Pride of Barbados

The summer brings blooms to the yard.

This flowering plant's name is "Caesalpinia pulcherrima". Other names it is know by are the Pride of Barbados and the Peacock flower.

Our neighbor had this type of plant in front of their home and we just love the colors and that it kept coming back year after year. They noticed a few seedlings that had taken root and they dug them up and gave them to us. We planted them and within a few weeks these seedlings had died.

Needless to say, when we started researching about this plant, we found out that transplanted these plants takes a lot of close watching and tender care until they are established. So in other words not easy to transplant to another location once the plant has started growing.

Once our neighbor found out about our luck with the seedlings, they gave us some of the seeds at the end of the season. We planted these and did not have any problem with them germinating and growing. These plants in the photos are four years old and just keep getting bigger and bigger each year.

They lose all their leaves in the winter and trim them back to about six inches from the ground. Even with trimming them back each year, they come back taller and thicker with more flowers each year.

These blooms have already turned into seed pods. Once they have dried out, I will be collecting them to try to start some more of them in another location. They just add a splash of bright color to the yard and make it not so dull of green and brown.