More Azaleas!

The azaleas are still blooming away, although it is quickly approaching the end. I hate to see them go, as they are so colorful and cheerful!

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Azaleas are the quintessential southern spring flower.

They signal the start of spring in my zone 9 garden, and come in hues of bright fuschia, white, violet, sunset orange, red, and hot pink to name a few. When I was a kid, there wasn't a yard that didn't have at least a handful of azaleas scattered around. Many had the giant 7 foot tall Formosa varieties that were covered in blooms. But now, you see fewer and fewer as professional landscapers fail to add this southern staple to new yards. Happy Valentine's Day to all of the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day bloggers!

A Breath of Fresh Air

It was a dreary day as I sat working on the computer, when all of a sudden the sun popped out. I glanced out the window for a look, and there it was - a splash of spring green reflecting the sunlight. My neighbor's Laurel oak was awash in brand new leaves. I couldn't believe it! I jumped up to check on our tree but it was still in the process with teensy little baby leaves just beginning to pop out. I was amazed at how quietly and quickly the tree had transformed itself from winter to spring. It is the "star" of the neighborhood, as it is the first to announce spring is arriving.

A Magical Discovery

My daughter and I were walking in the woods behind our home when we happened upon seven zebra longwing butterflies hanging from an oak branch. They were folded up flat and blended in so well that it is amazing that she saw them. It was a dreary day and the woods were dark from the thick canopy, and they seemed to be napping. At first we thought they had just hatched from their cocoons, but we couldn't find any remnants of them.



We startled them and they began to flutter all around us. I tried to snap a photo of them but it was impossible to see them in flight, so I settled for the one below as he settled back on the oak limb. We were totally delighted with our magical discovery.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

This turned out to be the prettiest combination I've ever done in a container. I just love the smoky blue green color of the ornamental cabbage. It seems the colder it gets, the more colorful it is. The other flowers are a trailing petunia and a blue sage which both withstood the recent freezing temps. By the way, I wish I could take credit for having a sharp eye for color but this was by pure luck that it turned out so nice.

What's That Smell?

Everytime I step outside I smell it. A pungent odor that permeates the air. It's the smell of my freeze-burned plants as they continue their slow demise. It's weird, but the damage was worse 3 to 5 days after the freeze. Black wilted leaves continue to hang from several large tropical plants and the crotons continue to shrivel up. But the odor of death hangs heavy in the air as I patiently wait, clippers in hand!

Before and After

This is the plant I was most sorry to see freeze. My poinsettias did so well this year, blooming early in December. At least I got to enjoy them through Christmas.

Calculating the Damage

Temperatures were close to 32 degrees at 10:30 last night and this morning they were a bone-chilling 30 degrees. So, as expected many tender tropicals were cooked. Fortunately, the winds kept any frost from settling on the grass so it is still green.
The angel trumpet leaves look like wilted greens.
The glorybowers are toast, but they needed a major pruning anyway.
This croton really took a beating, but it also needed a major pruning in spring.
These jewels of opar are probably one of the most cold sensitive plants in my yard. They look like this when temps get into the high 30's. Too tender for this part of Florida.
And the impatiens are hanging their sad little heads this morning. They also needed a major spring pruning. The good news is that the crinum lilies and the bromeliads look great.

All Bundled Up for the First Winter Chill

Old Man Winter is dropping by for a visit, so we've been busy brining in orchids and other tender plants, and bundling up a few others that are too big to bring indoors.


Plants are everywhere! We had to use the dining room table instead of the floor this year because of a new kitten in the house.

Even the kitchen counter is doing double duty.




These staghorns covered with blankets dangle from the trees like hugh chandeliers.

Color in the December Garden

The poinsettias did well this year. They bloomed right on schedule.

A holiday bromeliad,
and holly berries for the mockingbirds.

And a little bit of yellow, as well.

A Festive Holiday Bromeliad

I love the blossoms on this bromeliad. They look like little yellow pineapples. The neat thing about this bromeliad is that you get a little extra mileage out of the blooms because they change color from yellow (for Thanksgiving) to red (for Christmas).

Color Combinations

Note to myself: I saw a beautiful color combination in a nicely landscaped yard yesterday. It consisted of: crinum lily, oyster plants, purple lantana and a white plumbago.

