I was successful enough to grow this vanilla plant and made it flower hoping I will get the vanilla beans that comes after flowering. But unfortunately, no matter how I tried to pollinate the flowers, no luck with the beans. I guess, I have to look for the bee that does the job properly.
Heleconia is a tropical plant that has about 89 species and about 350 varieties which 98 percent is native to the tropical Americas. The plants can be dwarf and grows to 1 1/2 foot, and some are tree like and grows up to 30 foot high. Here in Hawaii most heleconia grow wild and invasive…
I have a vine in the garden for quite sometime and I don’t know what it was till it flowered. I was glad to keep it in the garden for as long as I could although fellow gardeners are telling me that it is just occupying a valuable space in the garden. Well, I am…
On my way to church last Sunday I came across these little purple flowers called Lantana. The profusion of flower clusters really caught my attention. Lantana belongs to the verbena family of perennial plants. They are called honey plants because the bees like them so are the butterflies especially swallowtail butterflies. Even birds like them…
I posted a picture of a shell ginger awhile ago from a garden in one of the hotels in Waikiki. I liked it so much I want to grow it myself. I bought shell ginger. But then, it would be nice to have pink ginger, red ginger and white ginger so I grow them now…
Ilang-Ilang is probably the most fragrant flower on earth. It’s the secret ingredient in most signature perfumes especially Chanel, I learned. Ilang-Ilang or Cananga odorata is a tropical tree indigenous to the Philippines. It grows tall to about 40 ft. in height. In the forests where they grow well is acidic in nature so they…