Wicked Gardener

Shuttin' Her Down

2012-01-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

It is a sad day, but I've been pretty busy with my life and this blog hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. I'm shutting down the comments because the spam is getting out of control. I'm still around though, and with planting season coming up, I might post here and there. I'll also try to visit your blogs as much as I can. You can find me on Pinterest (cause I'm addicted,) and if you are a real human being who has a question or wants to say hi, you can email me at wickedgardener76ATyahooDOTcom.

Love you all (except spammers. You know who you are and should be ashamed of yourselves!)

2011-06-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

Hey! I was featured on Pocket Change in their "Best of the Web" post! Check it out here.

Crinum Lilies

2011-06-16T11:14:00.001-04:00

Crinum Scabrum bud

A garden staple of mine for the last few years has been the crinum lily. It has been crinum time in the garden lately. Blooms have been popping up in the corner garden.

The crinum ("cry-num" I only just realized had been mispronouncing this for years) is related to the amaryllis, but is rarely seen in your typical garden center. It is the quintessential pass along plant. You almost have to be chummy with an old gardener in order to get some. I received mine from a friend of my mother who cleans them out of her beds from time to time. The huge bulbs sat in the corner for months until they started to sprout leaves. I planted them not having a clue what they might be and soon they bloomed. Since then I've been pretty enamored with the crinum lily.

The Crinum Scabrum bloom always reminds me of peppermint.

Crinums in the Corner Garden

The crinum scabrum comes first, their red striped white blooms opening up around mid to late May. I got these from a master gardening sale with only "White crinum with red stripe" on the tag. I had to figure out the rest on my own. The next to bloom are the original crinums I got from my Mother's friend:

I still don't know the type, but they seem to be very common in older neighborhoods around town. They do very well with our sometimes drought/sometimes flood weather, and have been known to outline long gone homesteads, far out lasting the homes they were meant to adorn.

Crinums by the shed this morning.

A cluster of crinum blooms.

Most crinum originated in Africa and it is thought that many were brought over during the slave trade. While I don't know if this is true, I kind of like the humble origin story of families passing these plants down from generation to generation in the South.

The crinum lily seems to be the Miracle Whip of the plant world: you either love them or hate them. While not in bloom the plants can be ungainly and their huge bulbs can be difficult to transplant. But I like them, and I hope this post gave you something to like as well. If you are interested in learning more, here are some sites I recommend:

The Pacific Bulb Society

Crinums in East Texas

Amaryllids in Cultivation

Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth

2011-06-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

Pentas

I've been enjoying my pentas this year. Massive butterfly attractors, these plants grew back wonderfully from the plants I put in last year. They also do well from cuttings. Penta cuttings seem to be sensitive to humidity and do not like to dry out. I added several to my propagation station, a large clear plastic tub that creates a high humidity environment for my new cuttings. Yesterday, when checking on these plants, I found this:

Ackk!!

It did not go into the tub this way. There were plenty of leaves when I cut it. I've seen this sort of thing before. After checking the rest of tub for the culprit, I felt it before I saw it:

Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth

There he is! I did some research this year and found out it is a Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth caterpillar, also known as a hornworm. Here are some good sites for more info: Hornworm and Hummingbird Moths. While this little guy is no longer with us, they are pretty harmless, excluding their taste for penta salad. I'll have to keep an eye on the rest of the pentas to make sure there aren't any others hiding out.

Update: Front Garden

2011-06-09T18:48:00.001-04:00

Wow - This update is overdue! The winter annuals have peaked and been torn out. The summer annuals are already coming along. This is what the garden looked like in March:

I loved the Double Petunias from Kenny's Place.

They almost looked like carnations.

Here is what the garden looks like today:

I can't believe how big the philodendron has gotten in just a few months. I didn't realize it changed much at all until I looked at these pics. In front are some rain lilies that have been sending up single blossoms one at a time. I wish several would bloom at once. Also in this bed are baby pentas, coleus and vinca. In front are some lily-of-the-Nile. They didn't bloom last year, so here is hoping for blooms this year.

One of my favorite spots in the garden is under the philodendron. I poke my head down there when I weed and it seems like such nice spot for creature much smaller than myself. Kitty sleeps there all the time and I'm so jealous.

On the other side the summer annuals are coming along. I'm pretty proud that the only flowers I've had to buy were some vinca and the pink/green coleus up front, and their numbers have increased due to cuttings. Everything else came back from last year.

1. Pentas. Grew back nicely from last year.

2. Persian shield.

Doing well in the back, but struggling in the foreground.

3. New coleus. No name on the container. Damn big box store . . .

4. Coleus "Stained Glass"
More on these in a later post. Hope to have the garden filled with these soon!

5. Various Daylilies

Looks like this garden is also attracting visitors. Check out this butterfly I found there. I have no idea what it is, but today I found a cool website that might help me find out. It is called Project Noah. You can upload pictures of wildlife and the community there will help you identify it. This little guy will be my first submission.

Finally!

2011-06-06T16:10:00.001-04:00

Finally! A good solid rain! My plants will be happy and I have freshly manicured nails. Whoo-hoo!

No Rain

2011-05-31T20:09:00.002-04:00

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
I like watchin' the puddles gather rain
And all I can do is just pour some tea for two
and speak my point of view, but it's not sane, It's not sane.

That song always seems to play in my head at this time of year. (Ok, all year. I was a huge Blind Melon fan back in the day . . .) While the rest of the country has more weather than they can handle, central Florida has been execessively dry. We have distinct rainy seasons, the most significant lasting from the end of May to the end of September. During that time we have daily rain showers and you can set your clock by their 4:30pm arrival. Usually it takes a big storm to kick-start the cycle, but so far that storm hasn't come. So it is very dry right now. Due to wildfires over the weekend, there is a burn ban. Fireside chats with the hubs will have to wait. Worse for wear are my wilting plants. They look so sad and miserable. We have irrigation, but it is manual, and we try to only turn it on when it is desperately needed. It was installed by the previous owners and mainly gets the grass, so some of the corners are still parched. Today I dragged the bucket out and hand watered many of the plants. A few needed more intensive care:

These vinca were totally shriveled up this morning when I first put them in the sink for water. After a little time in the ICU, they perked back up. They'd only been left outside for a day and a half! There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow. Fingers crossed that there will be lots of rain and minimal lightening!

**The rainy season in Florida also brings the start of the hurricane season. Every year I hear "Why would people live in hurricane prone areas?? It is so scary!" At least with hurricanes you've got a few days notice. I can't begin to image what folks in Alabama and the mid-west have had to deal with from recent tornadoes. That seems like such a nightmare that you can't plan for and my heart goes out to them.

