Ajuga Reptans; A Fast Spreading Plant Can Grow in any Good Decent Garden

This fast spreading plant, sometimes called “Bugle”, has much to recommend it. It can take more foot traffic than most ground covers and is hardy to Zone 4. Once it is established, the rosettes of foliage form mats on the ground that keep weeds to a minimum. Ajuga is handsome the leaves are a rich dark green that turns to bronze in fall, and they last long past frost.

You know, in Zones 8 to 10 the plant is ever green. Some varieties such as “Bronze Beauty” are bronze all season. Others are variegated, such as “Burgundy Glow” which is marked with white, purple and pink. In late spring the plants send up attractive spikes of flowers about eight inches tall. Normally they’re an intense blue, but you can also find white, purple and red varieties.

For some reason Ajuga tends to appear, and then disappear, in lawns according to a secret program all its own. A related species A. Pyramidalis, is beautiful but doesn’t have the spreading habits. So question is how to grow Ajuga Reptans. It is recommended to grow plant in sun or shade in any good decent garden soil, but make sure it is well-drained. The plants normally spread by surface runners and can be easily divided in spring for propagation.

Hummingbird’s Favourite Flower Trumpet Vine or Campsis Radicans

Trumpet vine is a perfect example of a hummingbird plant. Its red orange two to three inch, trumpet shaped flowers, which bloom in mid-July have evolved along with the long, slender bill of the hummingbird, which pollinates them. Even the color, the hummingbird’s favorite, is designed to attract this bird. The vine clings with aerial rootlets and is very large and heavy. Although if you’ve a massive masonry chimney for it to grow on, you might need to wire it for additional support, and make sure the roots do not cling to the house if it is made of wood. An easier place to grow it is on a free standing masonry wall or over a rock pile. 

If you do not have a suitable spot and want a good hummingbird vine, grow trumpet honeysuckle instead. A hybrid, Campsis radicans x tagliabuana “Madam Galen” has even showier flowers. Both are hardy to Zone four to five. Chinese trumpet vine (C. Grandiflora) has large flowers but is hardy only to zones seven to eight. In warm climates trumpet vines can be invasive, but they are useful if you want to cover a lot of hare ground in a hurry.

How to Grow

Grow trumpet vine in full sun in moderately fertile, moist, well-drained soil. Prune it on top in winter or early spring as needed to lighten it and improve its appearance, especially if it is very heavy on top; you don’t want the flowers and the hummingbirds to be too high for you to see and top pruning will encourage new bottom growth. Propagate by layering, by removing and replanting suckers, from stem cuttings or from seed.

Tillandsia Purple Flower

Lawrance jacob, you have an adventuring spirit and a very kind heart. I wanted to find something that'd remind you that even in times of worry or doubt that you're never alone and that there's a bright light that burns within you whenever you need it. I select for you the Tillandsia Purple Flower which is an epiphytes (also called aerophytes or air plants) i.e. they normally grow without soil while attached to other plants. This flower reminds me of your sky diving, water diving free spirit.

Knock Out Rose

The "Knock-Out" rose is a shrub-rose that produces a small rose bloom in a variety of colors.  Due to its adaptation to warm climates and a year-round blooming season, this rose has become a popular fixture in the most prized of rose gardens here in Boca Raton, Florida.

Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus is a rare rose. It is a floribunda, florists rose that was discovered by W. Kordes & Sons in 2000 and is alike to Black Beauty thanks to its velvety dark red blooms but at times features yellow stripes. The rose is not steady meaning its blooms can come without stripes. Abracadabra rose discovered in 2002 is a sport of Hocus Pocus and features similar yellow streak coloration on dark red petals. Memphis Music is a red blend mini-flora that grows in similar zones is slightly alike to both Hocus Pocus and Abracadabra thanks to its dark red petals and yellow streaks.

A hundred ruffled petals

Or indeed more, and changing from palest, pearly pink-white to a deep rose hue at the center.  This ornate bloom balanced on a huge vine growing at the entrance to my cousin's garden; the variety is named "James Galway" after the great classical flautist.  And the fragrance is sweet, rich; the flowers fill all the air with their welcome.

Trichosanthes cucumerina (Snake Gourd, Chinese Cucumber)

Filled with perfume and noonday glow and rich pink Rose

Filled with perfume and noonday glow and rich pink Rose. A flamboyant rose stares at the sun.  I think this variety may be "Gertrude Jekyll"; such flowers are intensely fragrant, the plants often produce lavish blooms like this one, on long, arching stems - stems armed with fearsome thorns!  I found this picture in my archives, a memory from a walk on a bright day.

Peregrina Flower

The flowers attract butterflies in My Garden,  making this low maintenance shrub a popular plant for butterfly gardens.
Jatropha makes an excellent accent plant for South Florida shrubbery borders, patio container plant or in the garden.

The Osiria Rose, a hybrid tea rose, is very pretty

Bridge of Beautiful Rose Petals

You will see that the bright gold rose has a garden-friend walking along the edges of the petals.  The small red back of the ladybug (or ladybird) is always happy sight among flowers, where they help a gardener keep the plants free from the nuisance of various small, damaging pests - though on the elegance of a rose they often look like cheerful, misplaced buttons sewn to an evening gown!