Category Archives: snowbird gardening in south florida

In A Vase on Monday – Long Stemmed Salvia

20190113_103810

For reasons unknown to me, I have a bumper crop of Tropical Red Salvia. Usually a short and somewhat scruffy looking perennial (or reseeding annual, it seems perennial due to the constant supply of seedlings). The Tropical Red Salvia this winter is bearing long, lushly foliated stems with fat blossoms. The bees were not happy with me and my clippers again.

The Tropical Red Salvia also comes in peach, pink and neon orange. I rarely get a neon orange, but I do enjoy the softer colors and seedling variation. You have to wonder why it can’t be called simply Tropical Salvia as it is native to Florida, or, Florida Salvia?

20190113_104046

Another native added to the vase, Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) – These ferns graciously popped up in the nether regions between my driveway and my neighbors fence. I have been enjoying ferns in vases since it’s arrival. The red and orange zig zag shaped bits are flowers from a Blanchetiana Bromeliad; the sprays of blue/white flowers are from Dianella (some call it Blueberry Flax), the variegated leaves are also from Dianella. Grey fuzzy foliage is from Licorice Plant (Helichryseum petiolare) – a plant in a winter container that I just cut back. I was happy to learn the Licorice Plant will grow here. More plants to propagate. Or try.

20190113_104103

I am having the exact opposite experience with China Asters and will not ask them into the garden again. I love the flowers and am not sure if this is the second or third attempt. Here is a seedling- sowed in September! Had one flower about the size of a fingernail.

20190113_154834-1

Ironically, the seedlings coming up in the pot are Tropical Red Salvia.

Life in the Garden. Happy Monday.

The Mulchmeister

20190110_151300I could be the Mulchmeister, given the love/ hate relationship with mulch that I have nurtured for years. I love the appearance mulch gives the garden – a soothing blanket of hopefully brownish material, tucking all the plants in for good growth, saving water and helping keep weeds at bay.

Unfortunately, I hate to mulch. Below is the usual result of me buying 5 bags of bark mulch. After 3, I can’t deal with schlepping the bags around anymore and it stays in the garden so long the plastic bags are rendered rust colored from the iron in the well water. And the weeds! Arggh. Florida Jurassic weeds. Oddly, the bark is still fresh as a daisy inside the bag – making me wonder what is on the stuff and in the vegetables I grow?

20190110_131051-1

 

I am learning to love again with an old friend, pinestraw. Some call it pine needles, naturally shed by Pine trees! A good thing and more sustainable than chopping down and chopping up trees to use for mulch. It occurred to me to seek out pinestraw as I was working on a project in Atlanta, using pinestraw as mulch. For some reason, pinestraw is very uncommon in South Florida-even though it is harvested in North Florida.

I began the search and after a bit of asking around was gifted with 10 bags of QuickStraw, just in time for Christmas. Compressed and bagged for storage, I can move these around easily and am not ending up covered in mulch.

20181219_123131-1

I scraped the Jurassic weeds off, put down some brown woven (the key to long lasting fabric) weed control fabric and mulched with the QuickStraw.

20190103_094620-1

Ahhh, cozy plants, just waiting for everything to grow together.

In A Vase on Monday – Yuletide Greetings

20181223_114154-1

After typing in my title, I began to wonder what is the meaning of the word, Yuletide. Seems it goes back to Norse Gods and Germanic folklore, referring to the time around the Winter Solstice, predating the celebration of Christmas by a long shot.  I will have to ponder that as I sit by a roaring fire (on the television) listening to Christmas carols, cat by my side and a greyhound at my feet. The task at hand, waiting for my holiday baking to cool, so I can pack it into tins.

20181223_114845

Gardening in South Florida changes your perspective on holiday flower arrangements. Red and white flowers can be cut from the garden, greenery and berries as well. Our wreath this year was made with Blanchetiana Bromeliad flowers and foliage from Pandanus (Screw Pine). Here is the Florida version of Yuletide Greetings.