How to Recycle a Driveway

2011-05-29T22:04:00.001-04:00

Have you priced landscaping stones lately? I wanted to make a raised bed for the circle of the corner garden and liked the look of natural stone. I priced limestone rocks at the local big box store and they were $5 - $10 a piece! That didn't even include the delivery charge. So this is what I lived with for the last year:

Black plastic edging that was only marginally better than nothing at all. (And you wonder why I haven't wanted to share lately.) Recently I was visiting my parents who were replacing their driveway. I noticed some rocks stacked in neat piles and I swear I thought "Hmmm, I thought they were pouring a new driveway, not replacing it with rock. . . " Ok, so I can be dense sometimes. My Dad informed me that no, this was the cracked up parts of the driveway that they were getting ready to haul off to the dump in the morning. One big guy and a sledge hammer broke up the entire driveway, a fact that impressed my nerdy little family to no end. Well, I wasn't going to let this go to waste. I immediately filled up the back of my station wagon and went home to build this:

This is the prototype that took about 10 minutes to dry stack. I kept what I was doing from my husband. If I had told him what I was bringing home a bunch of broken up concrete for the garden, he would have been on the phone with the local mental health facility. But in the end, he liked the look and ok'd me going back to get more for the circle:

Not too bad, huh? Certainly an improvement. In the prototype picture the flat side of the stone, the top when it was a driveway, was on top. I later decided I like the bottom better because it looked more like real stone, and was more stable with the flat part on the bottom.

This project was complete and I was very happy with myself when my Husband came up with an idea. We had another problem we were trying to solve. The sand pit adjacent to the pool garden:

When we first moved into this house with a one-year-old, this was a great thing. Our daughter could play in the sand while we watched from the house or pool. But she eventually outgrew it and since it was difficult to put chairs in the sand, it was a huge waste of space. Add to it that the neighborhood cats had made it a community litter box and the wall surrounding it was starting to rot, it all had to go. Of course the same old problem came up. We wanted to use white pavers to make it a patio area, but at $2 to $3 a piece it would have cost us several hundred dollars we didn't have, and I really wanted something more natural looking. Fortunately the cement guys were still breaking up another part of the driveway and had pieces left. This time the guys took pity on me and my little car and dropped off the load at my house:

I sorted them into piles based on size, which I highly recommend for this project.

The cement has its own character. Most of it looks like rock, but in certain spots you see the tire tracks and footprints left from the mud when they first poured the driveway 20 plus years ago.

First there was demolition. This is always the part were you freak out and think "What have we done??" That wheelbarrow in the foreground took a major beating.

Halfway done.

Three-quarters done.

Finished product! I took the sand from the pit and swept it into the cracks. Finally, the space is usable again and we've enjoyed several nights watching the fire in the pool. (Yes, it is already very hot here, but the fire keeps the mosquitoes away . . .) Not too bad considering it was all free. Which is a good thing because I clearly need to save up for new lawn furniture!

Getting Cheap and Dirty

2011-05-18T17:11:00.002-04:00

Wow! January 31 was my last post?? (And a kinda lame one at that.) Time flies. I can't say I didn't post because I haven't been in the garden. Due to being laid-off, I've had the chance to spend a LOT of time in the garden, although the budget is a bit more restricted. Since I've been able give it more attention, the garden is flourishing. It is also the third year I've gardened organically, and it seems like the system has finally caught up with itself. Thought I'd do a quick post on some of the blooms and a quick teaser for some upcoming posts I'm working on.

The irises in the front garden have gone gang-busters this year. One day my daughter counted 27 blooms. This may well be my favorite. (If you are interested in how I "acquired" these irises, click here and here.)

I've been loving the daylilies this year, and a few days ago my favorite purple one came out. I think it might be called Purple Grape but I don't know for sure, and, ( forgive me, Hemerocallis Society) I don't really care. It is pretty.

My rainlily would not be out done.

As I've mentioned, money is tight, and since propogation is probably my favorite part of gardening, I've bought nothing that I couldn't make twenty more of in a week a or two. The coleous above is included. Yummm, those colors make me drool a little.

I have an abundance of some plants that for whatever reason I've not been able to reproduce, and this year I cracked the code on two, including the Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' above. I tried everything on this one. I rooted some in water, some in soil with root hormone, and some I dug up. Turns out this plant spreads via an underground tuber, and I dug up and planted some of them tuber and all. I had about a 50% success rate, which was much better than previous years. There's a ton of small plants in pots now and have been giving them away. Digging the tuber up and potting it worked best of all (go figure.)

The other plant I've tried to propagate without success is the confederate jasmine. It grows wildly on my daughter's playhouse, but up until now, I haven't been able to get it to to grow any where else. The cuttings even have tiny dry roots at the base when I cut them, making it all the more frusterating. In early January I trimmed the plant back and tried to get some of the cuttings to take in soil, which didn't work. I left the rest in a bucket that I forgot about until just a few weeks ago. Rain had filled the bucket and new green leaves were coming out of it. Duh! Why hadn't I thought of rooting them in water? Maybe the woody stems through me off. Now that I know, I'll be doing more!

Finally, a peek at one of the projects I 've been working on:

You: Oh my! Is that the Corner Garden? With a stone border?
Me: Why, yes it is!
You: But what happened to the tacky plastic border?
Me: I adiosed it. See-ya!
You: Wait a minute, didn't you say you were on a budget??
Me: Well, that is another post, my friend.

Happy gardening!!

I'm Totally Crushin' on This Guy

2011-01-31T12:20:00.001-05:00

Daron "Farmer D" Joffe

Who knew organic farming could be so sexy? Sure it is important for the earth and our health, blah, blah blah. I'm watching the video above for the man-candy. You can fan him on Facebook, follow on Twitter here or here, visit his website and blog, or you can be like me and just stalk him.

Update of the Front Garden (And Other Bits of Happiness)

2011-01-25T17:53:00.001-05:00

Time to do an update of the Front Garden. I slacked on doing updates of the gardens last year because they never really got to where I wanted them. Hopefully things will be better this year and I'll be posting more updates. I'm doing the front because is it is really the only garden with anything green in it, never mind something blooming.

Gotta love petunias and snapdragons. This snapdragon reminds me of popcorn.

I'd love to go in here and plant some pentas and divide some irises, but my last frost date is still almost two months away, so for now I've got to wait. For now, I have to content myself with cleaning up dead stuff and keeping new weed growth to a minimum. Such a bummer because when it isn't rainy and cold, the weather is down right decent. Not hot at all and zero bugs. I've decided that the bugs will keep me out of the garden more than anything else in the summer.

Well here are some things that aren't bummers:

WORMS!!! Is it gross to take pictures of your compost? Probably, but I'm so excited I don't care. Got to love the worm poo! I've been using the excess water run off from the bin to water plants for a while now, but I can't wait to harvest some fresh new worm poo for the garden. The worms seem to have taken the freezing temps just fine, but they are very camera shy.

FREE TOOLS! Okay, not quite free, but close. I found these clippers in a big pile of gardening stuff in the shed. Brand new and in the package! It think it is from a few Christmases ago when everyone I knew got me a pair of clippers. These got shoved to the back of the shelf and totally forgotten about. The best part is that I really needed a new pair.

GINGER! My Disney Ginger survived both squirrels and freezes this year. Maybe there is hope for a bloom on this one yet??
Well, that's it for me. What made you happy today??

Does Anyone Else Still Have Their Christmas Lights Up?

