Out of the Sunroom for the Summer

I realize I haven't updated this blog in a long time. On the other hand, none of my plants have been in the sunroom for several months, either. All of them seem very happy in the high heat and humidity we have outdoors in the Tennessee summer. I put most of the plants where they get shade for most of the morning, direct sun from noon to midafternoon, and dappled shade until nightfall. My other plants can't stand that much sun, so they get shade nearly all day.

My Dwarf Red Jamaican Banana is pictured above right. These photos were taken July 1. To the left you can see my pineapple. That's a young coffee tree on the lower right side. At the very bottom, my clove tree is in the small pot.

To the right is a closeup of my clove tree. Of the fifty seeds I ordered, this is the only healthy plant I managed to sprout and grow. As you can see, it grows very slowly.

There were two other clove seedlings I thought would make it. Both had damage to the central bud and had stems that developed where the cotyledons attached to the root stalk. Both suddenly died. I don't know why.

There have been a number of new additions. I hope I can fit them all into the sunroom before it gets cold.

To the left are two Plumeria I bought in Hawaii. One is the Singapore White variety and the other is simply White Plumeria. Unfortunately, I have now lost track of which one is which.

These plants came as rootless sticks. I followed the planting directions I found on the Internet. Both survive, but the short, fat one bloomed and leafed out long before the long skinny one. Maybe this has to do with the variety, maybe it has to do with the size of the stick. You decide.

This is my new small leaf tea plant, Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, pictured on the right. I'm going to let it grow quite a bit before I harvest any leaves. Initially, I thought Bergamot Mint would be an ideal companion plant. Then I read the Bergamot in Earl Grey is Bergamot Orange, not Bergamot Mint. Then I thought Chamomile, but the perennial species is used more for blond hair dye than tea. Now I'm back to square one.

The companion needs to be low growing so it does not compete with the tea plant. It ought to have something to do with tea or be something that is used as a tea or tisane. Suggestions?

One of my Pitcher Plants and my Venus Flytrap are in the photo on the lower right.

More pictures of new acquisitions, including a plant I've been hunting for years, soon.