Archive

Tonight is the first meeting of the Flamingo Gardens Garden Club. We hope to make it an engaging and fun environment where we can learn, share, and grow, together.

An article I contributed to is in the latest issue (Spring 2025) of Horticulture magazine. Say Hello to Heliconias

Wednesday I held a Pruning 101 class in the Learning Center. I covered the basics of pruning; basically the what, when, where, why, and how. This is the last of this series of classes at the garden, going forward we will incorporate them in a less formal fashion into our garden club meetings. We …

Update: we now have 23 Florida Champion trees in the garden, the most by far in any single location in the state. Flamingo Gardens is “The Florida Champion Tree Garden” Black Calabash Record The newest tree to make the list is a Black Calabash tree. …

We are seeking feedback on starting a West Broward gardening club based at Flamingo Gardens in Davie. Follow the link for more information. Flamingo Gardens Garden Club

Wednesday afternoon I will be teaching another class at the garden. Class Description: What’s that bug? Friend or Foe? Learn how to identify common landscape insects to determine if they are beneficial or harmful, and how to manage pests safely. We will also discuss the basics of horticulture, …

I’m just finished speaking at Equality Garden club What a fantastic group of gardeners, it was a great time and I can’t believe they have almost a hundred people turn out on a Wednesday night. I talked about the garden generally, a bit of garden history, and about some of my favorite …

We have news! We have 3 new Florida Champion trees in the garden. A native Strangler Fig - Ficus aurea, A Ceylon Cinnamon tree - Cinnamomum verum, and an Apple Blossom Cassia tree - Cassia javanica were all added into the Champion Tree Registry this week. ffs.fdacs.gov/Champion trees/home.mvc/Index

Will this become the new Florida Champion Ficus aurea -Strangler Fig? We will soon find out… Stay tuned. 🌴 🌱 #tropicaltrees #floridanative #ficus

Added to the Zingiberales collection today, 8 new goodies went into the garden, two Heliconias, two Alpinias, two Calathea and two Etlingera.

Today we began a trial Mango tree rejuvenation project. Stumping back some severely overgrown mangos in the grove to see how they respond. We are following the example done by Louise King and her team at The Fruit and Spice Park in the Redlands. We will monitor and evaluate how the three specimens …

Galangal ginger Alpinia galanga blooming in the Zingiberales collection in the garden.

One of the many Florida Champion Trees at Flamingo Gardens. This is a Kukui Nut Tree, Alurites moluccanus This year we added 5 new trees to the Florida Champion Tree Registry.

We say goodbye to the summer Dinosaur exhibit today. They were fun, but now to move on to the Fall. We’ve got Rewild Florida nature art coming to the gallery, then the Harvest Festival coming up throughout October. Lots to do this week in the garden cleaning up the Dinosaur mess.

A couple of Heliconias which are blooming in the garden right now. For those that may not know, the Heliconia Society International was started at Flamingo Gardens in 1985. It then moved to Fairchild Tropic Botanical Garden and then to Hawaii where it is based today. Heliconia Society International

Coming Soon.

When bamboo flowers it dies,and makes quite a mess. These clumps are around 40 years old, and we had 7 bloom at the same time…leaving quite the maintenance nightmare. #gregariousflowering #bamboo #clumpingbamboo

The honeybees are active this morning

Garden photos from today. It’s hot out there.

www.local10.com/news/flor…

(https://www.rareplantfestival.com/)

Urgent Pet in need of immediate adoption!!! This Great Pyranese Dog (in Fort Lauderdale area) needs a home by this Friday! contact 786 214 0553 #petrescue #petadoption

youtu.be/0-hS4HoW5…

I got an early Sunday morning call in to work when a large Oak tree in the garden decided to fall apart across the tram trail overnight. Yeah for Sunday morning chainsaw work on my day off.

A reminder that hurricane season is here, have an arborist evaluate and prune your trees before they look like this Royal Poinciana. A storm blew through last night and took down the lowest major branch on this tree, which will have to come down due to the extensive trunk damage.

Gardening Presentations: My most recent wildlife gardening talk went pretty well, and I’ve decided to share all of the slides (with videos) of my talks here for anyone interested. These are specifically geared to southeast Florida, zones 10 and 11, but people in nearby regions may find them of some use as well. I …

Today I am giving a talk on landscaping for wildlife in the Flamingo Gardens Learning Center at 2pm. I’ll be discussing some of my favorite wildlife friendly practices and plants. Hoping for a decent turnout. #homegrownnationalpark #wildlifefriendlygardening #plantitwild

New work project commenced. A new raised sidewalk is being installed to connect the tram trail with the bear and otters.

Dino goes roar.

