Gardening at Sunrise

I spent a restless night at my mom's place while she got over a nasty case of food poisoning, and woke up to the sound of songbirds before dawn. I watched the slash pines through the windows as they slowly shifted from black into gray before taking on a purple glow. My mom is a landscape artist. She will tell you that slash pine trees are in fact purple around sunrise and sunset, and if you paint those trunks brown they would look boring, or worse, unnatural. As my eyes adjusted to the purple trees, I decided to take a walk.

10 Container Gardening Ideas

One of the reasons we went to Disney for the honeymoon was to find great gardening inspiration, and I was especially focused on finding interesting container plantings to share here. While I got photos of tons of container combos, I've narrowed my choices down to ten photos that stood out the most for their usefulness to the home gardener. Looking for more ideas from Orlando? I've also put together an album on the Facebook Page!

DIY Hanging Birdcage Planter

Do you have a birdcage lying around and taking up space? Turn it into a hanging garden! We had a birdcage for guests at the wedding to deposit their cards into, but I knew just what to do with it when we came home. Even though our birdcage is a little more ornamental, I'm sure that real birdcages would provide a similarly novel effect. Here's how I did it!

Crazy Topiaries at Epcot

As luck would have it, the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival ended right before we arrived on our honeymoon. Come to think of it, that was rather un-lucky. Fortunately for us, the topiaries were still out to be admired by fashionably late people like ourselves! The character topiaries were constructed with metal frames, sphagnum moss and creeping fig, along with some unconventional materials like painted coir and maybe a tillandsia.

A Critic's Guide to the Mexican Garden at Epcot

Mexico was the first stop on our tour of Epcot's World Showcase. While the attractions lay inside a replica of a Mayan temple, Mr. and Mrs. Rainforest Gardener were more interested in the tropical gardens outdoors. My wife had a nice nap on the Three Caballeros ride and was disappointed to see it end, if only because it meant that she had to wake up. The gardens outdoors were wonderful for their lush display of tropical plants, but the lack of authenticity left me feeling like a nitpicking critic.

The Gardens of Epcot, Future World

This week I'll let you tag along on our honeymoon adventures... in the parks anyways.
Okay, let's face it. Epcot gets a bad rap for being the "boring" Disney theme park. If you're into gardens, however, it's definitely worth a visit! In Future World the landscaping is actually the most modern part, light years ahead of some supposedly futuristic attractions.The massed plantings of bromeliads and other architectural plants were out of this world, and nothing beats the sight of blooming jacarandas against Spaceship Earth.

DIY Tropical Wedding, Part 1

For those of you wondering where I've been over the last few weeks, all I have to say is that wedding planning is a pain in the patootie. If there's one thing we've learned through all of this chaos though, it's that the only way to get some things right is to do it yourself. That's why I've designed invitations, favors, several flower arrangements, and even the menus! While marrying my best friend was obviously the best part of the wedding, I also thoroughly enjoyed planning it with a little Rainforest Garden pizazz!

Getting Ready for My Wedding

You heard right, I'm getting married. On Sunday, actually! While I have been a little busy planning the festivities and honeymoon, rest assured that I'll have a ton of creative ideas to show you when it's over. For example, I'm using tropical plants in every floral element, designing some lush green floral arrangements, making favors out of rhipsalis cuttings, putting together a container planting... the list goes on! We'll even have some inspiring ideas from our honeymoon at Disney.

Alocasia Propagation from Cuttings

I know you're probably tired of hearing about my Alocasia "California", but this time I have more than words of adoration for my favorite specimen in the garden. You see, today I'll actually show you how to grow your own Alocasias from stem cuttings! Maybe "stem cuttings" isn't the right way to describe it though. The "stems" are really more like trunks, and the "cutting" is carried out by simply snapping the trunks off by hand. Pretty easy, huh?

Garden Design Tips: Borrow a View!

I now own an acre of land! Kind of. I spent the other day in a frantic land grab, and have now claimed the woods behind the house as my own. By clearing out the weeds and seedlings in the undergrowth I've now claimed ownership of the woods and can now survey my vast and bountiful dominion, a bountiful landscape that was under my nose all along! It's amazing how a little planning in the garden can make it bigger.