These Are My JOTtings, Part #2

Topic #2-1: "Flora"

The flora, that I love so much, is hibiscus, and its myriad attendants.
What a beautiful flower, plant, and entourage!
Hibiscus's colors are vibrant, often red, yellow, and/or orange
like the sunset at the end of a long day.
Hibiscus plants love the heat and humidity,
which is so prevalent in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Hawaii.
Any state or country, that has a preponderance
of beaches, oceans, and hot & cold environments dancing to make airborne moisture,
no doubt grows hibiscus plants in abundance.

Since flora deals with the region and environmental habitat, where I live,
we may consider Georgia, USA to be tropical, or the cusp between tropical and temperate.
Hibiscuses thrive here during the summertime of every year as a rule,
but they must be kept in a greenhouse to overwinter, or they will die.
Since Georgia deals with subfreezing temperatures at least a few days every year,
hibiscuses are treated as annuals, unless fervently cared for by gardeners, like me, who love them.
However, I am glad to say their resiliency has amazed me, during the past six months.
Christmas Eve 2022 hurt my hibiscus plants in the greenhouse with a 10-degree freeze,
that seemed to kill them all. Yet, this summer more than one of these wonderful plants have grown out from the roots. Boy, am I ever glad!

Attending plants in this flora regional habitat, include caladiums, hostas, lantanas, ferns, begonias, and dianthuses.
Caladiums, hostas, and ferns are most notable for their leaves, which are green in most cases, but the variations of cool colors are enhanced by the additional shades of red with the caladiums.
Lantanas, begonias, and dianthuses, also, have wonderful green leaves, but their claim to fame is the glorious variety of flowers in their ranks.
The Lantana bush has small blooms of orange, red, and yellow or mixed varieties.
Begonias often have pink or red flowers.
Dianthuses have red and white blooms with variations of pink or purple in their wonderful spiky crowns, like Jesus' crown of thorns, making this plant a great illustration around Resurrection Sunday.

Tropical flora do well in the summertime environments of nearly tropical lands,
but unlike tropical climes, these plants may survive winters out-of-region,
only through the watchful care of loving gardeners.
Hibiscuses, ferns, and begonias will often die in a hard freeze.
Caladiums, hostas, and lantanas consistently die back in a hard freeze
but return in the spring by growing out from their roots. There is one caveat emptor. Caladium bulbs must be dug up each year, and overwintered inside of the gardener's house in a dry environment, usually stored in plastic grocery bags (at least, that's how I do it.)
However, Dianthuses are the hardiest plants in this flora regional habitat.
I have witnessed Dianthus plants survive the coldest of the cold and the hottest of the hot in our area. At times only the greenery of the dianthus is showing as it seems to be reserving strength to stay alive, but now in the heat of the summer in south Georgia, USA, the Dianthus plants are in full bloom.

by Jay O’Toole
on June 30th, 2023