Christmas Greeting to all my Garden Blogging Friends!

All Decked out in Yellow

Red may be the color of Christmas ~ ~ but the Christmas Senna is all decked out in yellow.

Every year I eagerly anticipate seeing this LARGE shrub covered in these sunny yellow flowers.

 I'm apparently not the only one who loves this plant and its pretty flowers. For weeks bees have been hovering all around it, 

as well as wasps...

The creatures I planted this bush for ~ ~ the Cloudless Sulphur butterflies ~ ~ are showing up in abundance, too.

Turning a bright yellow as they munch away on the flowerbuds.

Who thought they would love the taste of the flowers! ??????

See what I mean.

They definitely reduce the amount of flowers, but that's okay since I planted the bush for them, and 

I'll reap the rewards by having an abundance of these beautiful yellow butterflies in my garden.

We found a number of these caterpillars spinning their crysalis on a nearby Sabal palm. How in the world do they travel 10 feet down the yard and then another 5 feet up the palm tree? Another one of nature's mysteries.

November at a Glance

Oh my gosh, it's December 9th and here I am just getting around to doing a recap on November. It's obvious to see that the holidays are upon us and time is limited, but I didn't want to miss out on posting the fall color in my November garden.

I'm participating in Dave's Fall Color Project 2011 to dispel the myth that Florida lacks fall color. We may not enjoy the massive amounts of fall color in other areas of the country but as you'll see by these photos we do enjoy a fair amount of color as far south as central Florida where I am located. 

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If cold fronts blow through as early as November the sweet gum trees in our yard turn a beautiful burgundy color. We also enjoy stunning blue skies in autumn with fewer of the puffy white clouds that abound in summer. 

Here's a close-up of the gorgeous star-shaped leaves.

Our Bald cypress trees also turn a prettier golden rust color when cooler weather comes in early November...as it did this year. Often times they will turn a more ruddish brown color, but this year we enjoyed stunning color.

Especially, when highlighted with the softer sunlight that is prevalent during autumn and winter in Florida.

The Maidencane grass which is green in spring and summer turns a golden color in autumn, and looks beautiful contrasted with the blue water.

A weekend drive through the Green Swamp (located between Polk and Lake counties) provides us with trees of varying shades of autumn color. A true delight to this native Floridian!

Thanks, Dave for your fall color project. I enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful autumn color around the country, and I enjoyed sharing photos of a Florida autumn.