2011-01-12T12:07:00.001-05:00

Procrastination is often detrimental to the success of a garden. Seeds aren't sown in time and aren't ready for the summer heat. Weeds aren't pulled and quickly take over the garden. Garden blogs don't get updated for months at a time . . . But every gardener has experienced a little beneficial procrastination. That beloved plant that up and dies out of the blue that you can't bear to throw out. You stick it in the left-for-dead pile and suddenly next season it comes back to life - Wa-hoo!
This year, we've delayed getting on Christmas lights down. Certainly mid-January is far from epic procrastination: A friend of mine's mother kept the Christmas decorations up in her house well into July, but that was generally interpreted to mean she wasn't taking her recent divorce too well. Mid-January is late for us, though. Here's where the beneficial part comes in. This year the freezing temps came early in November and December. Usually I cover as much as I can with sheets, fitting most plants only half way, and hope for the best. I normally loose just about everything. This year, I thought I'd focus all my efforts on to one plant, the philodendron in the front garden. Every night before a frost I've covered it with two sheets, one of them flannel! I filled several gallon milk jugs with hot water and placed them near the plant in hopes the heat would radiate out and get trapped by the sheets. Also, this plant was nicely wrapped up with Christmas lights. I've kept them up, the theory being that the electricity in the wires is enough to keep the temperature up half a degree or two. I'm sure there is a fire hazard here, but so far, so good, and the plant has had minimal damage. This year, the Christmas lights will stay up a bit longer. The giant inflatable Snoopy? It is coming down.

Best Cat Ever!

2010-10-19T17:56:00.007-04:00

Look who is trying to get on Mama's good side!

While I don't advocate harming of animals in any way, I must say that I get a little bit of joy when my own Killer Kitty sees it fit to take care of the problem. She was quite proud of her catch. She kept trying to bring it inside, presumably to skin it and roast it with carrots and potatoes. That's only proper. If you want to know why I dislike squirrels so much, exhibit #1 is here, and exhibit #2 is here.

In The Weeds

2010-10-03T21:20:00.014-04:00

Wow - This summer really got away from me! I woke up one morning and all of the sudden the pool garden looked like this:There truly is a garden path in there somewhere. My husband and I looked each other and said "Ahh, a frost will come eventually and take care of this sticky little problem for us." All those weeds are just too much to think about without the aid of a machete.

Fortunately, there are little bits of joy to be had around the garden lately, if you look for them. This week the weather finally cooled and Floridians seemed to come out of their long air-conditioned hibernation to spend some time outdoors. Everyone was outside mowing their lawns, taking walks (I took two! Wha? Wha?) and putting up Halloween decorations. I took the opportunity to do a little gardening, or more accurately, pull a weed or two and look for plants that didn't croak on me after a long summer of neglect.

Ahh, my gingers. A few survived the squirrels and one even bloomed, although I couldn't get a good picture of it. I still love the leaves, especially at this angle from the bottom looking up.
Some coleus, hiding under the gingers. Both were taken as clippings from my Mother's house.
The camellias are really budding this year, and a few have started to bloom. YAY!!

The last hold out blossom on the crepe myrtle bush. Note about crepe myrtle: You can dig up some of those really annoying seedlings that always come up in the spring and replant them! I keep them in a pot in a shady area for the first summer and then replant them where I want them the following spring. It is a slow process, but I've had success with it. Nothing like a free plant.

I thought for sure the that the Globba Ginger were goners after our deep freezes this year, but sure enough I now have about 10 plants and they are all blooming nicely. I wish they were taller, but other than that I totally love them.
Knockout Rose, knocking me out.

A single vinca, grown back from last years planting. This time last year, the vinca looked like hell and I took them all out. This year, the seedlings I let live are gorgeous. Go figure.

The mighty attack cat, hunting her prey. She always looks at me like I'm intruding on her world when I work in the garden. It is very much her's most of the week.

I'm Back!

2010-08-17T21:57:00.019-04:00

Okay. So I wasn't gone for a months as this blog might suggest. Life just got in the way, as it tends to do in Florida during the mid-summer with its blazing heat and mosquitoes that I'm pretty sure are really tiny little aliens sent to destroy us.

Chicago was fantastic! The weather was great. Supposedly there was a heat wave, but the constant breeze meant us Floridians didn't feel it. I was really looking forward to the trip as I've heard from most of you that it is a great garden town. Unfortunately, my daughter came down with a fever halfway through the trip and some things, mostly garden related, had to be cut out of the schedule. I did sneak some shots here are some:

Laurie Park.

Unfortunately I missed the park's prime by about two weeks, but it was still beautiful.

A great little park near the Chicago Art Institute.

Love these color combos.

One of the neatest parts of Chicago is how they use plants in unexpected places.
I really thought these plants on an overpass were really great.

Going to Chicago!!

2010-06-19T09:31:00.004-04:00

So this summer our family is taking a vacation to Chicago! We are very excited and are planning all the silly tourist traps we must see. My hubby wants the vacation to be decidedly garden free, so I might get one or two gardens in, tops. Laurie Garden seems to be on the short list, but is there anything else I must see? All suggestions are welcome!

The Best Thing You Can Put In Your Garden

2010-05-29T21:08:00.016-04:00

Somewhere along the way I once read "The best thing you can put in your garden is you." Any good gardener knows the biggest part of gardening is being in the garden. Picking weeds, looking for bugs, dead-heading, whatever. Fortunately, I've put a lot of me in the garden in the last few weeks. I've got a ton summer cuttings started in the front yard, the butterfly and shed gardens are picking up and I planted a little itty-bitty veggie garden in the corner garden where I finally gave up on some of my gingers growing this year. This concept applies with a blog, too. I haven't put too much of myself here lately. Who wants to be stuck behind computer when there is a garden to garden? I did take pictures in the last few weeks of some of the best blooms. Hope this will hold you over until I get some legitimate update posts done. Enjoy!

I think this daylily was called 'purple grape'. I call it yummy!

African Iris

Daylily - 'Clara'

One of the reasons I LOVE coleus is its diversity. On the right is one from the Aurora series. There was no name in the nursery for the one on the left, so it is now know by me as 'Big-honkin' Coleus.

Crinum Scabrum

Red Canna

Yellow Walking Iris

Hidden Ginger

'Black and Blue' Salvia and 'Happy Returns' Daylily

Summer on the Sill

2010-05-03T19:38:00.014-04:00

In Florida, summer is an ending. Most of the plants that did beautifully through the frosts start to look something like this:

The bugs, the heat and the humidity prove to be too much. It gets to be a bit much for me too. Saturday morning I opened the door to go outside and walked straight into a brick wall of humidity. Sometimes you forget what summer in Florida can be like until you get a weekend like this one to remind you. I realized I needed to get the summer garden started. In the front yard I'll take out the snapdragons and petunias. In their place will go lime green coleus, silvery-purple Persian shield, pink pentas and pink vinca. These aren't by any means the only summer plants I could have chosen, but they all have one redeeming quality. In my garden at least, they are all free.

The vinca are starting to reseed themselves in the garden bed, and the pentas cuttings do best with a slightly different method. But coleus and Persian shield I am propagating by cuttings. The method is pretty basic and any seasoned gardener knows it well, but I'm always surprised by how few take advantage of DIYplants.

First step is to find a momma plant. In my case, momma is actually a collection of cuttings I took hastily right before our first freeze in November. I typically pinch off a stem about 3 to 4 inches long. I strip the leaves off, leaving a small pair at the top, and at least one leaf node below. Then stick in some water and wait for roots:

When the roots come, you could plant straight into the ground and the coleus would probably be just fine. The Persian shield on the right is a bit more finicky, so I put both plants in small containers of dirt:

For some reason, I kind love the little yogurt cups. I poked holes in the bottoms with a nail heated by a candle. They fit great on my window sill, but they will only hold the plants for a couple of weeks. At that time I put the cups outside to acclimate for about 24 hours and then it is planting time:

Above is a little coleus baby tucked behind a still peaking snapdragon. When I tear out the snapdragons in a few weeks, the coleus will be ready and raring to go. The nice thing about this method is that the volume increases exponentially. This little plant will soon be big enough to take clippings from it, and the whole process starts again.

