March Foliage Follow Up: Monstrous Monstera

A few years back, in the summer of 2009, I was working part-time at a local garden center when a fun surprise came in our tropical order from Florida: 8 inch pots of variegated monstera deliciosa! In the 3-1/2 years I've had this plant, it's grown to the point that I'm not sure where I'm going to overwinter it next year.

Mind you, I KNEW how big these guys eventually would get. There are a couple in the rainforest biome at the garden center, and at least one of them has climbed up into the 2nd story canopy. Still, I couldn't resist. In the photo below, I included the couch arm and 3ft wide bookshelf as a reference... and then realized that two of the biggest leaves were cut out of the picture on the right!

On the smaller end of the foliage scale, one of my favorite succulents is Drunkard's Dream, hatiora salicornioides. At certain times of the year, its segments look like beer bottles, and it also shows off sweet little yellow flowers. Mine seems to be more upright than most, but there's still a lot of foliage spilling over the side of my broken birdbath. And it looks cool when backlit:

Last but not least, here's the real reason that I couldn't resist buying oncidium mendenhall 'Hildos' at the orchid sale:  It has cool leaves that are mottled with deep red!

And, like most colorful foliage, they look awesome backlit, too:

And those are the foliage highlights from around these parts today. To see more foliage from around the blogosphere, check out the comments on Pam's March Foliage Follow-Up post!

March GBBD 2012: Orchids and Snowdrops Edition

Since I've been more than challenged in terms of posting ANYTHING this year, I hope that you'll forgive me for this uncharacteristically brief Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post.  At least it's a post--and on the 15th, even!

First, An orchid I picked up at the botanical garden's post-show plant sale: Oncidium Mendenhall 'Hildos':

I like that these flowers seem otherworldly, but the foliage is the real reason I bought it. And it doesn't hurt that it looks like a botanical transformer badass in close ups:

Another orchid from the same sale, this is Miltassia Charles M Fitch 'Izumi' which came with two blooming stalks and a third stalk full of promising buds:

My third and last purchase from the show was an orchid that I've killed once already, but couldn't resist trying again. This is the last fading bloom on the "Coconut Pie Orchid," Maxillaria tenuifolia:

Other indoor blooms include Steve's poinsettia (a gift from his old office complex about 4 years ago), which I affectionately refer to as Charlie Brown:

I zoomed way in to make it look good...
but this IS the Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree of old poinsettias!

And this crazy purple heart, which has been blooming intermittently in a dark corner of the bathroom:

Outside, I can see the hellebores again now that the snow is gone. This one, with its dark petals and light, sanded-looking edges, is my current fave:

While I'm not a fan of white flowers, this one gets extra props for being in bloom in early January. The long bloom time and snowy winter is the reason for the wear and tear you can see in on the flowers in the background:

And my lone little clump of snowdrops, which live under the peach tree. I left the pits from last summer's fallen fruit in the picture so you could get a size comparison:

And that's all I've got to show off this month in terms of blooms.  For more of what's blooming around the country - and even around the world - check out Carol's post at May Dreams Gardens!  

(And check back tomorrow, too.  I managed to get a Foliage Follow Up post into the queue this month, too!)