This Summer So Far....................see photo.......

It is 12:30 pm in July and not a cloud in the sky..............'nuff said..............
The sun has us in its grasp for sure...........

I forgot what a cloud looks like...........hope to see some soon..........so do my plants...........

Hottest May, June and July............EVER............

According to my boss this has been a hot Florida summer..........read the title......the heat record is by 4 degrees on average.........gee maybe I died and did not know it...........got my deserved rewards anyway....

We also had the coldest winter ever, I think......at least we did at my house with 12 days in a row with freezing temps.......

So life is filled with extremes for sure......happy one day........stressed the next..........one can only strive for serenity.........what the &*%$ is that anyway?........

why between Rough Ralph and sore knees I think...........I think..........I think that.......

ahhhh yes......I think that going home is always good...........no, going home is GREAT...........anyone who can say that had better be thankful..........and..........

I am.............YEAH 4 MM and 4 LME..............thanks..................

Back to the photos...............research greenhouse............almost as good as home...........

Texas sage in MREC landscape..............

Mosaic Mom and I used to grow a lot of Texas sage.....
Some fond memories whenever it comes into bloom here.....

Adenium arabicum............(aka 'Stumpy').........

These are photos of my beloved Adenium arabicum (aka 'Stumpy')........ I have had this plant for at least 20 years.........the last 10 in the same pot 6-gallon pot...........

So 'Stumpy' is quite old and heavy..........at least 50 lbs........but soon stumpy will get a new pot.....

Stumpy has several traits of interest..........it has a magnificent caudex...........cuttings do not root at all for me (and I have propagated lots of Adenium from cuttings).......Stumpy does not cross with my other Adenium species...........Stumpy can take the cold (mid-30's) quite well......Stumpy has such small flowers for such a big body...........Stumpy's leaves are kind of fuzzy on the botttom......I need to try air layering Stumpy so I have a duplicate..........never seem to get there though......

Maybe one day I can get Stumpy hybrids and make plants with bigger flowers.........probably not.........but I love Stumpy anyway............

Nothin Much Today.................I am a Tired Alice.....

Below we have more MREC landscape...........a bleeding heart vine (top) and a thryallis
(aka 'tired Alice') below. I am a whooped Alice today also.... staying inside and out of the greenhouse. Wish tropical storm Bonnie was coming this way but she isn't.......we need rain.....
and the cool that goes with it............see yesterday's blog............

New Florida State Website...........

A New Florida website has just been established for Florida residents..............

Go to: @#$%^&*&%&^%$#@#$%^&* Hot.com

I can be reached at grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.com

Our Work Landscape.........i.e. Rangoon Creeper...............

I love the rangoon creeper..........
how can you not love something described as a "rampant tropical vine"....
It is............but it is also rampant bloomer..........almost smells like apples.....
This is how it looks on the fence line at work this morning..........

Our Parking Lot................

I was bored at a recent meeting so decided to film our parking lot out the window..............
It is pretty nice actually.........not many cars though since classes are over......
Anything with a tree is appreciated this time of year......
Shade is priceless..........

More old research greenhouse photos..........

A look forward to the past............

Here is the research greenhouse in 2005............
It has changed a lot.......
Progress I hope......
We have grown and thrown a HUGE number of plants........
Of course all were grown perfectly......

Japanese visitors..........

I had 3 nursery visitors from Japan this morning........2 of them had been here before.......the man in the green shirt is the interpretor........
We had a nice chat about mandevilla breeding and hybrids and then they toured the research greenhouse....They were very interested in a couple of pothos and agalonema cultivars that we are working on.....
It was an interesting tour and I enjoyed it a lot.......unusual for me.......I think it was because they were calm and quiet by nature......anyway it was good........

Pothos inflorescense plus............

Here are some newly developing flowers on our pothos breeding lines............we are lucky that they decided to bloom........

Still playing with my FLIP video camera.............below is the other Aglaonema we are propagating.....it did not show too well yesterday........

Polasek and Flip.............

The top 2 jpeg photos were made from my new FLIP video camera using video from my research greenhouse..........This is a nice way to go since the flip has good batteries compared to my old camera that eats them......After filming a stint I can go and select the frames I like to convert to jpeg...........So this is fun so far.............

Photo 1 shows a couple of new Aglaonema that we are increasing for evaluation..........
The second photo is of some seed developing on our Pothos stock plants.......that is truly an extremely rare event..............no where else will you see this..............

Finally, one more Polasek landscape photo...........

Happy Birthday Mosiac Mom..........

As usual 'nuff said..........it was a fun trip today..........many more happy birthdays to you....I love you.....

More Polasek Museum Photos.........

The landscape has really improved since my last visit........in fact I was seeing the plants more than the art.........

Anyway this little museum is a great place to visit.......the sculpture, art and plants are well worth seeing.......

and now for my new destiny........at the Polasek Sculpture Museum......

Today I went to visit with the horticulturist at the Polasek sculpture museum in Winter Park Florida. He wants to do an aroid landscape garden in part of the park. Plans include pothos, dieffenbachia, anthurium and aglaonema. We visited for an hour and then I took a bunch of photos. Below is my favorite sculpture "Man carving his own destiny". I love it.......

The gardens were fantastic..........I look forward to getting some of my plants in there in the near future. It will be a great test plot and show area......it was a great trip.....