant to begin with, never wanted to bloom until late in the summer, then had very forgettable blooms. I don't know why I keep it, except that it's sentimental, and I grew it from a tiny little piece of one that had one damaged leaf.

Puglvr, you can grow Clivias in the ground outdoors in your zone. I had a friend who had one in the ground and she never did anything to it. It died back one year from the cold, but came right back up and bloomed like crazy.

Puglvr, Yes the last one is a clivia miniata. Some say they need cool winter temperatures for a few months and to be kept dry. I've even heard some say light should be excluded or reduced. But my experience with it has been completely different.

My clivia has never been given a chill period, and it's watered the same all year round. I tried to lessen water in winter one year to see what difference that would make and the plant lost half of it's leaves and didn't bloom until it recuperated well into summer so I never did that again.

I repot it infrequently so to keep it's roots snug. I give it very bright indirect light to dappled sun, I water it thoroughly whenever the pot begins to feel light from drying out. It blooms every year any time from late winter to late spring.

I got my clivia from my ex boss when I worked in a garden center. That was about 10 years ago. My boss had it for over 20 years. I'm only 33 so the plant may actually be older than me. I recently saw it being sold at the Greenthumb festival.

Thank you DG and Joe! Appreciate the tips on how to grow them...I'll keep an eye out for one :o)

Very pretty pics Glenn!!

In the planter

In my bed several wild flowers are blooming

plus this gorgeous daylily

In the greenhouse several orchids are still blooming. I think I posted a bunch of photos of my phals before, and they are still blooming, the ones below started blooming later. Sorry a couple are fuzzy.

Bea, great pics! Love your Orchids...I have a few of them. My yellow one like yours is putting on a show also.

Thanks Pug!

A couple more things in the bed. Evening primrose

And salvia and cosmos

Florida Joe....how fragrant is your purple datura in comparison to your Brugs?

Bea, I love your evening primrose. Is that one of your native rescues?

Blutayle, My brugs I can smell from anywhere in the yard and they're very sweet smelling. The datura, I have to go right up to in order to smell but I actually find it's scent mildly unpleasant.

DG no it's not. I brought it with me from up north.

Florida_Joes, speaking of fragrant plants, I came home from a walk to the store last night and my four-o'clocks were smelling so strong I could smell them from 8 feet away. They smell luscious!

Last year, when I had the four brugs all growing, my neighbor was working nights, and he said he looked forward to coming home and smelling them as he walked by.

dirtygardener, that must have been a nice thing to come home to. What sort of sun exposure do your four o'clocks get? I really like the white ones you posted above. They sort of remind me of Jasmine.

Some more May flowers:

Cane begonia:

Plumeria:

Florida Joes, in this bed, the magentas get morning sun up until about noon. The giant natives in another bed get southern sun from mid-morning until about 1 pm, then they get a little bit more late afternoon sun. I have one magenta inside the courtyard, where it only gets morning sun and is shaded all afternoon. They all bloom well, but the ones with more sun are more compact.

A few more from this morning.

My first rain lily bloom.

My crinum will be blooming soon. It didn't bloom at all last year.

I have strawberries! I bought this plant from the clearance section of WalMart last year. It had one berry on it, which the birds got. I don't know what variety it is, but it must be everbearing, because it's going to town now.

And last but not least, my desert rose. This is a plant I grew from seed. It's about 17 years old, and its poor trunk has been battered and scarred by many moves and sunburn, but it's still here, and blooms well every year.

A closeup of one deep red flower.

@puglvr1 asked me to post these for her. She's having problems navigating the site on her mobile device.

A gorgeous fuschia and a new red canna.

Thanks for posting them DG...I'm trying to see if I post pics now using my desktop. It seems to come and go for me Lol...

Medinilla magnifica

Very pretty puglvr

Thanks Glenn!!

DG your crinum looks great. Mine were root-killed with last winter's killer temps and are slow to come back.

Bea, Mine died back too, but they came back early. I wonder why yours haven't come back yet? What I don't like about this one is that it just blooms once. All the crinums I've had before bloomed all summer. But this one is just setting its first offshoot, so maybe it will start making more flowers some day. I also have a giant crinum I grew from seed, but it doesn't seem to want to grow at all. It's still tiny.

I have lavender Crinum and they bloom in mid to late summer but last year only one bloomed and I have many that have transplanted themselves.

Acouple more plants blooming now. :)

I had another batch of rain lilies that bloomed elsewhere in my yard last month. This batch is a total surprise! I didn't plant them.

Bea, are those rain lilies the ones with the pale pink petal tips? That's what mine are, but they used to be solid pink. I don't know what's going on with them.

Who would ever think that something as prickly and inhospitable as a cactus could have such gorgeous blooms?

It's my favorite plant. It blooms repeatedly until the days become short again. The flowers are very fragrant. This is the third time this spring that it's flushed out.

DG yes they are. They are some of my rescues and that's how they were when I found them.

Joe those flowers are gorgeous!

Thanks Bea

Joe - When I first saw the picture I was trying to spot the rest of the plant and then I realized it was the cactus blooming. The flowers are beautiful.

Vml68, when this cactus was smaller it would often produce flowers bigger than itself lol

I only have a few flowers blooming right now and all are grown in pots.

Oooh! I love your amaryllis, especially the white one. So pretty! Is that stephanotis on the bottom? I used to work for a florist, and every time I see stephanotis, I think of weddings.

Ooooh, I have a Voodoo Lily that is about to bloom again. I have lots of tropical flowers and enjoy them all, but this is one of the more unusual ones!

Linda Leaf

Linda, that is so cool! I never had a voodoo lily, but I had its cousin, giraffe's knees. It's much smaller, but it fit better into my garden, until it started to spread - everywhere! I didn't know it would do that, but somehow, it came up everywhere.

From a "$2.99" box for $1 at a dollar store, American Seed bird & Butterfly Wildflower Blend. Sown in early March. Here are the flowers so far... can't match either exactly to the names on the box.

Filled these 2 wallpaper trays (?) (I added drainage holes) with the contents of the box, been transplanting from there a bit. Next year, I'll buy the $1 boxes again and fill more sparingly. A similar box I sprinkled around the yard ... haven't seen anything come up there. Will stick with containers!

Gorgeous orchids! Is that your finger under that gardenia flower?

Thank you! Yeah my thumb is under, the rest is my hand; I got big bear paws. Just happy gardenia is finally behaving, it kept dropping all the buds. Turned around after the weather switched to a humid rainy pattern. First gardenia I haven't killed, fingers crossed.