April

In Bloom

This beautiful jacaranda at 1219 49 St. N. creates a gorgeous picture against the turquoise house, emphasized with a white picket fence.  The owners were very clever to plant a schefflera behind it to give a pleasing bushy green background, like ferns in an arrangement of roses. The jac has been in full bloom all over town for three weeks now, and purple carpets of dropped blooms have already begun to decorate lawns.

2021

Done: Weeding. Bamboo trimmed. Small path laid in backyard. 

Note to self: Don't panic! Sea grapes are shedding their leaves everywhere!

To do: Propagate blue salvia mystic spires and dill? and pink   .. Get more gaura. Plant peanuts 105 days till harvest. 

In bloom: Gerbera daisies-- just divided them, hope they make it; blue salvia, but only in planters; petunias -- didn't get enough this year, they didn't really thrive; yellow lantana; blue daze very gorgeous; angelonia seems to be coming back ok; bush daisies really happy; bougainvillea still going at it.

Back

Looks like I'll have a full bed of gallardia! 

2020 - Month of Coronavirus
Front:

Blue salvia bed was dug up, just as it was in full bloom, when Benjamin Franklin Plumbers repiped the house. It's starting to come back though.

Gerbera Daisies have been super gorgeous, but next year (if they don't survive) don't let them develop root rot! They're hard to water because of their big leaves -- better to plant them.

Mexican heather is such a necessity.  Love it, so easy, so pretty.

Trying to grow milkweed, very hard to start. Three plants out of three dozen attempts.

Begonias planted. Who knows?

Started & planted native porterweed. Makes a nice ground cover near oak tree.

Mini mums bought cheaply last year are still blooming!

PETUNIAS are a big hit. I love them more than pansies now.  So bright, so cheerful, so longlasting.  More petunias, please.  The ones I bought last October are still going strong.

Varieted sansevieria looks great, going strong.

Heather & rosemary both ok.

Yellow lantana in bloom, and spreading.

Fig tree just barely there.

Bougainvillea still blooming

Bush daisies still working it.

Back

Orchids, ground orchids, day lilies, caladiums are doing well.

Gallardia is fantastically beautiful. I only trim it back when all the seeds are off. I've planted celosia on the other side of the path, and it looks like it might take, in which case the path will be really beautiful.

  

2019

Went to a talk given by the Florida Native Plants people and got an earful.  So now I plan on uprooting my invasives and replacing them with Florida Natives and Florida Friendlies.  I knew Mexican petunias were on the bad list, but I didn't know that about sword ferns.  I won't miss them.  And asparagus fern! I love asparagus fern! I've never had any luck with foxtail fern instead. The porterweed has to go; luckily I've located the native on my walks and can sneak some cuttings.

What's in bloom:

bougainvillea started up in Nov. & won't quit.

bush daisy isn't looking very bushy, but great contrast

Staking the ground orchids seems to help

Orchids!  Next time add food in late Feb

Sweet little mimosa

New planting of vinca. Improvement over old scraggly stock

Ganges primrose just won't quit. Started in Nov.

2016

Serena Angelonia
Red Sensation Cordyline, which may well take over the pot completely. Note: a year later, I can't remember it at all.

Add to this beauty the daylilies by the back door and the caladiums, which have just now started to pop up.

Greenthumb 2012 Picks: Peppermint and Alcea

Sucker!  I bought an orchid, a small peppermint, and a giant alcea -- Vietnamese  hollyhock -- at Greenthumb last week!  Sound like the beginning of a bad joke?

The reason why peppermint doesn't grow for me in Fla is because the air temp is too hot for it!  It's like my husband Marty!  It wants to go to North Carolina during the summer.  I'll try putting it in a nice pot and keeping it in my kitchen for the duration. Bethia can grow it in a pot in her backyard, but her backyard has that giant oak tree lowering the air temp by 10 degrees.

And that gorgeous alcea?  I was wary when Robby looked at it sadly and said, "Oh, we killed ours."  Many of the buds have turned brown and dropped off and a few of the leaves. It's supposed to grow in full sun all over the US, but when they say that, they aren't talking about Florida full sun in my experience.  It's supposed to be drought tolerant but it needs to be watered twice a week, which in Florida is not drought tolerant. Update: alcea is dead as a doornail.

The orchid? Unbelievably gorgeous. People look at it and say, "Is that real?"