Taking a Cue From Mother Nature

This photograph shows an area to the rear of my yard in which I plan to create a wildlife garden. It is also the place where I found the "terrific weeds" that I mentioned in a previous post.
This past summer I used round-up to eliminate some of those "terrific weeds" so that my planting beds would be nice and neat. I planted some young trees, and recently have been accumulating a list of plants, in my mind, for various types of wildlife. It wasn't until I wrote the post about those "terrific weeds" that I realized this area already is a wildlife haven. And, if I proceed with my plan to remove what's there and plant "my favorites," they may not be the "favorites" of the wildlife in the area.
This thought caused me to pause and reconsider my original plan. Mother Nature is a much more experienced gardener than I, and while I may add some additional food and nectar sources, I will leave all of those "terrific weeds" that the butterflies, bees and grasshoppers like so much. In my attempt to "beautify" this area to my own liking, I was eliminating what is beautiful and beneficial to those there before me. That was a real eye opener!

Learning from my Plants

As I was taking this picture it occurred to me how this exotic looking bromeliad so aptly reflects the paradox of life. Like life, it is both soft and prickly at the same time. Learning to live in the boundary between the two brings understanding and gratitude for the good and the bad, as both are compassionate teachers.

myly

A Super-sized Butterfly

As I walked out to get the mail one afternoon, I spotted this HUGE butterfly (Eastern Tiger Swallowtail) out of the corner of my eye. I quickly ran back inside for my camera, and lucky for me this big fella was in no hurry to leave this plentiful source (glory bower) of nectar. I was fascinated by his size, and he was very agreeable to posing for me while I snapped multiple shots of him. This one turned out the best, but I couldn't resist including this other shot of him in flight. The movement of his wings blurred the lines and seemed to create the look of a periwinkle blue aura surrounding him. Cool!

A Bright Fall Day

Walking along the shores of Lake Harris, I couldn't help but snap this photo of the brilliantly blue water as viewed through the towering cypress trees. The temperature was in that perfect zone (high 70's with no humidity), and the warm glow of autumn sunlight was working its magic on the normally murky colored water.

Cypress trees are always a mystery to me. As you can see the shortest tree on the left side of the photo is actually a young tree growing out of an old tree that is no longer in existence. I always have to wonder what happened to the original tree. Perhaps some strong hurricane wind snapped it off, or maybe this rotting stump is the remnants of an ancient cypress from days gone by. And, then there are the cypress knees - those knubby growths of wood in various sizes that encircle the mother tree. They are definitely mysterious and otherworldly.

Terrific Weeds

These weeds (for lack of a better word) growing on the rear of our property, in an area untouched by me, are very attractive to the butterflies. I probably wouldn't have even noticed them had I not been looking down in order to avoid a snake hidden in the tall grass. I am sorry to say that I don't know their names because they are certainly worthy of being known. They are simple little flowers that were attracting a variety of butterflies in all sizes. They darted from flower to flower, happily sipping nectar on a sunny autumn afternoon.


This looks like a morning glory but it wasn't growing on a vine. Perhaps it is a wild petunia.

This one was the butterflies favorite!

I believe it was Emerson who said, "A weed is a plant whose virtues have not been discovered."

Let it Rain!

The sun was shining when all of a sudden a passing cloud burst and showered us with much needed rain. I quickly grabbed my camera to see if I could photograph the rain. Rain is one of those elements that is very difficult to photograph. It just doesn't stand still! But my little Sony did a pretty good job as the sun lit up the background. I love the way the old oak is illuminated and serves as a background to capture the torrent of rain drops that fell on us this day.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Rain in Summer sums up my thoughts on the rain perfectly - How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and the heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain!

A Giant of a Begonia

This begonia is a real beauty. My neighbor, Nancy a/k/a "gardener extraordinaire" gave it to me when it was a wee little plant. Her plant was at least 5' tall and gorgeous. I stuck it in the ground and it is now about 3' tall. I knew it was a begonia but I didn't know its official name until I saw a picture of it in the Aug/Sept issue of Florida Gardening magazine in the article about Valkaria Tropical Gardens. It is called a lotus-leafed begonia (B. nelumbiifolia). It gets a tall spike of creamy white (small) flowers. The flowers pale in comparison to the leaf. As an old-timer greenhouse plantsman once told us, "If the leaf is beautiful then the flower is usually blah!"

Butterfly Rainforest

I wish I could say that these images of beautiful butterflies were taken in my own backyard, but the truth is that these "flying flowers" are part of what we saw in the Butterfly Rainforest at the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History. There were lots and lots of them fluttering all around us, happy as a lark sipping nectar from the array of beautiful tropical plants. This was a fun trip for all of us (mother, daughter & me), and I highly recommend a visit to this living exhibit of some of God's most exquisite creatures. Pictured from left to right: a view of the plants, Monarch, Owl butterfly, and the unbelievable Blue Morpho butterfly.