Dinosaurs are invading the garden this weekend…and are staying all summer. Dinosaurs around the world 🌴 🌱 #dinosaurs

Time for another round of garden orchid photos #tropicalplants #orchids 🌱 🌴

One of my hobbies is growing and hybridizing hot peppers. This is one I lost the tag for but it looks very, very hot, with a wicked little tail.

One of the more interesting plants in my own garden, the Elephant Yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius) is flowering now. Pollinated by flies, it exudes a putrid aroma when the flower is open. 🌱 🌴 #tropicalplants #aroids

Our King Crepe Myrtle tree is flowering again in the garden. Lagerstroemia macrocarpa is from Southeast Asia, and is a real show stopper in bloom.

Andy the Bobcat says Hi!

I haven’t posted here in a long time so to remedy that, here is an Orchid photo dump.

I taught my latest class today, this time on growing Mangos and other Tropical fruit. Attendance wasn’t very good but it was still a good discussion and we covered a lot of ground. Hopefully with increased promotion the next class will get more attendance..

Orchid Show is next weekend. : Experience the beauty and diversity of orchids and bromeliads at the 42nd International Orchid and Bromeliad Show at Flamingo Gardens, presented by the Flamingo Gardens Orchid Society.

White Handkerchief Tree in bloom.: While hard to capture in a photograph, our beautiful specimen handkerchief tree Cynometra browneoides Is blooming now in the garden Arboretum. It can be found behind the Backyard Birds enclosure. These blooms don’t last long. 🌴 #tropicaltrees #tropicalflowers

The catalytic converter thieves have moved to Broward county. My wife’s car just had the converter stolen. The dealer said they had 7 stolen cats this week.

Botanical Auctions The new biweekly auction is up at Botanical Auctions.

I was struck by the beauty of this pink-orange lichen growing on a Magnolia this morning. 🌱 🌴 #lichen

On display now in the garden: The Insect portrait macro photos of Levon Biss. www.microsculpture.net www.levonbiss.com

The Yellow Ashoka tree - Saraca thaipingensis is in full bloom now in the garden and is putting on quite the show. 🌱 🌴

PSA: this is a Brown Water Snake. It is not poisonous and is a Florida native snake that is not dangerous to people or pets. If you see one, please just leave it alone. It has an obvious rectangular brown pattern. They are often confused with Cottonmouth/Water Moccasin which has a muted striped …

Plant of the day Suessenguthia (Ruellia) multisetosa -Bolivian Violet is a large, scrambling, flowering shrub from Bolivia. It has showy pink flowers and calyxes typical of the family Acanthaceae. 🌴 🌱

Some photos and a video from the Butterfly Conservatory this am. 🌴 🌱 🦋

Our Brownea macrophylla - Panama Flame Tree has begun flowering. This is one of several related genera and species which are called handkerchief trees for the drooping new growth. 🌱 🌴 #tropicaltrees #tropicalflowers

We are planting colorful foliage plants today in the garden. Neoregelia bromeliads, Peperomia, and Aristolochia vines for hanging baskets. 🌱 🌴 🌺

I’ve been on this planet for almost sixty years, and working with plants for over thirty and this is the first time I’ve ever seen cauliflower flowers. They’re beautiful like some type of purple coral. 🌱

Photos from our second plant clinic yesterday. We had two attendees, and we discussed a lot of plant problems. Orchid care and diseases, turf grass weeds and management, fungal problems and scale insects.

Some photos from my first plant clinic at Flamingo Gardens. I’m really enjoying helping folks with their gardening and plant culture. We discussed managing fungus in turf grass, the challenges of growing on top of limestone here in suburban South Florida, new insect pests such as Thrips …

The upcoming dates for my garden plant clinics.

I’m now hosting a plant clinic once a month at the garden on Saturdays. I’ll be diagnosing problems and offering advice on proper care and maintenance of landscape plants and gardens.. Flamingo Gardens Plant Clinic

I just finished my first class/lecture. We had 10 attendees which is pretty good for the first time with limited promotion. I spoke about Horticulture in South Florida, in a very general way with a few specific problems and solutions discussed. I also threw in a couple funny anecdotes.

Back to school : Well it looks like I’m starting to do some semi-formal teaching at the garden next week. I’ll be beginning with a short Introduction to Horticulture class on Wednesday in what we are calling a popup class. I’m excited to be getting back to this kind of thing, as at my previous job …

In our garden we have a fairly large collection of Baobab trees which are found in Africa and Madagascar. Pictured is an Adansonia za which is endemic to Madagascar, where it is endangered by habitat loss. 🌱

Hello World: I guess this is my obligatory greeting and introduction post. My name is Chris, I’m the horticulture director at a botanical garden in South Florida. I’ll post here about happenings in our garden, photos and bits about subtropical and tropical plants, and my other varied interests, like …