A few weeks ago, I planted 300 hundred caladiums in a giant (GIANT!) bed in the middle of my garden. It is difficult for me to capture the scale of this section and its location in a single photograph, but adding it has definitely helped me create a park-like feel to the gardens, as it essentially separates two very large areas into two distinct garden rooms.
The caladiums are starting to come up, and I imagine these are probably one-third to half the size they are going to be. (And there will be a lot more red ones in the mix… they were the last ones I planted.)
If you are interested in ordering caladiums, especially in bulk, I highly recommend the folks at Caladium World in the caladium capital of Florida, Lake Placid. (The town also has a Caladium Festival every July.)
Days of Sunshine 
Beautiful design! Wishing that our plants lent themselves to a similar concept. But we are in the northern most extension of the tropical desert. When the Spanish arrived, the tallest native plants were the oaks and cottonwoods, which were confined to the moistest spots. All the iconic Southern California trees, the palms, the eucalyptus, the coral trees, the avocados, the giant birds of paradise, even the California Pepper Trees, are introduced species with the sole exception of Washingtonia palms, which are native to a few unusual alkaline oases. The pepper trees rain herbicides around themselves, so that not too many understory plants are capable of growing around them. The other bigger bushes and trees tend to the strategy of smothering in deep shade anything underfoot. We short pants the bushes anyway to deny the rattlesnakes ambush sites. The one tree suitable to growing understory plants we have is our South African Coral Tree. We inherited one mature tree which blooms in the Spring. I have planted four more plus three cockspur coral trees for landscape accents. Unfortunately we have discovered that they are so far very slow growers. Maybe they will accelerate their growth as their root systems grow. Maybe even before we are going to assisted living. In Northern California, I successfully grew assorted orchids and bromeliads in hanging moss baskets under a lathhouse. I bet that you could have a spectacular lathhouse yourself where you are. Daryl
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Wow, I didn’t know any of that! I had to look up what a lath house was. Sadly, building any new structure is verboten in our neighborhood, which is why I try to use plants creatively for structure. But we will move eventually and then I will do it. (Assuming I can ever part with this garden.)
It is a total mystery to me why some trees grow quickly and some do not. We just planted the royal poiciana tree as a wee sprig and in two months it is already taller than my husband. My fruit trees not so much.
I bought two cuttings of pink and yellow frangipani off of Etsy from a place down in Pompano Beach. I need a tutorial on how to plant them. Can I just stick them in the ground?
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