The New Neighborhood is a Bit Wild

It’s an eclectic mix of homes from the 20’s to the present. A neighborhood of the past, unlike the subdivisions of today. But what makes it such a wild place is the inhabitants. No, not the neighbors who live in the homes on our street, but the ones who live in the trees, the lake and the wooded areas. The place has a wildness about it - a touch of “Old Florida.” Century old live oaks that could tell some tales if only they could talk, alligators and herons just feet apart in the tannin-colored water, unusually large Pileated woodpeckers snatching insects off old maple trees with rotted out cavities in their trunks, hawks taking off with field mice and snakes in their talons, osprey who raise their young in nests perched atop the bald cypress trees,

an otter that hobbles down the road in the early morning hours, fireflies alight in the tall grass of the neighboring field, and many nocturnal animals I have yet to see. The area is alive with the sound of nature - frogs croaking at night, osprey chatting all day, crickets making music as they rub their limbs together and grasshoppers humming.

There is a mix of tree varieties - none of them having been planted by anyone. The live oaks draped heavily in Spanish moss, maples, bald cypress, cabbage and queen palms, camphor, mulberry, sweet gum and even banana plants.

But the Cabbage palms (state palm) splattered throughout the wide expanses of open fields speak to me the deepest. Grown from a seed dropped by a bird of unknown species, left undisturbed for years to grow on their own. It’s this vision of the cabbage palms more than any other that gives this place a feel of the wild for me. It is a vision from my childhood. A once common sight along Florida highways that I remember well - A group of tall and lanky palms thriving in open fields of green with a background of clear blue sky and puffed up white clouds. It is an ordinary landscape scene in old paintings of Florida. One that is seen less often as more and more of Florida is gobbled up by development. It is these Cabbage palms that I cherish the most. They remind me of how Florida used to be.

I know there are many more “wild” neighbors I’ve yet to meet, and I look forward to discovering them in this place that speaks to the soul.

Bet You'll Never Guess What's in this Photo

I couldn't resist snapping this shot in the dark, and I was actually surprised that it turned out as well as it did with my little camera.

Can you guess what it is? Give up? Okay, I'll tell you. It's a spider (see the spider in the top center) in his web that has trapped a hearty dinner of blind mosquitoes. They ought to keep him feasting for a while.

Off to a Good Start

I usually don‘t garden too much during the summer months, with the exception of mowing the lawn. And then I only do that in the evening or early morning hours. But this year I’m eager to get our new house landscaped, so I’m outside sweating away.

We’re not living in this house yet, so I plant in stages because the rain has been unreliable and we can only irrigate twice a week. I plant a small bed and then use a soaker hose with a timer to water real good for two weeks. And then I move on to the next section. So far, this system has worked really well. It’s a little slower going but we haven’t lost any plants which really surprises me. The areas that I’ve planted are wide open with no relief from the hot, searing sun. I’ve always hand-watered new plants everyday for a couple of weeks thinking they needed the extra water but I’ve discovered that plants are pretty tough little survivors. You learn something new all the time.

My goal is to use plants that do not need regular pruning - no hedge plants. In front of the porch I want low growing shrubs, and of course there must be colorful flowers or foliage everywhere. I have a really difficult time planting a plant that doesn't produce some kind of color. It seems like such a waste to plant something that is only green all year long. I want my plants to do double duty - be green and colorful!

The first of the front yard beds are planted in nandina (reddish orange leaves in fall), Indian hawthorne (white flowers in spring), fashion azaleas (reddish orange flower from fall thru winter), African irises (white, blue & yellow spring & early summer flowers), bush daisies (yellow flowers year round), blue daze (blue flowers year round), giant evergreen liriope and Aztec grass. I also planted a tabbebuia tree for it’s striking yellow spring color. I’m trying to stay with a color scheme of reddish orange, purple/blue and yellow. That sounds gross but the colors really look nice together. Really, they do!

Real Live Fossil

This skeleton of a leaf in decay looks like it is fossilized into the concrete. It is, however, the lacy remnant of a leaf that was slowly completing its life cycle and returning to the earth.

Tomato Crop - Summer 2007

This year's tomato crop was a good mix of a different variety of tomatoes. Pictured above (from left to right) are White Tomesol, Dr. Wyches Yellow, another White Tomesol, Black Cherry (also pictured on the vine) a roma tomato (don't remember the name) and red and yellow pear tomatoes. The White Tomesol was a sweet tasty tomato but it was hard to get used to the white color in the salad - it looked kind of blah. Dr. Wyches orange tomato has a mild taste, and the petite pear tomatoes are fun and full of a good squirt of tomato juice. But by far, the winner for the season is the Black Cherry tomato. It is an excellent producer and the taste is out of this world. Many times these little jewels did not make it into the house because I couldn't stop popping them into my mouth. Both the Black Cherry and the pear tomatoes are still producing (albeit slower) in the heat and humidity of August. The other tomatoes (most of them heirlooms) succumbed to disease early on, and produced only a couple of fruits each.