20181220_164754-1

The flowers in my holiday arrangement are: in off white spikes, Juba Bush (Iresine diffusa), the red spikes are from Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea), darker red flowers are from Red Shrimp Plants (Justicia brandegeana), red berries are from Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terenbinthifolia), white flowers on the lower side are Sweet Begonia (Begonia odorata ‘alba’), gold sticks are twigs from native grapes, Vitis roundifolia. The finishing touch a leaf from my Papaya tree.

20181223_114207-1

Happy Holidays to all, Yuletide or not.

Amy

In A Vase on Monday -Wintry Mix

20181216_121131-1

I used to dread the words ‘Wintry Mix’ on the weather reports. It meant freezing rain mixed with other frozen precipitation. A cold and damp experience usually followed by slippery, frozen walkways. I am liking the Florida version of Wintry Mix from my garden much better than the weather kind.

20181216_121041-2

The colors seem like a mad mix, purple, coral, charteuse, pink, white and blue with a bit of vegetably burgundy and gold metallic berries for good measure. The vase is a Dansk candle holder from the 1970’s that long ago lost its partner.

20181216_121547

The centerpiece in the arrangement is a Lilac Emperor Zinnia, the other purple flowers are Tampa Verbena (Glandularia tampensis); peach flowers are from Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea); small white flowers are from White Plumbago (Plumbago scandens); white daisy flowers are Spanish Needles (Bidens alba) a cheerful, rampant, annoying wildflower.

Flowers in the background are Blueberry Flax (Dianella), the foliage is from Alabama Sunset Coleus (pink and chartruese) and some sort of Red Mustard (the burgundy leaf). Gold berries are painted fruit from the Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) tree. There was a bigger surprise than gold fruit under the tree earlier in the week.

20181214_111301-2

Glancing out my window I spied – to my surprise, a White Heron stalking something under the Gumbo Limbo tree. I watched as he or she marched over and plucked a small snake off a branch and flew away!

 

 

In A Vase On Monday – Bad Berries

20181209_151104-1

Overcast could describe the usually clear sunny skies in South Florida on Sunday, I waited for some sunlight and finally took my vase outside to snap some pictures. I barely finished the photos and planting my winter containers before the proverbial bottom dropped out and was inundated with rain.

20181209_151117-1

The berries in the vase are beautiful, but, unfortunately, very bad. They are from the Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolia) an invasive plant brought into Florida in the mid 1800s – marketed as Florida Holly. Spread by birds eating the lovely berries, Brazilian Pepper now is illegal to plant and infests more that half a million acres of land in South Florida, choking everything in its wake. Someone planted five across my backyard, undoubtedly to screen the neighbors-by the time we arrived the plants were 35 feet wide and it took us at least five years to begin winning the pepper battle. A few still survive and I saved the state of Florida hundreds of trees by cutting the berries to create this vase!

The white flowers are from Bridal Bouquet Frangipani (Plumeria pudica); grey stem is a flower from the Flapjack Kalanchoe (Kalanchoe thyrsiflora); ferns are Asian Sword Ferns. It occurred to me as I was arranging this vase, a good vase is like a good pasta sauce, it takes a few more ingredients than you would think to make it tasty!

Happy Monday.img_9976.jpg

In A Vase on Monday – Winter White

20181202_112235

Winter lasted for about two days here. The temperature was 87 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. I gave up gardening in hopes of cooler weather later in the week. My vegetable seeds were planted this week along with lettuce plants (the lettuce probably has wilted and needs water by now).

My task this morning, moving Orchids to strategic areas, so I can see the flowers from inside the house. As I was wheeling pots around, I noticed most of the flowers in the garden are white currently, no idea why. I have been watching this native wildflower called Octoberflower bloom for about a month, it started right on time, October 31st.

20181128_110712Octoberflower is native to an area called Scrub in Florida – my garden is in Scrub, so you would think these plants would enjoy my garden. Not so much.  I find them very difficult to place and grow, moving them into the native pollinator garden, one out of five made it. Although, they are great cut flowers.

