….But It’s Summer Inside the Apartment

Happy New Years!

It’s a cold, but wonderfully sunny day, and despite all the new years partying the night before, I cannot help but enjoy a  day filled with flowers. It’s one of the best things about having flowering plants! The outside world might be cold and covered with snow, but as long it’s a sunny day, it’s summer to you!

Columnea ‘Melissa’ is an awesome columnea hybrid. There are tons of everblooming columnea hybrids, but this one seems to flower heavily even when it’s a small plant. I got this columnea recently and I couldn’t be happier about it. I love the leaves and I love the flowers which look a lot like columnea ‘lava flow’ (another everblooming hybrid).

Pomegranate Nana is always listed as summer blooming, but in my experience this plant is not in bloom for maybe only 2-3 months a year, and I’ve had it for years. I tend to leave it outside until late fall, or until all the leaves fall off. Then in a week or two I bring it inside, where it starts growing again. It’s been a month and a half after “wintering” this plant. Although the leaves haven’t fully grown out yet,  there are already flowers on it. In facts, it’s covered with juicy sleek buds.

There are of course all the other blooming
plants that I have yet to move to my new place, but here are some more flowering plants from today :)…

Pavonia multiflora, though still a young, small plant, hasn’t been out of flower since it started blooming this summer. I love this plant. The bracts of the flowers are bright red and look like flowers themselves. When the plant blooms, its a beep purple flower that looks like a closed hibiscus flower.