Hope this post didn't bore you too much. I enjoy watching other people's methods, and it seems like every gardener has their own variation on the method above. What is yours?

Irises

2010-04-27T20:21:00.004-04:00

The African Irises in the front garden are putting on quite the show.

In other parts of my yard, I think I'm going to give up on growing gingers this year.

2010-04-25T15:04:00.004-04:00

The pot didn't work and most of the gingers were chewed up. Moving on to massive amounts of habanero sauce.

WWPD?

2010-04-19T21:43:00.008-04:00

Oy - Before Pictures. Whether it is a chubbie chick or an underdeveloped spring garden, they are never pretty. I hate showing them, but I know in a few months it will be fun to look back. Above is the circle in the middle of the corner garden. It was a happier spot once, but the frosts hit the palms and the squirrels decimated the gingers, and frankly, last year I kinda gave up on it. I'm now trying to revitalize it, and, as almost always, with no budget. The biggest problem is lack of definition. Ideally, I'd like to add a limestone border around it, in a more natural shape than the tight circle I originally created. That was a great plan until I priced out limestone. $10, per stone! For a girl that has a garden budget of right around $10 per week, more or less, that seems out of my price range. I could feel the spirits of my ancestors waiting to kick me if I even thought of spending $10 for a rock.

At times like these, I sit down and think: "What would Pearl do?"

Some of you know exactly who I am talking about. For those of you who don't, stop reading this and immediately get yourself a copy of the movie, A Man Named Pearl. It is a documentary about gardener and topiary artist Pearl Fryar. He is practically the patron saint of frugality and creativity in the garden. One of the reasons he took up topiary was that he could take a cheap discarded nursery plant and shape it into something totally unique and special. He is such an inspiration for me. So when I look at the area above, the thought comes in to my mind, "What would Pearl do?" How can I use the resources I have to make something really special? Unfortunately, I don't have Pearl's brain, so I still don't know what I am going to do with this area. I have filled it with with red canna I picked up from the Master Gardener's sale last year and some grass divided from the front yard. But I still have no idea how I'll define the bed. Suggestions, especially for cheap rock sources, are welcome.

The cannas are pretty though.

In case any of you are wondering how the war on squirrels is going, I'm trying a new tactic: physical barriers! On some of my more prized ginger shoots, I've cut out the bottoms of garden pots and put them over the shoots. In other areas, I've surrounded the gingers with branches. Anything to make them harder to reach and get to. I'll let you know how it goes.

And the Winners of my Undying Respect and Admiration are . . .

2010-04-16T23:03:00.005-04:00

Congrats to Garden Lily and Susan for correctly identifying the mystery plant as an Amaryllis! I'd tell you the variety, but since it looks nothing like what was on the package, there is no telling.
Whatever. I'm just happy to have something blooming in the garden!

Mystery Plant

2010-04-15T18:17:00.003-04:00

Alright - Here is a little fun for you guys today. What is the name of the plant above? The winner gets my undying respect and admiration.

Daylily

2010-04-12T20:56:00.004-04:00

I've been busy lately, but I had to show you the Daylilies. They are quite literally the garden variety, but I'm just so excited to have an actual flower in the garden right now.

2010-04-03T20:07:00.001-04:00

The eggs (and the table, and the sink . . . ) are now dyed and super-glittered. Happy Easter!!

Just Because It's a Native . . .

2010-03-31T20:16:00.008-04:00

The post was already written. It was titled: "Just Because it's a Native, Doesn't Mean You Can't Kill It" Catchy, huh? It would have been about my beloved Pinxter Azalea. The Pinxter is beloved first because of the name. I seriously considered changing the name of this blog to the Pinxter blog. Don't really know why. Just really like it. Secondly, I loved the unique look of flower. It is a native in this part of Florida that I bought in Dunnellon last year. It looks so different than the run-of-the-mill variety that are so ubiquitous around here. The plant is a big, wild and unruly bush. The stamens on the flowers extend way past the petals making them look a little alien. It was so different it was almost, ironically enough, exotic looking.

The native part was a huge attractor for me. I know I'm supposed to like natives because they don't disrupt the local habitat and all that blah, blah, blah. Really, when I see the word native on a plant, the phrase Hard to Kill almost instantly replaces it. I mean if this plant can supposedly grow out on its own in the wild, with zero human intervention, that should mean it will do just peachy in my garden, with just slightly more attention, right? I thought that until about October. My poor Pinxter started to loose its leaves, way before any frost hit. By the time the frosts did hit, the bush was looking decidedly dead-stick-like. It was in good company. Many of the other plants had seen better days too. But when they started to come back to life, the Pinxter kept up the impression. So I started writing the post about paying attention to even the natives and mentally started figure out what I'd plant in that spot next.

Fortunately, I procrastinate. Er, I mean I am patient. A few days ago I stepped out in to the garden ready to take out the Dead Stick Bush, and look what I found!
A not so dead Pinxter! I will not be charged with criminal plant neglect after all! At least not yet.

My Newbie List

2010-03-23T20:55:00.004-04:00

My co-worker asked me a simple question today: “I have a small bed in my front yard and I want some pretty plants. What should I plant? Those pink flowers (snapdragons) out back of the office are really pretty . . . “ I think I scared the woman with my exuberance. “Nooo!!! That is a winter annual! It will totally die in a few months, no matter what you do!” As I rattled off some names of this and that to get and this and that to avoid, her eyes got wider and wider. She was never going to remember any of it. “Never mind,” I told her, “I’ll email you a list.”

All the way home I thought about it, because this is a question a Garden Geek like me lives for. This woman is not a gardener. She isn’t going to read up on a plant or seek out info online. She just wants to have a small garden bed look good with as little money and work as possible. So here are my criteria for a Newbie Plant List for Central Florida:

1. Simple basic plants that you can find anywhere. Go into any big box store, ask any random clerk where this plant is located, and chances are they’ll be able to find it for you. They also have to be cheap, with bonus points if they reproduce easily. (Sorry Gunnera)

2. They can stand the extreme heat Florida often has. They can take a drought, a flood, and a drought again without a lot of babying. They will look good most of the summer with minimal work. Bonus points if they can take a frost too. (Impatiens - that means you’re out)

3. They have to have pretty flowers. There plenty of really attractive grasses and shrubs out there, but for the newbie, they are kind of boring. I will make the exception for plants with leaves so colorful, they might as well be flowers. (Mondo grass - you’re great but dull as dishwater.)

So here’s my Newbie list:

African Iris: This plant has grass-like leaves with white flowers. It has done very well during the freezes and can take both droughts and floods well. Blooms year round. Clumps will get larger over the years and you can divide them for more plants.

Daylilies: This plant did well with the recent frosts, and I’m very excited to stock up on them this year. They are grass-like, with flowers that range in color from white to deep purple, although yellow, red and orange are most common. Blooms from mid-April to mid-June.