20181202_111804

Here is a close up of the vase, the blue glass bowl, a Christmas gift from long ago. The Octoberflower is on the right side of the photo, tinged with pink. Next to those, probably the last flower of the Tropical Gardenia (Tabernaemontana divericata); draping the vase are Sweet Begonias (Begonia odorata ‘Alba’); some clusters of White Lantana (Lantana montevidensis ‘Alba’); the bigger spikey flowers are from Snake Plant AKA Mother In Law’s Tongues (Sansiveria cultivar ‘It Took Over My Yard’); smaller white spikes from Juba Bush (Iresine diffusa); a few sprigs of pale pink Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea). The foliage in the vase is Asparagus Fern (Asparagus densiflorus ‘sprengeri’) and another native, Wild Coffee (Psychotria nervosa) – the berries look like coffee, but you can tell by the botanical name, not something you want to drink.

I am from the American South. Wondering how many gardeners relate to the term ‘Winter White’?

My mother, a well raised lady of proper breeding:?! – would have said Winter White is an off white color appropriate to be worn in winter; whereas wearing pure white after Labor Day (early September) is an abomination.

Comments?

 

Mother In Laws Tongue Flower
Wild Coffee Psychotria nervosa

The photos, Snake Plant and Wild Coffee.

In A Vase on Monday – Winter Gardening

20181125_095403-1

The gardening season is heating up in South Florida. The reverse of most of the Northern Hemisphere, we grow vegetables in the winter as it is too hot for tomatoes or corn to pollinate in the summer. I received the last of my vegetable seeds (Haricot verte) over the weekend and will sow my vegetable garden in the next week or so.

While I grow flowers year round, I plant some of the more common summer flowers in the winter. Deciding to grow some from seed this year, I have Zinnias, Asters, Petunias, Moon Vine and Coral Vine to add to the pollinator garden and cut. The seeds were planted around the first of October and my first Zinnia bloomed this week.20181121_094921_HDR-2This is a Zinna Super Cactus Lilac Emperor, an heirloom variety. It doesn’t quite resemble the picture on the packet – not nearly as stringy or cactusy (new word?) However, it may be the biggest Zinnia I have run across (4 inches wide).

20181125_095513The vase I inherited from my mother, who bought it from the Ute Indian tribe in the Southwestern US. Accenting the Zinnia in the arrangement are in white and fragrant spikes, Sweet Almond Bush (Aloysia virgata); Purple Verbena is next, a native (Glandularia tampaensis); the deep blue flowers are from Porterweed (Stachytarpeta jamaicaensis); purple flowers with grey foliage are Barometer Bush (Luecophyllum frutescens); the background plants are Muhly Grass (Muhlbergia capillaris), Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and a sprig of Hawaiian Snowbush (Breynia nivosa).

20181124_100258_HDR-1

The pollinators attracted to my garden continue to amaze. We had two groups of honeybees resting in the garden and I spotted this dragonfly while weeding yesterday.

In A Vase on Monday – Semi Topiary

20181118_102923-1

It is Thanksgiving week in the US and I decided to try arranging a little topiary for the table in fall colors. I think of topiaries as clipped formally shaped affairs, this one is not. It is a casual, all native plants arrangement, more tree form than topiary.

20181118_102923-1

Three plants are used in this arrangement: the flowers and berries are from Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) The off white flowers are from the Juba Bush (Iresine diffusa), and the stuffings (Like a Turkey!) for the vase are from Sabal Palms (Palmetto sabal) Here is a closer look:

20181118_103546_Burst01

I don’t really know what the bits from the Sabal Palm are called, the white curly stuff on top comes from the edges of the palm fronds and the brown peat moss like material (birds use it for nests) I used to fill the vase comes from the boots (where the fronds leave the trunk of the tree and cross over)

Here is the palm:

20181118_104239The pumpkin is probably an ornamental gourd that I bought at Aldi during the Halloween season. It is holding up much better than the orange pumpkins and may last until Thanksgiving. I am not too sure about using the semi topiary on the table, there were some really odd white spiders running away from me as I was taking pictures.

And Halloween is over!

Happy Thanksgiving.