Stachytarpheta mutabilis, Coral Porterweed

This is a cool, tall, gawkily ugly Caribbean native in my color range. I added this to the Florida garden this past week with tome trepidation. When I get back to the Arboretum, there are two sitting happily in Polyhouse 8! It is a plant that can be a bit agressive but it's also a great butterfly/hummingbird plant. I suspect conditions are harsh enough in our Florida garden that it will either not survive or will be controllable. Hey, I can always kill it!

The Containers are planted and out in the Friendship Garden

Brad has been doing xeric containers for the past few years and they just get better and better. We (the gardeners who have occasion to water them, like them because they don't require a lot of water! Everyone else likes them because they're dramatically cool. Obviously a lot of the plants are succulents, but there are palms mixed in here and there (eg. the Bismarckia in top picture) and a miscellany of curiosities: Eucalyptus, Heuchera, Lantana, etc. I've grown cacti and succulents for years, almost 50 years, and what amazes me about these containers is how much growth happens over the summer. Somehow I had the impression that these sorts of plants increased incrementally over long periods of time, but the darned things do grow if they've got soil and regular water. It makes watching them fun!