Autumn blues

Well, this morning waking up was not so nice. The weather is unfavorable and it's no time to go into the garden. The sky is grey and the clouds cannot decide if they give us rain or not. For this reason I have time to post a couple of pictures captured the least days in my garden and greenhouse.
Beginning with the same topic as the last post, my species vanda Vanda coerulea and Vanda coerulescens are blooming. No scent and the flowers last only few days, but I like them much more than hybrids. Later I will post some brightly colored pictures again the blues.

Vanda caerulea




Vanda coerulescens pink form

Laelia dayana var coerulea

Last Friday I visited a local orchids exhibition with countless hybrids in all the possible color variations and shapes. but at the end what I like the best are natural forms. Back home with 17 new specimens for my collection, my nostrils were stimulated by an intense spicy scent. My Cattleya dayana opened her first flower!


I had some troubles posting the pictures, but finally this is my C dayana coerulea!

Phelps

If I could be just half so effective as plantsman, as he is as swimmer..........

from: www.sportlive.co.za

Violets

I do not remember exactly, but must be four to five years ago that I purchased a plant with few violets as weeds in the container. They were so dark blue that I didn't clean off the surface of the container. After years they have migrated as weeds in some locations in the garden, freely cross breeding with the usual forms of Viola tricolor present in my region. The following pictures show some of the nice results.

Top: "originally purchased" violet.

Love or Hate

A friend of mine loves Kniphofias........ So I captured these pictures a couple of hours ago especially for you!

Kniphofia galpinii

Kniphofia galpinii

Addendum to not invited visitors

These pictures show the progression of the damages in less than one week!

White in the Garden

For some unknown instances some plants are precocious this year as the cold weather of the past Winter has stimulated their metabolism! My Eucryphia xnymansensis opened the first flowers just yesterday evening. And despite it was frozen to the soil, also Mandevilla laxa has begun to flower. I also perhaps discovered another factor leading to high mortality under bees... (no this is just a joke, if is true that crab spiders hunt bees they usually do not focus on this insects but hunt all possible species ).

Eucryphia xnymansensis

Mandevilla laxa

White hunter (quite probably a crab spider from the Thomisidae family)