January in the South Florida Garden

It's finally the growing season here in South Florida.  While you are perusing seed catalogs and planning your summer gardens I am busy in the garden.  You knew that the seasons were changing because the temperatures dropped: I knew the seasons were changing because the humidity dropped. 

Naked Plumeria

Your trees became a quilt of colors.  Maples become glorious red and oranges, oaks become beautifully burnished with russet, and the poplars explode in all shades of yellow.  Winds come and then the leaves fall to the ground, crunching underfoot. 

Bolivian Sunset Gloxinia

In South Florida, the leaves of my plumerias turned brown and fall off.  The jacarandas and poincianas do likewise.  No stunning displays of color as the leaves slowly turn off for the winter.  The plants know the seasons are changing because the days become shorter and the nights are longer.  They need more sunlight than is available, so they just close up shop, turn brown, fall off.  Thank goodness these trees have interesting branching patterns.  Because they look like sticks.

So, while the plumerias aren't fans of the short days, many common garden plants love the shorter days, longer nights, and lower humidity.  As soon as the days get shorter, the hardy Bolivian Gloxinias (gloxinia sylvatica) awake from their slumber and poke their heads through the soil.  By Christmas, they are always in glorious bloom.  The tubers in the photo above have returned every year for at least the last ten years.  The biggest challenge is keeping them in the bed and not in the path.  Every fall, I find new pups that insist on growing in the pathway.  They are always tucked firmly back in the bed.

Cooler nights brings on the blooms in many orchids.  Kalanchoes are also reliable winter bloomers in the South Florida garden.  

While the phalaenopsis will start to set buds to bloom in spring, the dendrobiums and cymbidiums like nighttime temperatures in the 60s and 70s.