Oak pollen all over town

Get out the Benadryl; the oak trees are in bloom, and have been for about a week. According to http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/quirky-weather-leads-to-worst-allergy-season-in-memory/1085266 we're in for it until the end of April. Poor Max!  Don't rub your eyes!

The beautiful tall blue wildflowers are up!

Let's hope I'm not coded again by the city, but I love these wildflowers!  They really are like spring here in Florida.

Turns out my lawn on the left was dying because the sprinkler was broken.  Poor plants were all dried out.  So fingers crossed that everything will do better now.

To Do List, 2011

Area	Upkeep:	New plantings:	Plans
Zone 1 Kuan Yi garden	everything holding its own despite Carl. I cut the passion vine down to the root, but it is already sprouting new leaves.		Golden hedge bamboo
Zone 2 Left garden	I planted alyssum, white verbena, sedum, lettuce, a pretty lavendar lantana, and a purple daisy, osteospermum hybrid which is related to the sunflowers but should be a perennial.  Seems v. hardy.	I started lettuce in my two beautiful big front pots and just to keep t hem company, I put my cucumber in there.	Elephant ear.
Zone 3 Right garden	A rebirth featuring those adorable little blue wildflowers that got me coded by the city last year and the return of the sunshine mimosa.  Hopefully the city won't cite me again.
City strip	Carl cleaned this up and put down new pavers. I must say it looks more like a garden.  Everything is doing well; even the straggly petunias are blooming!
Zone 4 Sunflower garden	The poor sunflower garden!  Carl trod it into the ground!  I trimmed it way back this weekend and planted a young one (a volunteer that had appeared in a nearby pot!)
Zone 5 Backdoor strip & lemon tree & roses	Grrrr. Those roses.
Zone 6 sunny backyard	Yeeesh.
Garage mess	Avert your eyes.

The Midas touch - Fine Gardening

 

Photo: Michelle Gervais

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...the gold pedestal really makes this corner of the garden pop. The trunks of the bananas are like columns in a room, and the the burgundy leaves of the loropetalum are their perfect companion. The huge leaves of the rice-paper plant (Tetrapanax papyrifer, USDA Hardiness Zones 6-11) add to the tropicalismo feel of this space.

The Midas touch - Fine Gardening

Nice for a shady backyard?  Like my shady backyard?  But where do you find all these things -- rice-paper plants and loropetalum?  Not at my Home Depot.

This from Lucille 4/18/2011:  If you are still wondering about this bush, I saw them today at Walmart  They are about 15 inches tall and 18-24 inches around and I think the cost was about 6 or 7 dollars.  

Very interesting!  So Lucille is now shopping at Walmart! 

My cucumbers have come up!  Look how impressed Snow is.

Even though it's sunny and nice outside right now, I feel pretty dismal about the way my yard is looking.  Looking at pictures of other people's gorgeous lush gardens does not help.  Carl hasn't finished yet and the poor plants are very downtrodden.  I feel for them. 

Spring plantings

Started: cucumber sumter. A pickling cube. Pick before 6" long. Seedlings in 7-14 days; hills 3' apart; harvest in 56 days, i.e. in the middle of March?!
               Sugar snap peas guisante azucarado. Seedlings in 7-14. 2' between plants. Harvest in about 70 days.
               Red pepper California wonder. Seedlings 10-12 days. Harvest in about 75 days.

Update:  The cukes were a wonder.  I loved harvesting a single salad cucumber every day, like a gift from my kindly plant.  The snap peas.  What snap peas? The red pepper?  Huh?

Lemongrass

Buy a fresh batch at an Asian grocery. (Or Publix?) Root.  Grow by white bench in front left sideyard. It will grow to be five feet tall with  no effort on your part and you can make tea of it and cook with it!

Tuteurs -- cheap & classy

So experienced gardeners call those four cheap bamboo stakes tied together at the top tuteurs!  JUST the thing for my front door pots.  They'll add a little height there.  These look like they are five times the height of the container -- that's a lot of added height. 

Photo: Michelle Gervais