Greetings Growers & Lovers of Green Things

The Tropical Grower welcomes you to the online version of Our Garden. Check out our What’s Bloomn’ slideshow featuring last week’s flowers, cruz the latest topics at the Blog Page for information, enjoy the Photos, or just check out what’s happening this week in Garden Dirt. While we are Growing Tropical, growing is for everyone, and we’re here to share the green.

Garden Dirt

June 29, 2026

Slow Burn

As the Summer settles into its slow sweltering burn, we’re checking the weather much less.  Unless there’s a storm, what’s there to check?  It’s going to be ‘fry an egg on the hood of your car hot’, the UV will be extreme, the humidity will soak your skin and clothes, and it will rain, most likely a severe thunderstorm.  LOL!  While one would believe needing to know when the rain will hit would keep us glued to our screens, nope.  Rain, here, moves in bans.  Unless you have a reporting station at your house, the info on the app is coming from somewhere else, and it’s probably wrong.  LOL!  Live and learn.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve raced the afternoon storm home.  It pours, and I mean pours, it feels like being at a car wash and someone is literally throwing buckets directly onto your windshield, while driving.  The sun clears the clouds about 2 blocks from our house, and I have just enough time to grab my stuff and run inside as the giant drops start to spill.  Sitting here chuckling.  Life in the tropical zones.

It’s one of the reasons we get such lush, thick growth.  In addition to water feeding growth, it’s also harsh.  The planties put their energy into sturdy stems and thick leaves that hold up in the downpours.  That’s awesome for the Zinnias, not so much for the Pepper Bush.  The good news is Pepper Bush is much easier to maintain than it is to cut, and we finished the tunnel through ours last week.  Woo-Hoo!

Around Our Garden

As a reminder, we planned a tunnel running parallel to the main road through the Pepper Bush on our undeveloped property.  It goes Road, Right-of-Way, Wall of Pepper Bush, tunnel, thick Pepper Bush.  We’ve started planting the inside of the tunnel.  The goal is to get lots of new, better plants, well established by the end of the Rainy Season.  Eventually, the landscaping will get large enough for us to take out the Wall of Pepper Bush.  The problem is screening.  We need the vegetation there for noise, and to keep people from wandering up.  It’s a big project.  The tunnel was the hardest part.

Being in the woods is a happy place for me.  Clearing Pepper Bush is not.  And the final push was 30 feet of a monster tree, trunk way bigger around than me, growing almost completely on the ground sideways.  Boo-Hiss!  So much more had to be cleared around both sides than intended in this 1st push.  Blah!  But it is done, and now, lots of new plants.  Woo-Hoo!  That’s the fun part.

We also worked on removing any Dragon Fruit Cactus sections with scale.  Even though we’ve spent a year getting rid of the infection, some came back.  Best to get it out of Our Garden completely.  Being vigilant is important.  That made the fence up front lighter, and we got it propped up correctly with a new support.  Dragon Fruit Cactus is heavy, 10 pounds each before they bloom, support is important.  Check out: How to Grow Dragon Fruit.

Butterfly House

We’re switching our Harvest section for the next couple of weeks to updates on the Butterfly House.  Since we only have Tomatoes coming in, it makes perfect sense.  If you’re missing the veggies, join the club and maybe try: How to Grow Your Own Tomatoes or How to Grow Common Beans & Peas.  

The Caterpillars are happily munching everything in sight.  The original dill is just sticks.  They’ll occasionally go back to it, after they’ve devoured anything fresh and green added.  Ravenous pooping Beasties.  LOL!  So yes, we’re adding fresh food regularly.  The final Carrot plant, a bit at a time.  We’ll also be picking up some fresh Dill tomorrow.  The amount they eat has been the biggest surprise.  And, how mesmerizing they are to watch.  Everyone finds themselves wandering out and losing time.  It’s the slow munching and little sectioned feet rolling along.

Another surprising event, they whack each other, like siblings.  Some of them do.  If one of them is on a stick and another approaches, even just to move past, the one will defend its position by lifting its little head and front legs up and falling down on the other.  LOL!  “Mom, he’s touching me!”  So funny.  They’ll keep doing it until the other moves past or goes back the other way.  Mostly, they share, and you’ll find one on the top with another on the bottom of the same stick.  No cocoons, yet.  We think this is their last feasting week.  Dang.  Although it’s probably a good thing, we don’t want to run out of food.

Flowers

The Buttercups got the Feature with their dazzling yellow.  Last year, we started a new bush along the back fence in the front.  We hope it grows big and strong, constantly seeding in the cinder block planters.  The 1st few flowers emerged slowly in the Spring.  We’ve been in a drought.  But last week, it came alive with color.  The bright yellow sparkles into rich golden in the morning sun.  So pretty and plentiful.

We spent some time deadheading the wildflowers and the Orange Cosmos threw out a bunch of new flowers.  Woo-Hoo!   We got another big round of Pink Rain Lilies, and the Tiger Lilies are still going.  So pretty.  We caught the 1st few rows of newly emerged Comfrey flowers on their tiny spirals, and the Butterflies were still visiting in force.  Check out the show: What’s Bloomn’  Enjoy!    

Check out What’s Bloomn’ slideshow for more flowers or visit Garden Dirt Diary to catch up on what’s been going on around Our Garden.