Pretty picture: Portulaca 'Tequila Mix'

I assume I'd seen these before this spring, but I didn't remember them, so it's been nice to be more formally introduced. Pictures of individual flowers like these maybe don't quite get the idea across - they look very nice in groups, blooming in various colors at once - but this way you can see the details in the flowers a lot better, and they're surprisingly detailed. (You can click the pictures to get even larger views of the flowers.)


I don't think I have any use for them myself (there's one planter that sort of came with the apartment, which I'm going to plant up, but that's all the outdoor space I've got, or want), but someday, perhaps. But then, I'm sort of constantly being intrigued by outdoor plants now. I start mentally putting planters together, and then it dawns on me that not only do I not have space or money for the planter I'm envisioning, but I don't even necessarily want more stuff to take care of in the first place. Summer's going to be dangerous enough, from a heat-exhaustion standpoint, as it is.


So in the end, I've got two long, narrow rectangular planters that kind of came with the apartment. Last summer, the south one was planted in nothing but Tradescantia pallida, and that worked just fine for me. This summer, I was thinking about adding a couple Synadenium grantii cuttings, because I've got them already, and then maybe something else, if I can figure out what third thing I could add. I want a coleus (Solenostemon scutellarioides), but I don't know whether the variety I want to use (either 'Fishnet Stockings' or 'Quarterback') can handle that much sun and heat. So I continue to look.