What have I learned from this?  The orchid came out of a local nursery. I have bought less than healthy plants from local nurseries before, but usually local nurseries don't specialize in bizarre and delicate  foreign refugees.

2011

Day lilies started blooming in the side garden in the backyard.  The ones in front are still just in bud.  What a welcome they give every morning!

December

Cut back purple fountain grass
2019

Update: Fig tree doing OK, pansies from October are looking overworked, and I have no respect for polka dot plants. Ganges primrose is everywhere, I've moved hibiscus to a pot and it's looking okay in a feeble sort of way. I still see butterflies on the Jamaican porterweed, but the native is doing okay too.  As long as the butterflies enjoy the Jamaican so much, I won't root it all out. Bougainvillea is gorgeous, climbing up the sea grapes.  

Tasks: 

• Circle the ganges primrose with a whip and a chain, keep them in beds, mulch around if necessary

New plantings:

The fig tree is struggling, down to one healthy leaf.  I can only hope it's hibernating.

I bought yellow and purple pansies, and a white polka dot plant.

In bloom: 

That beautiful and reliable Ganges primrose.  Invasive though it may be (although it still hasn't made the Undesirable List) its blue flowers still enticing bees to its mounded beds.  

The hibiscus in front of me finally began blooming.  I suppose whatever had been eating the buds died in the chillier weather, and now I'm getting a bloom or so every day.

A little bloom on the blue porterweed.  

Bougainvillea is blooming but a little ragged.  I cut it back; it wants to grow up in the sea grapes.

Disasters:
The tenting hit the succulents hard, even the ones that were not under the tent.  We just had a devastating wind but everything stood up to it very well. 

Propagating: 
polka dot plants
indoor herb garden

July

2020

7/8 planted lime tree in front

7/10 planted tangerine tree in back

7/12 started milkweed seeds. They may need a full month to germinate! As soon as they put up leaves, transplant to larger container - roots need room.

Update:

fig tree quadrangle not very appealing, fig tree still two sticks with three leaves between them.  Fertilize this month, and give extra water during droughts.

oak tree quadrangle very nice. Trimmed tree, removed laurel oak by the house so it gets more sun.  The native porterweed makes a great ground cover at the base. Rain lilies at base.  I'd like a real attention grabber at the base???

cassia quadrangle might work out.  The cassia is slowly growing, so I'm beating back the ganges. Purple vinca survived. 

city strip I took out vast quantity of ganges (which in less than a week has sent back up a million babies) and replaced the big hump with the incredibly thorny lime tree, a strange looking fella who almost looks like a plastic fake.  But has nice delicate lines.

palm tree yard All my favorite flowers have tired out, the cosmos gone, gerbera daisies not blooming, not even daisies. Only the zinnias are in full flower. We'll see what comes back now that the rains have started up again. It's a loooong wait for petunias again. The crossandra is lovely.

Backyard still wonky.  It's missing something. Like an extra acre. I dunno.  

2019

Update: Two of the hibiscus survived, but they're not exactly the answer to my dreams.  I don't know what their problem is. I suspect the dogs liked to pee on them.  Beach sunflower took back that quadrangle after the sansevieria showed no interest in filling in there.  

My experiments go on.  I'm happy with the fig tree quadrangle.  It's got a nice ground cover and the fig tree itself, if not looking great, at least is alive, and after all, it's just a baby.  I'm happy with the oak tree quadrangle. The tree itself is looking more and more like a tree, and I can just keep moving the vegetation away from it. So much for my happiness in the front.  My happiness in the back is limited to the rainforest quadrangle and the hibiscus bed.  

Pretty much everything else is still in the experimental mode. 

So here's what I need to plant: Golden mound duranta around the mounding ganges primrose, to offset it and add another layer of color? Purple sweet potato vine at the base? Rosemary in one of the big pots by the door and annual herbs in the other. And dill for the butterflies in the backyard.  My butterflies Unfortunately upon checking, none of these things are available right now.  ???

2018

Bought three HibisQs from Home Depot today, two pink and one white, and made a strip bed in the front yard adjoining the neighbors.  The blooms are really, really beautiful.  They won't grow much, only about two feet, so these aren't regular hibiscus bushes.  They're a hybrid.  Hope they're perennial.

I also planted some milkweed between them, which is already being attacked by milkweed bugs.

I uprooted the loathsome (sorry!) beach sunflower and planted that arid spot instead with the variegated sansevieria, which I like so much. Hope it does well in that sunny spot.

