Sunday in South Florida proved to be a sunny, blue sky cool day. I planted Arugula, Romaine Lettuce and Baby Spinach in the Potager. Getting in touch with my inner snooty gardener. I am about as French as my greyhounds or my Jeep. Potager is French for kitchen garden. I need to think of a word for a South Florida kitchen garden, preferably non French. Kitchen garden might be the answer.
We had some cold weather last week that is slowly taking its toll on the more tropical members of my garden. I live at the north end of South Florida, the Heliconias were not happy about temperatures of less than 40 degrees F and are turning brown and yellow to spite me.
I needed a little Winter Cheer and happily the garden provided. The vase is a thrift store find, made with love by some unknown and probably gone from this world potter. I hope they are feeling happy in the great beyond that I am using their vase.
The native plants are holding up admirably to the cold snap and are a large part of this vase.
The yellow flowers are Beach Sunflowers (Helianthus debilis); the bright red and apricot flowers are from the native Salvia (Salvia coccinea); orange tubular flowers from Firebush (Hamelia patens) – if you want to get into a botanical argument, this is your plant, probably from the Bahamas. The berries are from the evil scourge, Brazilian Pepper – trying to eradicate this and using the berries here. The off white fluffy stuff is from some sort of Wireweed, and then I added some Italian Flatleaf Parsley.
This is a close up of the two Salvias, both S. coccinea, the peach is my favorite and seems to have reseeded from the red that has been in the garden for a few years.
For fun, here is the Snake Plant, the flowers have been in my vases the past couple of weeks. Some call these Mother In Law Tongues (Sansiviera), they have been flowering this winter in the garden. This plant is considered invasive – and it is, we keep it at bay with the lawn mower. My own Mother In Law was fine, no need to mow her tongue!
Happy Monday, stay warm.
The Shrub Queen 
A stunning arrangement Amy. I love the vase.
Potager is fine, sometimes another language has just the right word. Kitchen garden sounds as if you have a walled garden in a huge Victorian estate. In an old gardening book I once read: ‘However small your garden, always set aside a couple of acres for potatoes’. That’s the sort of thing you do in a kitchen garden.
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Thank you. Huerto seems to be the Spanish word, if I say it will sound like Hurt O, Potager seems much better. I have 5 potato plants which have produced one potato -kitchen garden is out of the question at this point. It was a really good potato.
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One potato from 5 plants? That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Perhaps if you planted 2 acres of potatoes you might get enough for a meal.
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I hope they are not finished, I keep adding more dirt…
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I just got a packet of Corn Salad D’etampes, which is French for sure. I once read that Corn Salad or Vit has more vitamins than other lettuces.
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What the heck is corn salad? going to look. no rabbits yet.
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Oh that is a cheery winter vase – and definitely less tropical looking than your usual vases! Yes, in the absence of 2 acres it is quite permissable to call it a potager. I always smile when you show us sanseveria, as it is such a recognisable and institutional British house plant from the 60s and 70s 😉
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Two acres of potatoes sounds like way too much work. And potatoes. The Snake Plant makes me laugh too, so absurd.
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🙂
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Oh, that did my heart good to see your stunning arrangement this morning. Expert and cheery. Love that pink salvia.
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Thanks and I am glad. I am wondering if the Salvia is true to seed, I like it as well and the plant is better.
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A very cheery arrangement – love the restful blue of your vase!
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Thank you.
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I love those berries; just shows one person’s invasive plant another’s must have at any cost! We use Hypericom (wrong spelling) with a similar effect. You make me wish I lived in Florida; our cold winter this year is really getting to me, I crave some sun and heat (last summer I couldn’t imagine saying that!). I love the vase and its contents.
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Thanks, I love the Hypericum berries! Go figure. The berries are sold from California for holiday decorations, it is illegal here.
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Is is that invasive. It’s grown widely in the UK , but that’s a completely different climate, of course.
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Definitely a cheering display. You could call your garden a “sallet” garden which I believe is the medieval word for salad.I have names for different areas of my garden which some would certainly call snooty. But it is how I can talk about it to Mark and we both know where I mean. I planted Sarcococca last summer. I found a variety that is supposedly hardy to Zone 5. We’ve had such extreme cold with no snow cover that I am not sure it will survive. Like you, I want to smell this plant that everyone raves about for fragrance.
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Interesting, have you heard of poke sallet? It’s a Southern thing, a roadside weed that has to be picked at precisely the right moment or it is deadly. No, I haven’t eaten any. I hope you get a whiff of your Sarcocca!
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You mow your Sansevieria?! Those flowers are truly fabulous so maybe I should try mowing mine. I love this week’s cheerful arrangement. Those beach sunflowers scream “be happy”!
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It is hard to tell the scale of the Sansivieria, it huge (4 feet tall) and probably a mass at least 100 feet long! You need some Beach Sunflowers, they are popping up everywhere in my garden.
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I had no idea MIL’s tongue had such pretty flowers! And that it is invasive seems quite worrying considering the size of those I have seen here as indoor plants! I grew up associating them with the ‘front room’ of an old lady’s house, where children were not allowed to venture… but we did, just to peak at the monstrous plant in the bay window! I love your peachy coloured salvia. And the vase is lovely too – I am sure the potter would be quite amazed if he/she knew how much attention it is getting today! 🙂
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Weird, I know and they are huge. I remember them as dusty old plants nobody ever looked at. That Salvia needs to be named, it is really pretty.
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I have never seen a snake plant bloom. I have not seen one outside of a pot either. This is great Queen. Maybe those aren’t so boring after all.
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I have to take more pictures, it would be interesting to know where they came from. Sometimes I see vacant lots overrun by Snake Plants it is strange!
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Wow.
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Do you want to know about the Sisal Agaves – the cold is doing them in.Will take some pics.
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I love this arrangement! Bright and cheerful to light up my day up here in the hinterlands. Snake plant’s flowers really are beautiful, aren’t they?
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Thank you, Happy Monday. The flowers are beautiful and big!
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Thanks for sharing such wonderful blooms…as for the flower on the Mother in Law’s tongue, it is really beautiful…do you get the fruits? I believe when ripe it is quite delicious.
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Thank you. I haven’t seen any fruits on the MILT, though I think they are flowering more than usual. Another Dracaena produced fruit and they look like rose hips.
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MILT is truly invasive. I saw a lot the other day almost totally covered in it. You know that at one time a small wooden Florida home used to stand there and crumbled into nonexistence but the plant survived.
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It is still amazing to me the house plant run amok. It would take a bulldozer to get it out of my garden and kill the trees, so we mow.
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