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Published on
Friday, July 23, 2021
 By Victoria Torley Well, you now have trees and shrubs in your new yard, but you want flowers, preferably flowers with a fragrance. Enter the Crinum erubescens, the swamp lily with its wild inverted crown of petals and its lovely fragrance. The swamp lily prefers wetter areas, estuaries, and the edges of streams, although it will grow in drier areas with a bit of attention. The native variety has white flowers; cultivars can have flowers of white and pink. Either way, it’s a great garden addition as it flowers at least twice a year. Mine must love its spot in the garden as it blooms more frequently. Now to put in a word about orchids. Orchids are flowering plants that you can hang in a basket, put in the ground, or attach to a slab of wood or a tree. For that outdoor orchid, look for any of the Gongora. The flowers are scented in cinnamon or cloves and will permeate your yard for twenty feet in every direction. They are amazing. There are other fragrant native orchids, but none like the Gongora. A lot of our native plants are not fragrant. Take the Anthurium scherzerianum, a relative of the peace lily. Also called the flamingo flower, this is a small plant (10-12 inches) with bright orange flowers. The flamingo can be found wild in very wet cloud forests of the Guanacaste Province. Although we are in a wet area – we have the flooding to prove it – I have not seen the flamingo in our jungle. If you want immediate color, you need the Caladium bicolor. This is a plant that never disappoints, and many varieties are native to Costa Rica. The broad leaves are typically red, green, and white, although you can also find a beautiful white and green variety that will brighten any dull area of the garden. Want something taller? The Canna indica, Indian reed flower or Indian shot, can grow up to ten feet, although they are usually only about three to four feet tall. This is an excellent ornamental with bright orange/red flowers with a spiky leaf. Flowering is persistent during the wet season, May to December. Even the seed pods of the plant are attractive, and the seeds are easy to harvest and share or plant in another part of the yard. For a very short plant, really a ground cover, the Episcia lilacina is an excellent choice. Leaves are short, with detailed greens on the upper side and purple on the underside. Flowers are petite and pale lavender. It will spread rapidly in light shade and slowly cover an area of the garden. ------------------ Editor's note: More information on this article or about gardening, Ms. Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached at victoriatorley1@gmail.com  Real Estate
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