Pentas: Butterfly and hummingbird magnets. Look nice all summer. Might die back during frosts, but during relatively mild winters (like ones with no snow,) they will come back for another year. They bloom all year and come in white, pink, hot pink and purple.

Coleus: This plant is grown for its very colorful leaves. They come in kinds of colors, deep purple, red, lime green and my favorite, hot pink. Very easy to grow from cuttings. They will die in the winter.

Vinca: Downside: These are true summer annuals that only good from April to about October and tend to fade if we get too much rain. They will die in the winter. Upside: They do well in a drought. They multiply like rabbits from cuttings and seeds. One sturdy plant can fill a garden bed by the end of a season.

Persian Shield: No flowers, but purple and silver leaves I really love. Propagates well from cuttings. It will die to the ground, but in snow-less winters it will come back. Jury is still out if mine made it through the winter, but if it didn’t, I will be buying more.

Salvia: This plant comes a wide variety of colors and types. They come in colors ranging from purple to blue to red and pink. Mine come back year after year from seeds.

Avoid winter annuals: Snapdragons, Petunias and Pansies. Plant them in October.

There is my highly subjective, totally incomplete Newbie list. What should I add?

This Gnome is provided for your viewing pleasure.

2010-03-22T19:00:00.002-04:00

Lesson Learned

2010-03-18T20:55:00.005-04:00

If they gave out gold medals for procrastination, I'd be Micheal Phelps. I'm a total pro. Sometimes the things that are most important to me get procrastinated the most. I'm terribly good at doing things when I feel like it, and not when they really need to get done. Case in point: I was looking at posts from this time last year and came across this pic from the front garden.

And the same garden bed this year: Pretty much the same plants each year, but last year I did what I was supposed to do and planted the snapdragons and petunias back in October. This year the summer annuals were still going strong in October and it was hard to think about taking them out. Money and time were tight too. So I put it off, and now instead of a nice lush garden, I have a wimpy, limp garden. Oh well. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Plant winter annuals by October.

What lessons have you learned this year?

Don't tell the Squirrels

2010-03-14T14:58:00.008-04:00

Finally. A gorgeous weekend where I didn't have a ton to do. That meant I've had plenty of time to go out and get dirty in the garden. It was a very clear weather in the 70's that makes you wish it was like this all of the time. Okay, I'd be even okay with 48 weeks a year - giving 2 to hot weather and two weeks to cold. That would be just about perfect.

It was a huge relief to see that some of my favorite plants are starting to come back. With a week of hard freezes in January, I wasn't sure if even my most dependable tropicals were going to pull through. The Philodendron is unfurling some new branches.

The canna is going full force.

And, I'm so happy about this:

My gingers are back!!! (Just don't tell the squirrels.)

Worm Poo

2010-02-21T15:08:00.002-05:00

Yes, it is gross. But if you are serious gardener, your heart is racing a little faster. I got my first real batch of good ol' worm poo today. I'd if had the right worms, I'd have more, but I only have garden worms right now. If you want to make your 6 year old gloriously happy, have them pick out worms out of the composter. She could have done it all day.

Facebook

2010-02-16T20:33:00.000-05:00

I'm on Facebook now! Come say hi.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/wickedgardenerblogspotcom/480662970021?ref=ts

What has Lived

2010-02-13T17:03:00.010-05:00

That seems to be the big question in my garden right now: What has lived? It was a weedy mess before, but after a week of hard freezes, and SNOW, everything pretty much loooks like this:

It is all enough to make you want to give up and start blogging about home decorating. In addition to being a mother with a full time job, computer issues, squrriels (bastards!), I'm going to throw the newest member of our family under the bus.

Kitty, (AKA Free-loader) was a neighborhood cat that hung out our house for a while. About six months ago we noticed that she was getting very skinny and we started feeding her. That was pretty much the end of it - we were adopted. She is incredibly sweet and tame and charmed her way into our decidedly "not-pet-people" family. While she is an angel in the house, she is all cat in the garden. She's made several exits holes in our fence and regularly poos in the sand box. Good thing she's cute.

I'm trying to focus on the positive and figure out what has lived. The amarylis from last year is coming back, along with many of the very sturdy crinum lilies.

I didn't get my winter annuals in the ground on time (October is ideal) but I did plant a few straggelers, and they are steadily pumping out some flowers. Good thing: I ALWAYS need this color in my life.

New Layout

2010-02-12T13:25:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd try a new layout for 2010. Let me know what you think.

IT SNOWED!!!!

2010-01-09T08:27:00.001-05:00

Hell has offically frozen over.

Updates

2009-10-19T18:49:00.015-04:00

I know it has been a while since I posted the corner garden, but it is coming along nicely!

Didn't the pathways turn out good?

Love the Angel's Trumpet!

And lots of new visitors!

Alright. I'm not fooling any of you. These are pictures from the Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History. A girl can dream, can't she? If you live near Gainesville it is worth a visit. It may be the only good reason to visit G-ville (stupid Gators.)

Last weekend, I hit up the Master Gardener's fall sale. In past years I have been less than impressed with fall sale. Pretty much the same ol' stuff. This year I got there much earlier, and I don't know if it was the earlier time or just a better show, but I could have bought the whole place. The above haul was for my yard: 6 red cannas, a pagoda plant, a terribly awesome curly-leafed coleus with burgundy spots (I already have cuttings rooting) and the plant on the chair, which is something random my daughter pick out. I still don't know were I'll put them all.

For my mother's yard, I got a fantastic variegated spiral ginger, a peach ginger (Disney??) and two red firespikes.

Now for some ginger blooms from my garden.

Well, it is a big mish-mash of stuff for this post. Hopefully I'll have some real garden updates next week!

Gardening for Dummies

2009-10-03T13:18:00.005-04:00

Ok. So I have million reasons why I have not posted in a while, but they are all terribly boring, so I just recap some of the gardening stuff I've been doing. Last week, I took a course called Gardening for Dummies at the Extension Office. Now I've been around the gardening block a time or two, and this course was really designed for total newbies, but I got a chance to hang out with other gardeners and even learned a thing or two. Much of this info pertains specifically to FL gardeners, but some of these facts are might be useful even if you aren't one. Here are some of the highlights:

I am in zone 8b. It seems every map I reference says something different. Some say 8, some say 9. There is a road that bisects the county (SR 40) and anything above is 8b and anything below is 9a. I am north, so I am once and for all 8b.
There is a website called floridayards.org that has a great plant database. Pick your area of the state, the specific conditions of your site, and it recommends some suitable plants. Kinda cool.
Echinacea is a FL native. Need to get some.
Rain water has nitrogen and there for is healthier for plants
Put a few drops of veggie oil in rain barrels to keep mosquitoes from breeding
Don't use "Weed and Feed" products in Florida for your yard. Weed preventive should be done in January, while the best time to feed is March. Cheaper and smarter to do them separately.
Iron supplement will green up grass quickly and runoff doesn't cause the problems fertilizer does. You can add it every week if you want and it won't make the grass grow faster, so less watering.
"Volcano Mulching": Mounding mulch around the base of a plant in the shape of a volcano. Can cause the plant to change its root structure and cause rot. Don't do it.
There is a caterpillar that feeds on the candlestick cassia plant. If it eats the yellow flowers, it turns yellow. If it eats the leaves, it is green. If it eats both, the caterpillar has yellow and green stripes.
Nutrient Deficiencies (This was info I always wanted to know)
If it is deficient in:
Nitrogen: Older leaves will yellow uniformly
Potassium: Brown spots on older leaves
Magnesium: Yellowing of old leaves in "V" shape
Iron: green veins, yellow in between veins of new leaves
Manganese: yellowing in between the veins of new leaves
Nutrient Properties:
Nitrogen promotes color and growth
Phosphorous promotes flowers
Potassium helps with water uptake, stress tolerance
Calcium helps develop cell structure
Plant Amaryllis and Crinum with the crown of bulb exposed.
Most bromeliads produce pups that can be divided.
Publix will give away free pineapple tops, if you want to make your own plant
Less than 1% of incests in your yard are harmful
There have been little to no reports of Brown Recluse spiders in Florida (Since this is the only spider that really scares me, this was good news.)
Stink bugs with pointy shoulders = good. Stink bugs with rounded shoulders = bad.
Scarlett Hibiscus is a native - gotta get some.
Plumbago blossoms are sticky and 6 year old girls can stick them to their earlobes and pretend they are earrings.
Karst = Porous rock our county is built on and drains water into the Aquifer. Excessive amounts of fertilizer will flow through the karst and into our drinking water.
Liatris are pretty and I need some.

