It is an overcast, cool and breezy Saturday in South Florida. The raptors (Hawks, Eagles or Turkey Vultures) are flying lazy circles over my garden. I can’t tell which one unless they slow down. The Eagles are usually solitary, but the Vultures and Hawks will fly with friends. There were two overhead this morning. They are difficult to catch with the camera and the quality of the image reflects that, but it also captures the mood of the day here.
I am finally seeing some flower action in the garden. My first Zinnia bloomed this week. Surprisingly pink. Cactus Zinnias are my favorite.
Cherry tomatoes started flowering this week. I think this must be the Lost Marbles variety, which is new to me and seems to be the first to flower in both groups of tomatoes. I am a lazy labeler, waiting for the fruits to tell what kind of tomato they are. Hopefully it will set fruit. It has been cool enough for tomatoes not to set fruit this week.
Two out of three of the Mango trees sent up buds this week. They look promising, although I have found with these trees looks can be deceiving. Last year, a bit earlier, the trees started to flower and as soon the flowers were open it became very windy and only one fruit was produced from all those flowers. Mangoes are wind pollinated and if it is too windy all the pollen gets blown away and there is little fruit. God is in the details, as always. Below is a Condo Mango “Pickering”. This is a type of Mango selected to be grown on the porch of a Condo and kept under six feet tall in a container. The fruit is yummy, I am hoping for a good harvest this year.
This is a Glenn Mango, a bigger tree topping out at 30 feet. Another tasty one. And I have had two whole fruits! We bought this in honor of my late Father in Law, Glenn, who would have loved the fruit. The flowers do look very different. My third Mango tree is a Nam Doc Mai, a Thai variety known for flowering up to four times a year. This one is not flowering at all!
Another far away bird picture, but typical of my garden. I looked out the window and thought “who put a white pillowcase in the front yard?” Then realized it was a White Heron. These are spectacular birds, about four feet tall, they pass through fairly regularly eating insects and grubs. Fiona the greyhound does not know what to think of them as they are taller than she is.
That completes my Six from South Florida this Saturday. To visit more gardens via SOS follow the link http://gardenruminations.uk.com and say hello to our host, Jim.
Happy Gardening!!!
The Shrub Queen 
It hasn’t really felt like our normal winter Florida weather this year. Hope you end up having a good crop of both the tomatoes and mangos.
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I agree, it has been oddly cold and overcast. I said to my husband one day we might as well be in Atlanta! Florida addicted me to blue sky weather. I salvaged my basil, have some great heirloom parsley coming on and dill from seed! Time for marinara with fresh herbs if I ever get enough tomatoes!
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The mango leaf is really very pretty, and I guess you must be in a hurry to eat fruits! Bravo for the cherry tomatoes, here we are still only leeks and cabbage season.. so in our winter. Tomato seedlings will start in a month I guess.
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Mangoes make an attractive tree. It supposedly takes 100 days from fruit set to mango, so it will be a while. I am in a hurry for the tomatoes!
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Tomato flowers, horrah! I love the idea of mangoes in the garden, I wish you a fine crop this year. Enjoying the Florida wildlife with you. Have a great week x
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Thanks, Gill. Growing the fruit trees makes me realize I could never be a farmer! Too nerve wracking.
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Your zinnias have done well. Too early here. I would love to find a white heron or egret in my yard, but they stay by the water.
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I think the Zinnias need some more warmth, January has been colder than usual. That is interesting, don’t you live across from a lake. The river is probably a quarter mile from my house. I see white heron and ibis a lot, but never blue or darker heron.
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If I could walk straight to the lake, it is 2 blocks. We have some man made ponds where they hang out, but I have never seen them in any other area. Picky birds.
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Put in a fish pond, then you will see them!
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What a wonder to have a heron in the garden, I guess you still have fish left in your pond.
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Fortunately, I no longer have a fish pond! It would definitely be empty as the heron pass through frequently.
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Oh wow, tomato flowers! I have been looking at the packets of seed, but that’s my lot for this week!
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I can’t grow them in summer! I will be admiring yours in a few months.
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So many flower buds on the mangoes! Might each bud turn into a fruit – if all went well?
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What happens is many little flowers get pollinated and make tiny fruits, so it looks like a Nandina or something for a while. Eventually all but two or three fall off and the fruit matures.
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Mango leaves are very attractive, such a glossy dark green. I hope you get excellent fruit production this year!
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I agree. Some mangoes for me and the varmits..
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Are mango trees popular? I can remember only a few in the Los Angeles region, and only one that was large. I have never seen any here.
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They are popular and considered a good shade tree here.
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Big avocado trees are good shade trees also, but drop avocados on people below. It is funny as long it is not me they drop an avocado on.
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I have a Cuban Avocado too..
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Yes, I remember. I have no avocados yet, and will not get one until next year at the earliest. Because there were always so many around, I have never selected a cultivar before.
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That’s going to be a task..the black ones are the rage here
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Although all of my fruit cultivars are common or the sort that grew in the orchards that were here previously, I do not necessarily follow fads. I will figure it out. Some of the best I remember as a kid were those we grew ungrafted from seed, even if they took years to produce.
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I’m waiting for the Cuban a friend grew it from seed..six or seven years old.
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That is about how long it takes for seed grown trees to mature. Ours started to produce in about five years, and some waited much longer. They got so goofily tall, so we kept cutting them back.
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It looks like buds are coming along the branches.. hopefully flowers.
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You can see the branches? Have you been cutting it back?
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No.. the Cubans are a little different. I pruned it up and took some branches back to the trunk last year.
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?! How does that work?! Doesn’t that just promote even taller growth? That sounds like a problem, with those huge avocado fruits falling from half a mile up! The trees that I remember were pruned back for a few years, so got sort of mutilated. I just sort of thought that was normal for avocado trees. Grafted trees were shorter and better branched from the beginning, without upright juvenile structure, although even they develop awkward branch structure as they mature.
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The tree is 12-14′ I gave it a 6′ clear trunk as it’s near a walkway and thinned the branches on the trunk. It looks like a shade tree and is not as dense or tall as most avocado trees. That’s how the Cubans prune them..I was just following them.
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So, it is not too big. Perhaps it develops a stouter structure. The avocado trees that I remember growing from seed when I was a kid grew only two feet tall or so during their first year, but then grew more than ten feet during their second year. By their third year, there were no branches within reach of the ground. That is why we cut their tops off. Their fruit was different from the fruit that provided the seed, but I can remember only one that was no good.
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All you ever read here is don’t grow avocado from seed except Cuban..we will see how true that is if it ever produces fruit.
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Since Cuban avocado is not common here, and I have never seen it, we only know to not grow avocado from seed. Of course, that never stopped us from doing so.
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A lot of people do just to see what grows.
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It was a fad in the 1970s.
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The Zinnia is a very pretty pink. Interesting to see you have herons and hawks in/over your garden. We see white herons here when the fields have been harvested in summer, feasting on mice, toads or whatever was hiding in the wheat. Good luck with the mangoes. 😃
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The hawks migrate here, in flocks. I never realized they migrate, they are year round where I am from. I wonder what the herons are eating here? hopefully invasive lizards!
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