Friday, July 15, 2011

Gardenia and Coffee

Fresh brewed coffee that is ... both have great aromas, are in the same family ... but luckily smell nothing alike.

Gardenia is a genus of 142 species of flowering plants in the coffee family
People have been giving me plants over the last year and I've had no idea what some of them are. Some died of natural causes, some the dog dug up and some were just plain ugly and I pulled them up. When the rain and humidity starts here they all begin to do what they are supposed to do.

My best survivor is this Gardenia bush ... at least I think Gardenia. The one flower smells wonderful. It just bloomed today but has about 20 more blossoms on it. My sixth year in Mexico but the first where I get to watch my plants do what they do over the whole year. I'll be able to make more educated choices next year

Gardenia the flower

Gardenia the plant

Another flower/plant

This plant/flower came along with a vine that I really like. Actually there were three plants in the same pot but the third faded when I tranplanted it. The red centers are part of the leaves but it does look like there may be blossoms coming in the middle. This is another that I have no idea what it is.

5 comments:

Babs said...

The top one is not a gardenia and not quite sure what it is...the bottom one is a poinsetta. It can grow as big as a tree.......
Enjoy.

sparks_mex said...

Barb ... I'll take your word on the poinsettia (that may each 15 ft) .... but there are lots of gardenias and some look similar. To me the smell tells it all ... and is like a womans (perfect) perfume

Babs said...

Maybe it is a different gardenia then the ones grown in the southern US. The leaves on the bush don't look like it. Could you photograph the bloom head on...it's difficult to tell from the side.

Gardenias are so magnificently fragrant. I loved having corsages of gardenias in high school and even carried gardenias in my bouquet when I got married!

sparks_mex said...

I'll see what they look like today. One flower has fallen from the heavy rain

Elke said...

looks like a Jasmine to me....

The construction of the house finished in April 2011 and I'm pretty much settled in. As of March 2014 I'm in preparation for rain mode for this coming summer. That includes sealing and painting things and dealing with drainage issues from last year.

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