Most of you probably already knew this stuff, but this website is equal parts my personal garden journal as much as a public site. I will promptly loose the notebook I wrote these notes in, so now I have it for good. Hope you can take something useful from it.

In the Garden this Evening. . .

2009-09-18T19:41:00.006-04:00

Camelias are blooming already.

I should have more ginger blooms by now, but the squirrels did their damage. There quite a few buds, so I should see more soon.

My Kind of Pest Control

2009-08-30T12:22:00.002-04:00

I'm totally fascinated watching this guy in the garden.

Signs You've Neglected the Garden Too Long

2009-08-28T19:30:00.008-04:00

Plants try to take things into their own hands.

The spiders start thinking they own the place.

There are trees growing out of the compost pile.

Recent Flowers

2009-08-22T20:52:00.012-04:00

Yep I'm still here! I'm still gardening too. I've just been a bit, err, pre-occupied. Oh well. Here is what has been blooming in the garden:

The cannas have been doing very well this year, despite the leaf-rollers.

The front garden has done especially well. It attracts multitudes of butterflies, and reportedly a few hummingbirds as well, although I haven't seen them yet.

This is an iris from the front garden.

The Globba Ginger managed to avoid the squirrels and blooming nicely - yay!!

September is when the weather cools in this area and the garden and the gardeners start to perk up. I've got some big projects planned soon!

Once Bitten . . .

2009-08-03T18:33:00.001-04:00

I was just outside for 10 minutes. Now I count 18 bug bites, and one more the size of a quarter on my forehead.

A Letter

2009-07-29T19:28:00.003-04:00

I just wrote this to a local nursery that has gotten too big for its britches - locals will probably know exactly which one. I don't do this sort of thing often, but I know we read these at my work, so maybe it will do some good.

Hello -

I'm writing about an experience I had last Sunday. I went in looking for Bt, a common organically approved pesticide. I was the only one in the store, and went to find an associate who was insisting you did not have it. She walked over to the pesticides, said "Nope, nothing like that here" and tried to give me some harsher chemical options. As soon as she left I found it under Bacillus thuringienisis. I'm writing this because this is the second or third time I walked into this store asking about organic products and have been looked at like have 3 heads. This is becoming a big issue for gardeners, and working with associates who are very informed and can even recommend organic products and native plants would make many of us devoted customers. Since this store has the reputation of being a local place with all the warmth and selection of a big box store, I think developing this niche would be beneficial in the current economic climate. Hope this helps - I don't like being the only one in the store!

BTW: Bt worked beautifully on the leaf-rollers.

This is so cool . . .

2009-07-08T19:36:00.002-04:00

Found it here.

I've Been on Vacation.

2009-07-06T20:27:00.002-04:00

I've been hanging out on the Gulf of Mexico, enjoying fireworks by the beach.

Hope to be hanging out in the garden tomorrow.

OMG!!!! I NEED THIS!!

2009-06-24T20:13:00.004-04:00

Has anyone used this product? I NEED it!!! (They even have a blog!)

Buggin' Out

2009-06-18T19:10:00.007-04:00

My cannas are doing very nicely.

So I was terribly annoyed when I went out and saw the below:

Canna Leaf Roller!

Grrrrrr!

But not all of the bugs in the yard are bad:

This little guy has been busy! Bugs that eat bugs are the best!

Don't get me started on the mosquitoes. . .

Mother Nature is Hating Me Right Now

2009-06-08T20:18:00.003-04:00

Remember my beautiful pentas from this weekend? I came home and found them majorly chewed up. After a close inspection, here is what I found! A good dozen of them, grazing on my local, organic produce. I'm sure they are lovely butterflies, but I determined a while back that I garden for flowers, not for bugs. I won't use pesticides or fertilizers, but that didn't stop for plucking each of these big nasties off my pretties. This whole organic thing is rough.

UPDATE: The Front Garden

2009-06-06T17:22:00.007-04:00

Time to do updates! It has been ages since I've posted updates. Mostly because there hasn't been much to take pictures of. Now it is time, and I've had a lot of changes in the front garden. Gone are the white snapdragons and petunias, and in there place are the gorgeous pentas that grew back from the fall planting. It actually drives me nuts when I see all of the snapdragons and petunias on sale at the garden center in the spring. Down here, with all the heat and humidity, these plants don't last long. I've added heat friendly vinca, hot pink coleus and yellow day lilies (not in bloom.)

Love the pentas!

UPDATE: Pool Garden

2009-06-06T17:03:00.007-04:00

Please ignore the lime green pool. I don't do pool duty, and with all the rain we've had, my honey has had a hard time keeping up with it. But there are some jems in the pool garden, literally the jewel of the Nile is blooming in the corner. The yellow canna above is beautiful, and hopefully there will be more of these flowers soon. The happiest bit of news? The bird of paradise that frozen heartbreakingly to the ground has bounced right back.

UPDATE: Corner Garden and Shed Garden

2009-06-06T13:58:00.010-04:00

The tropicals in the corner garden are just loving the wet weather. The gingers are starting to recover from the squirrel attacks and the crinums look great under the palm. A canna I thought I moved to the pool area is blooming in the corner. Moonflower vines are crawling quickly up the trellis. The spiral ginger is struggling in the circle, but I've found ginger tends to struggle a bit its first year. The shed garden is having a tougher time. The Persian shield is doing well, as always. Maybe I'll change things up. Plant the P. shields along the front, with a line of gingers behind it. The banana on the left and the palm on the right have been slow to recover from being frozen over the winter.

UPDATE: Butterfly Garden

2009-06-06T13:23:00.009-04:00

The butterfly garden is looking soggy with all of the rain.

What is blooming right now . . .

2009-05-28T20:53:00.007-04:00

More crinums are blooming.

The corner is starting to coming along, if the squirrels would just leave it alone. See the big red blob at the bottom? Here is a close up:

It is a blood lily I bought last year. Pretty much gave it up for dead. Dead, dead, dead-ity, dead. But then I looked in the pile where I throw plants right before they hit the compost pile, and I saw a very healthy bud. Planted it, and now check out the bloom! My husband thinks it is the coolest thing I've planted by far.

