I am joining the SOS gang this week with my latest garden adventure. Weather in South Florida is transitioning from Not Summer into Summer, rain showers have started back up, the humidity is up and a platoon of mosquitoes showed up this morning to interrupt my walk. I slathered myself in mosquito spray and braved the onslaught long enough to pot up the Frogfruit cuttings. Hoping for the dragonfly crew to show up soon and dispatch the mosquitoes.

To see more SOS posts, visit Jim at www.gardenruminations.co.uk.

The Frogfruit:

These don’t look like much right now. I want to get rid of the St. Augustine lawn in my garden. It needs too much of everything, water, sun, fertilizer and I refuse to put weed killers – especially Atrazine on my lawn. Florida, as a state, has mostly ruined their local waterways with lawn chemicals and sewage. And people wonder what happened to all the sea grass that the Manatees eat, duh. Put enough grassy weed killers on the zillions of acres of turf grass on sand and it’s going into the watershed to kill other things, especially the animals that rely on sea grass. The Manatees rely on sea grass and are starving, so the state is feeding them Romaine lettuce. I am so disgusted with these people. So, in my garden the lawn is mostly gone. And really ugly.

Rant is complete.

Turkey Tangle Frog Fruit (Phyla nodiflora) is an evergreen, low growing native wildflower – or weed, depending on who you ask. It is recommended as a lawn replacement in places other than Florida (Texas and California). It is also a host and nectar plant for many butterflies. For some reason, it is extremely difficult to source. I ordered cuttings in January and they just showed up in my mailbox. Now I have potted the rooted cuttings after several days of rehydration. Fingers crossed they grow. Who knew it would be so hard to grow weeds, uh, wildflowers.

The “lawn” as it is. Ugly!

On to prettier things.

Three miniature pineapples and a lizard on a favorite bromeliad. The minature ones are more reliable about fruiting than the big ones, but you can’t really eat them. I have read they can be juiced, but how much juice could really be in there? I like to cut these and let them dry, they are fun additions to flower arrangements.

Another oddity, Coral Plant (Jatropha multifida) The leaves look like marijuana, though the whole plant is very toxic.

A plant combination I like. On the left, the foliage, Golden Duranta (Duranta erecta); grey foliage with yellow ball flowers ‘Golf Beauty’ Craspedia; ‘Mystic Blue’ Salvia and the small yellow flowering plant is a native purslane, I am not sure which one.

Flowers on a Lotusleaf Begonia (Begonia nelumbiifolia). The leaves on this begonia are easily 18 by 18 inches. It is a great coarse texture accent in the garden – considered a roadside weed in South America, where it inhabits ditches.

That is all from lawnless land in Florida. Thanks to Jim for hosting and..

Happy Gardening!!