Drought Back Yard

 

backyard now

We do not have many flowers now due to the extended drought. We have had only 2 rains, light ones since Ian the hurricane 6 months ago. The grass is dead, and below is the Kings Mantle Bush.  

we have 3 plant blooming now, all three are drought resistant. They live with the tiny bit of water I give them and have a few blooms. The bush below is hilarious to us. Libs with no leaves, a few leaves and One Branch only Covered.

I will do two other posts on the blooms. to be continued

PS while in the yard taking these photos, fussing because THEY said we would get a rainstorm and it never came. It went South and North of us. Not One Drop!

I heard what sounded like and air raid siren going off, and thought I had time traveled to WWII and we were being attacked.

I came in the house and said Bob did you hear the air raid siren? Maybe it is a tornado. 

I went to the computer to check our weather and just as I pulled

up the below snip and said Bob, it is a tornado, 5 miles south of us in Sarasota,

 Bob said Well look at the TV and there was a bright red warning on the screen.

We did not get rain and did not get the tornado.

Happy Dance

Kings Mantle Wordy Wed

 

I took these two photos Friday morning 5/20/2022, of our Kings Mantle Bush, we have two of them and they are drought resistant, which means the bush lives on but no flowers unless they get water.

The day Bob finished painting the house and I planted ferns out front, I got so excited I decided to put a little bit of water on the ferns and 3 bushes every 3rd day.

You can see the bush is truly a king's mantle of flowers with only a few days of water, if we get rain, the bush will be magnificent.

I am focused now on the few drought resistant plants we have left in saving them without using up much of  our water supply which is limited.

I am going to try pouring cold left over coffee on them with the water. I read that it will make them grow.  only black coffee and also it is healthy to put coffee grounds around the bushes.

Stay Tuned for Results

PS I noticed when I watered them today, something is eating the stem of the flower and they are dropping the blooms.

The correct name is Thunbergia erecta, commonly called clockvine by some and Kings Mantle by others. I love the name Kings Mantle and that is what we call it.

This is the LINK to South Florida Plant Guide if you want more info. It is originally from Africa.

Not sure what you will see in color since all computers are different.

On mine they are brilliant purple with yellow centers as they are in our yard.

Bob first wife bought the bush way back in 1970 and when we moved from the house in St Pete to here we moved the bush with us. It is easy to take cuttings and make others, but we only have two.

It is a vigorous growing plant and in our tropics produces flowers year round. I suggest you look at the link to see what it will do if we ever get rain...we try to keep it about 4 or 5 feet tall but it will get much bigger if we let it.  It also comes with white blooms, but I have never seen one. Ours is the lesser known Blue Moon variety. Bob doesn't remember where she found this one, but we have not found them in our garden shops.

From Wikipedia

Purple Power

Purple is royalty as in a purple robe, associated with nobility and spirituality. 

Purple has a special almost sacred place in nature.

Lavender, Orchid, Lavender, Lilac and Violets are

delicate and precious..

Kings Mantle -Again

Google earth view gives you the amazing chance to see amazing places all over the world, from the comfort of your own home. With this amazing privilege, what do most people look at? 

Their own house, 

their friends houses, 

and mostly places they have already been 
to!-http://coolfunnyquotes.com

How do you keep an imbecile happy all his life?

Tell him a joke when he's a baby.....

What is a myth?

A female moth....

CLICK HERE FOR FORMER POSTS ON KINGS MANTLE

For Horse Lovers

Randomosity...

Did you know Cardinals can cause nervous break downs? This one sings non stop from 4 AM until well past dark... he sang one day for 12 hours with only a 10 minute break. He is sitting 50 feet up on the top of our neighbors bamboo.

CLICK HERE to here his whistle, it sounds like he is calling a dog

on the way to the trash can, I found this begonia that starts to die every time bob moves it out of the plant hospital... it has been there for 3 years. this is the only spot it will grow and I rarely see it.

Kings Mantle taken with Canon Rebel.

Same flower also known as Clock Flower taken with Nikon point and shoot... looks like different colors, but the true color is royal purple not blue.

Flowers Inside and Outside the box...

I read Flower Power on What Karen Sees, and in lesson 1. she said...Literally, get down close and shoot sideways or up.... Above and below are my kings mantle that are blooming and I took these in my normal MadSnapper way.....they are INSIDE the Box..

Tropical Kings Mantle is a shrub and is also called Bush Clock Vine

below is my version of OUTSIDE the Box

my personal favorite

I tweaked the lesson because I can't get down or back up, so I literally held my camera up, under, over and on top of the flowers, I call these Blind Shots, since I could not see what I was getting. I left them just as they came out of the camera. no edits no crops, just re sized for web

can you find the ooops?

PS... this post is my sneaky way of putting yet more of my purple flowers on my post when I said last year I was done showing these flowers.

Purple Power Flower

Kings Mantle is it's name, Purple Power Flower is it's game. The day after the rain, it was covered in around 100 blossoms, but this one was hanging off by itself, calling my name.

I have no idea where my thoughts come from, but a couple days ago this popped in my head.

When we are on skis, we are skiing, on a sled we are sledding, on skates we are skating, but when we are in a car we are riding, not carring or in a truck we are trucking not riding. When we are in a plane we are flying not planing. Go Figure the English language.

one thought led to another and I thought when mother was canning the produce from daddy's garden, she was canning it not Jarring it although she was putting it in glass jars.

Also when she put the veggies in the freezer, she was Putting Up peas, although she was really putting them down in the chest freezer, not UP.

Breaking News on Million Bells

Update on my  two post on Million Bells blooming. They are NOT million bells. Thank you to Regina Kilauea Poetry for identifying them for me.

 These lovely purple flowers are Kings Mantle also called Bush Clock Vine and are from Africa
For info on Kings Mantle Click Here  for info on Million Bells click here. I  agree with Gina, do you? 

Million Bells True color

the true color of the Million Bells with the naked eye is Bright Purple, as in color wheel purple. I did a little tweaking in PhotoShop to get an example, to show they are not blue. the camera sees blue.