2009-05-23T18:54:00.002-04:00

Trying to read what looks like a very interesting blog, but I just gave up. The writing scrolled over the very pretty background, making it impossible to read. Another had a text color that blended very nicely with the background color. Newbies: If you want us to read your blog, make sure we can read your blog.

The Good Thing About 3 Days of Rain

2009-05-21T18:37:00.004-04:00

After three solid days of rain, the sun finally came out today. I had been noticing some crinum bulbs blooming about town, especially around the older neighborhood my daughter's school is in. They are growing in huge clumps, even in gutters. I keep thinking, "If these guys knew how much these plants are going for on Ebay, there wouldn't a single one here!" Well, I went out and checked my plants this morning and look what I found:A bloom! When they are blooming, I want a thousand. The rest of the year I'm wondering why I planted so many crinums.

The salvia has perked up too! Maybe I'll keep at this gardening thing. . .

Lizard Porn!!!!!

2009-05-18T22:03:00.003-04:00

You know you love it.

Rain

2009-05-18T21:42:00.002-04:00

We've had sustained drizzling rain for 24 hours now. Thank god! My garden is already starting to perk back up. Now if the squirrels will just preoccupy themselves with someone else's garden for a while, I might perk back up as well.

2009-05-12T20:39:00.002-04:00

Give up.

Squirrels won.

Don't care anymore.

Taking up knitting.

Bastard.

2009-05-02T10:12:00.003-04:00

(^&&^% Squirrels!!!!!

2009-04-27T20:10:00.007-04:00

So I was planning on showing you some nice pics of how the garden is coming along. The butterfly and Disney gingers were finally coming up. Above is a picture from last week when they were just peaking over the Ti plants. This week they were a good foot taller. Emphasis on "were."
This is what they looked like when I got home this evening. Chewed down. The Disney gingers, on the far sides of first picture were totally gone, not a leaf left. We weren't sure what was getting them until my husband saw a little squirrel shake one of the Ti plants. Then it took half a plant in its mouth and headed up the fence. His little buddy stood on top, a very tiny little squirrely middle finger held up just for us.

Hope you like Mexican food! I gotta spicy surprise waiting for you tonight, you bastards!

Bits of Joy in the Garden Tonight

2009-04-17T19:37:00.009-04:00

A bug on a day lily in the butterfly garden.

The society garlic from earlier in the week. These are common flowers that you see on every roadway this time of year, but they are quickly becoming favorites.

And here is something very cool . . .
I won a bird feeder!!! I love it! Thank you, Shawna!

Happy Easter Everyone!

2009-04-11T23:19:00.005-04:00

Society Garlic from this morning.

I posted this pic on my Facebook and a friend described society garlic:

It's got a more refined taste than Townie Garlic,
but is more expensive, and leaves when summer ends.

I'm a-goin' plant huntin'!

2009-04-04T21:38:00.009-04:00

I went plant hunting today! Tried to avoid anything big box and visit my favorite mom & pop nurseries. They were packed! Must have been the beautiful weather. While have several favorites, I don't think you can beat Kenny's Place nursery. They just have the coolest plants there! Here is a run down of what I picked up:

2 day lilies (probably Stella D'Oro, but they weren't labeled)

1 angel wing begonia

1 Lily of the Nile

2 1 gallon pots of white butterfly ginger

1 Hedychium coccineum (orange 'Tara' Ginger)

1 Costus Barbatus

And all for about $35, I might add! The Tara was especially wanting to come home with me. It is literally busting out of its pot.

My daughter especially fell in love with the Costus Barbatus and the velvety undersides of its leaves. It begged to be touched. The plant has bright red inflorescence with yellow blooms.

Seeds and Weeds

2009-03-30T21:21:00.009-04:00

I figured that I start off with a pretty flower, because the rest of this post ain't so pretty. This weekend, the story of my garden was seeds and weeds. Note self: While it might seem blatantly obvious what you planted in that pot, you will invariably forget. Below could be either salvia or cloeme. Will have to wait a few more weeks before I'll know for sure.

These I did manage to label - they're 4 o'clocks.

Note to self: Take care of small problems before they become big ones. The pool garden has gotten out of control. The worst are big nasty dandelions that have sharp serrated leaves that poke like thorns.

Fortunately I have some help, but she doesn't look too excited. She said that bucket smelled funny.

All About the Worms

2009-03-29T20:11:00.009-04:00

Here is the new worm bin, in pristine condition. Won't look like this again!

Per the directions, I filled the bottom with wet coir and shredded newspaper, lint and old fruit. The worms came in the pink bag.

In go the worms!

This is a hint from the instruction book that I hadn't heard before. This bin has 5 trays. It recommends filling a top one with dry shredded newspaper will make it more difficult for fruit flies to get in. I'm only using these two trays right now. As the worms move through food, I'll add more. When I'm ready to harvest castings, the book recommends moving that bin to the top and exposing it to light for a few days. The worms will burrow down into the lower bins.
So, that's about it. I'll keep you updated on how it goes. (BTW, I have a lousy track record with keeping pets. It is a miracle my daughter has made it as long as she has in my care. So we'll see how this goes.)

Oh! Yes, yes! A Carrot!

2009-03-27T20:04:00.003-04:00

So, I was telling a coworker about the worm bin and she goes "so, do you grow orgasmic vegetables?"

No, but I'm definitely considering it.

I HAVE WORMS!!!

2009-03-26T20:39:00.002-04:00

Okay, I don't have the worms yet, but I have their house!! Today's my birthday and my lovely husband bought me a worm bin! Now all my dreams of being totally organic AND being Oscar the Grouch are coming true!!

Great Garden Day - Finally!

2009-03-15T21:19:00.008-04:00

Above is my front garden today. I'm just loving having a bed with established plants at this time of year! I'm quite proud of myself for planning ahead. Next year I'll plant the snap dragons near the back and skip the pansies, which were disappointing. The petunias are doing well and are almost blindingly white. I might just add a bit of color, but I'm liking the all white too. I've got some vinca that intended to under-plant today. This seems to be the secret with the seasonal annuals. Didn't get to it today because I was preoccupied with other things. Today, at least in my yard, was the official start of spring. It was the first day I've had to enjoy the weather and get all dirty. I kept quite busy!

Finally, after planning for it for years, I've got a bamboo trellis! Okay, it is a bit "rustic," but it was free, collected from Freecycle member who had it growing in her yard. I replanted the shell ginger under it and added some pink impatiens. On the trellis I'll plant some passion vine and moonflowers.

In the corner, I took out the crinums, which I planted them in the sunnier bed by the shed. In the corner I put my butterfly gingers, ti plants I managed to over winter, and some lime green coleus. All of these should do well in the deep shade of this garden and is a huge pop of color. Most of my planting today was just moving one dead looking root from one hole to another, but in a few weeks the the effect should be very cool. I needed a great planting day.

