White flowers on the brunfelsia shrubs appear in mass; torch and butterfly gingers; heliconias and costus; reed-stem epidendrums; terete vandas and mokara orchids.

And, this month's chores:

• Weed with tenacity. Cut back fast-growing shrubs that have put on what seems to be an enormous amount of growth; thin old growth from the center of the bird of paradise to keep the flowers coming.

• Control snails, which appear by the zillion in the rainy season. Use beer in a saucer sunk into the ground; copper screening around prized plants; snail bait (very sparingly and carefully if you have dogs), or put one-inch runners on bottoms of boards in the garden, and they'll collect on the underside.

• Leaf spots are symptomatic of rainy season fungal diseases. Yellow spots grow large and turn brown. Cut away infected leaves and isolate plants so splashes from rain/irrigation don't bounce fungus spores to the next plant. Physan 27, Truban (for orchids) and Captan are fungicides. Daconil is for black spots on roses.

• Steer clear of saddleback caterpillars on the undersides of clerodendrons, heliconias and even palm leaves. They sting.

• Vegetables to plant: cassava, chayote, malanga, Southern peas, summer squash, sweet potatoes, yard long beans.

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