i like flowers. which ones are pretty this time of year?

[NuttyFluffers]

any particularly nice regional flowers and colorful plants to decorate the home this holiday season? i'd appreciate any recommendations.

please insert recommendations below.

(special effort points follow for creative invectives against foreign, un-american, impure, capitulating, habitat destroying, global warming causing, post-colonial reminders of genocide and/or slavery, anti-inclusivity, slayer of animals, oppressive to people of difference, and generally "not true liberal progressive" flowers. but plain pictures are nice, too.)

i guess i'll start. when does kudzu bloom?

[KittyWampus]

1. poinsettias are native to the Americas ;) Every year they come up some funky new color

last year I noticed they had blue ones

[Retrograde]

6. Poinsettias are "forced"

They're grown in special controlled conditions to get those bracts those bright colors at just the right time.

To the OP: the US is a big place - what applies in Hawai'i is not going to hold in Maine this time of year. Here in the San Francisco area I have a few roses still blooming. If you're in the northeast or midwest, consider some branches with colorful berries if you're looking for something cheery to decorate with.

[EFerrari]

7. Someone cut back my roses in September -- they bloomed all over again.

The bushes are so loaded, they're bending.

[LiberalEsto]

14. Free the poinsettias!

Save them from "special growing condition" slavery.

[XemaSab]

2. Mexican Marigolds

which have taken up space in the yard for NATIVE flowers. We could have perfectly serviceable NATIVE flowers, but the Mexican marigolds were 1/4 the price.

[MineralMan]

4. Heck!

All the pretty flowers in my yard died, so I don't have any. Of course, I live in Minnesota, so I suppose that's the reason.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Helleborus

How are we , outside of the USA , supposed to know what will or won't grow there assuming that to be what you meant by un-American? I thought you still called anything with a flower a geranium anyway. :)

[EFerrari]

5. Roses!

A lot of them bloom best right now. :)

[Speck Tater]

8. Plastic flowers bloom year round. :) nt

[canadianbeaver]

9. I like dead flowers....the kind that roll up real nice.....

and smell kind of skunky......


:hippie:

[yellowdogintexas]

10. where do you live?

[NuttyFluffers]

15. currently in Seoul, Korea. but before in SF Bay Area

in the "American Democratic puppet state" of Korea there's the all-purpose weed growing between the sidewalk bricks. but they tend to rip up the sidewalk before the rains come to remove the weeds and let the now-exposed sand underneath turn to mud. then you have to walk in the middle of the street with the traffic! :D it's convenient that way.

i miss my poinsettia. but to bring them here would be an invasive introduction of a non-native species to overwhelm the local indigenous winter blooms... or something. but i'll see how they celebrate the holidays here, maybe there will be poinsettias colonizing in front of stores everywhere.

what does a Napa Cabbage look like in bloom? y'know, one that survived the post-kimchi harvest.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. well, I can't speak for that climate at all. zonewise, what does it compare to

over here?

If you figure that out, then you can have lots of fun on line with Breck's and other bulb companies searching out what will grow there.

Winter color is hard once you get north of the Texas Oklahoma border.

[yellowdogintexas]

11. you can probably grow pansies, they thrive here in the winter, and they come

in so many colors.

Mums might do well also, and they are perennial in most areas.

My purple shamrocks rebirth every fall.

[csziggy]

17. Second on the pansies and the mums!

Last year I planted pansies at this time of year and they bloomed through June when it got too hot for them - I am in Florida. The potted mums I stuck in the ground last year before the first frost have come back and are blooming now.

This year I am behind on my gardening with the campaign and all. But I need to get a flat of pansies and replant the front beds so I have some color there.

[mitchtv]

12. Football mums

specially groomed also, but hey, its a job, Cala lilies in Calif

[pdxmom]

13. Well, not a flower, but outside my front door, here in Oregon, I have

a gorgeous holly tree. It is in full berry and I decorate my house every year with cuttings. The berries are a brilliant red and this is one healthy tree. Taking a few snippings each year leaves plenty of berries for the birds later in the winter and gives a nice spot of color to my house for the holidays.

[rucky]

18. The ones in the Southern Hemisphere

[JNelson6563]

19. Isn't this lounge material?

I dunno, seems to me that at a political board, outside of the lounge, one would think the posts would be somehow related to politics.

Pretty flowers....?

*sigh*

[Vinca]

20. Any flower in Hawaii at this time of year.

I'll never forget our first morning of our first trip to Hawaii years ago. I went out on the lanai to see what the birds were carrying on about and there they were: hotel workers raking up the flowers that had fallen from the trees overnight. I love and miss Hawaii.

[spinbaby]

21. My Zygopetalum

It just started blooming today. I've found orchids to be an easy and economical way to have winter bloom. Give them basic care and they give you flower spikes that last for weeks or months. My Phalaenopsis routinely bloom from Christmas through April or May.

[L0oniX]

22. Jennifer Flowers still looks pretty good.

:evilgrin:

[seemunkee]

23. Christmas cactus