2014 

I've been planting way way too many yellow flowers in my front yard. Blue porterweed is knee high all over the place; vinca in various pinks balances it out, the white butterfly bush looks to be thriving, but I've really gone overboard with the yellows: there's the unwanted beach sunflower, the unwanted wedelia from next door; and now I've gone and planted yellow purslane and yellow g.
I kicked myself over the purslane, because it's a retiree's flower, only blooming at high noon when I'm at work.

But it sure is beautiful, spreading so nicely! And come to find out that it's a salad plant, incredibly rich in omega fatty acids or whatever they are!  Supposedly they propagate easily from cuttings.

House 2003

House 2013

Woeful avocado

So for Christmas this year, we bought an avocado tree.  I wanted to plant it where the dead orange tree was, and wish wish wish I had spent a little more time digging, getting the old roots out, and putting down soil for the avocado, because getting it started has been uphill all the way.  Trying to establish anything during the dry season here is just plain stupid.  

Jene's Tropical did give us very good directions from this website:  www.tropicalfruit.com

2019: I'm not at all sure that this tree wasn't suffering from a blight when we got it. Now the other tree is looking bad.

March

2022

Get Walter's Viburnum for front of house, left side: https://blogs.ifas.ufl.edu/nassauco/2017/06/11/fact-sheet-dwarf-walters-viburnum/

2021 

Fertilize citrus and avocado

Prune porterweed:  Cut the shrubs back vigorously in late spring to encourage new summer growth. Throughout the year, you can prune them lightly to maintain an even height and attractive shape

Harvest oak bloom and use as mulch

Cut back all leggy coleus.  The plants by the backdoor lily bed greatly benefited.

2019

In Bloom:  JASMINE!!!

Seedling sadness:  the milkweed grows like there's no tomorrow, but, um, it's called milkweed maybe for a reason.  The other seedlings I ordered in February are struggling.  February must be too late to start plants in Florida.  Plus, I have such a small yard, do I really need two dozen of anything? The cuttings from coleus and polka dot plant are doing fine. I did get a new set of vinca, to 'improve my gene pool'.  

Got a delivery of 2 cubic feet of soil builder from the city, almost $50 bucks.  I thought I would want more when I saw the pile, but now that I've started sharing it out, I may change my mind.  It's great stuff, like real dirt.

Future thought:  How about if I tidy up the neighbor's side yard and take out all my blue porterweed?  They'd never notice.  It would improve my breakfast view.

2018
Have a bed going in the front, meant to be like a REAL flower bed. Also mulching under lemon tree, which seems actually not to be dying. Where to put my flat of Mexican heather?

Started some peppers from the lovely new pepper plant I got at the Saturday morning market. Fingers crossed! It is a beauty:

I added some cockscomb and some Little Sunshine   as well as some mini purple lantanas.  I've tried to propagate the Little Sunshine and it's doing well, as is the lantana.

Green Thumb
I reined myself in and purchased only two plants at Green Thumb this year.  Cristina pointed out that I have quite a lot of purple and lavender already, and she's right: persian shield, purple queen, lantana, lavender itself, and all that Delhi primrose.  

So I bought three milkweeds and some sedum. I like the sedum so much, I'm thinking of plugging it in anywhere it'll be safe from trodding feet. But I purchased it to put at the feet of the tall milkweed; I'm hoping they will group together nicely, in the full sun in the front yard! 

Update: One of the milkweeds has already produced a seed pod, just one week later I've tried planting the seeds from one of them.

March 10, bought two beautiful bamboo graecilis plants from Island's Bamboo in Pinellas Park.  I hope they do well in the shady location where I've placed them. It's wonderful looking out the window at their pretty leafiness. The people at Island's Bamboo were very, very nice, and I saw the fencing of my dreams there -- bamboo framed out in redwood.  Really gorgeous.

2013: They're taller than my house, and the three little stalks in each clump have multiplied so nicely. My window now looks out onto a garden instead of a fence.  

November

2021

Planning: https://meadowbeautynursery.com/

November 2018

New gray planters, with yellow and purple pansies and white polka dot plants.

November 2017

yellow pansies
persian shield
Very nice combo. The pansies held up very well to the January frost. The purple shield did not. Next time, cover.

Both pansies and purple shield came back, pansies immediately, purple shield after a little nursing. The pansies lasted until April. The purple shield is still going strong. I should be propagating persian shield, just like coleus!

November 2013

purple pansies, chocolate chip bugleweed which lasted and lasted