Buddha-Man Rules

2009-03-09T21:51:00.005-04:00

The ever observant Jake noted that I have a new Buddha-man in the garden, so I thought I'd post about him. A co-worker is marring a very religious man, so she was passing out her home decor that might indicate she thought about any other religion than his and I managed to score the Buddha-man. (Missed out on her Madonna-era rosary collection though . . . ) He has almost always been in the plan for the corner garden, even though he didn't exist in my life until just a few weeks ago. My personal life philosophy is a bit more Bacchus than Buddha, but I love the Buddha-men. They represent internal joy and happiness to me. They are a little reminder that true happiness can only be found within, and that we should take time to think about the natural world around us. But enough of the seriousness. Besides collecting them, I also collect weird little rules for them. I'm taking you deep into the bizarrely quirky brain of mine, so hang on:

1. I must call them Buddha-men. (I know this can be annoying, but I enjoy it, therefore it is a rule.)

2. Buddha-men must have something natural to contemplate. Personally, I think this is just common sense. I always have a flower, plant, rocks or even sticks in front of the Buddha-man for him to contemplate. It is perfectly acceptable for Buddha-men to to ponder all states of nature, including death, which is handy for the Buddha-men who reside inside my house.

3. I don't buy Buddha-men. They are always given to me, which is one of the reasons it took me so long to get this one. (I suppose I could have stolen one and it would have complied with this rule, but I'm too chicken, err I mean, moral to try it.)

4. Ok, I haven't admitted this before, but all my Buddha-men have names, preferably ones that make them sound a bit like vacuum cleaner sales men. The one by my bed, a kind of nerdy fellow, is Simon Buddha-man. The little pot-bellied one on my desk at work is Ralph Buddha-man. And the one above, since I didn't already have a name for him, shall be here forth know as Jake Buddha-man. :D (Love ya' Jake!)

The ultimate score: A frog Buddha-man. If anyone sees something this, let me know. I'd probably have to break rule #3 for it.

Notes to my Husband, Regarding Staying Married.

2009-03-08T18:13:00.006-04:00

Dear Darling Husband,

I love you very much. You are a wonderful father, and usually a pretty great husband. But there are some serious garden related issues that we need to discuss. First of all, contrary to how it may seem, digging in the dirt, pulling weeds, and raking leaves are not my favorite things in the world to do. If someone came up to me and said let me do that, I'd happily pass the rake and go get a pedicure. They are chores, like folding clothes and washing dishes. I do laundry because I want clean clothes, wash dishes because I want a clean kitchen and garden because I want a pretty garden. So when you see me out there, don't act like I'm goofing off. Just because I'd rather be outside on a nearly perfect, just-like-summer-but-without-the-bugs day than stuck inside, doesn't mean I'm a slacker. At least I'm doing something productive, instead of playing video games or running RC cars, like someone else I know.

Now for the really pressing issue. DON'T SPIT IN MY GARDENS! Don't act like you don't do it, I've caught you! It is gross! So when I'm weeding this afternoon and pull some weeds and STICK MY HAND IN A BIG LOOGIE, I think I'm understandably upset. Even more so when I start to gag so hard I throw-up right in the front yard. Oh, and tip for the future: When I come inside to tell you what happened and can't because I'm still gagging and throwing up, try not to laugh your ass off, okay? Seriously, if it happens again, we are seeking counseling.

Love, your wife.

(Here's a pick of the amaryllis, looking very little like the Garden Pinks I planted. )

Rainbow Springs

2009-02-28T19:47:00.009-05:00

Wow. What happened to February? Time seems to be ZOOMING right by. It's almost time to start planting! Since I know the agony of losing plants to a mid-March freeze, I'm being patient and waiting a few more weeks. I have started some seed and have salvia and 4 o'clocks coming up, but more on that later. . .

For right now, I'll post a very belated post on the Rainbow Springs Cracker Fest. (Yeah, I know . . . )

The azaleas were blooming. The rest of the year I'm not such a big fan of azaleas. They tend to look pretty scraggly for my taste. But when everything is all brown and yucky like it is now, and these scraggly bushes turn into huge pink powder puffs, I can't help myself. I want azaleas everywhere!

Rainbow Springs used to be, a long time ago, a natural theme/zoo. It is now a state park. When it was a theme park, they built man-made waterfalls. I'll need to come back when those crinums are in bloom.

For some reason, I didn't know you could make angora yarn straight from the rabbit.

I am very good at taking pictures of random, silly stuff, and completely forgetting the obvious. I'm the one that goes to Disney and takes 20 pictures of a cool planter on the sidewalk and forgets to take one of Cinderella's castle. I realized when I got home that I didn't take any pics of the beautiful, crystal clear, turquoise springs. This was as close as I got.

I just like to say "coontie".

Well, I couldn't leave without an azalea! I really fell for these Pinxter azaleas. They are Florida natives and look so much cooler than the ubiquitous standard azaleas. The plant I came home with is smaller and still in bud, but hopefully in a few years it will look like this one. BTW, if I ever have another blog, I'm naming it the Pinxter. Blog, or cat, either way.

If you are looking for me . . .

2009-02-27T23:01:00.003-05:00

I'm now on the Twitter. http://twitter.com/wickedgardener

(I'll be back here soon.)

I Heart Hurley

2009-01-26T20:12:00.002-05:00

I really love him after seeing this post at GardenRant:

http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2009/01/worm-composting-by-the-stars.html

Seeds

2009-01-25T15:56:00.008-05:00

So, when the going gets tough, the tough get shopping, right. After yesterday's depressing run down of dead plants, I thought I'd go lift my spirits and buy some seeds and be optimistic about the upcoming year. The seed starting period is just a few weeks away. Here is the run down:

SALVIA 'BLUE BEDDER'

PASSION FLOWER

DILL

This is for the butterflies. Several varieties of butterflies like it.

CLEOME
This has been on the official wish list for ages.

PETUNIAS

The will be held for fall. I can never find them in September, when I want them.

AMARYLLIS 'GARDEN PINK'

'Cause the crinums get lonely.

The Freakin' Freeze

2009-01-24T22:50:00.015-05:00

This morning my husband found me staring out the sliding glass windows, looking at our big backyard, and whimpering. "I'm so sorry," he said in a hushed tone. I knew it was coming. A tropical garden can only last so long in freezing weather, and we had three consecutive days of temperatures dipping into the low twenties. It was probably the hardest freeze we've had at this house. My job keeps me away from the garden during daylight hours at this time of the year, so I couldn't check on it during the week. My husband was home during the day and would give me updates. "Yeah, it is not good . . ." Today was the first day I could get a look at it. It was probably harder on him than me. I know that the losses are actually just temporary - by April this will be a distant memory as the perennials start to come back. All he sees are dead plants. Because I have masochistic tendencies, below are pictures of each of the gardens in their peak and how they look today after the freezes.

THE SHED GARDEN

(The before is from late September 08)

THE CORNER GARDEN

(The before is from late September 08)

THE CORNER GARDEN

(The before is from September 08)

THE POOL GARDEN(The before is from last week.)

THE FRONT GARDEN(The before is from last week. This is the winner this year. I was determined to have this garden looking nice this winter. With the exception of some pink pentas and some coleus, everything lived.)

Fellow Ocala Garden Bloggers

2009-01-22T20:42:00.005-05:00

Recently I've come across (or should I say, they've come across me. . . ) some bloggers who live in the same town as I do - Ocala. Finally! Now you can read about two other bloggers who whine about our one week of freezing temperatures a year . . .

Gardening Alligator

The Conservative Gardener

Maybe one day we'll have enough bloggers to do our own

"Spring Fling"!

It's FFFrrreeeezzzing Here!!

2009-01-22T20:16:00.004-05:00

After 3 days of weather in the very low twenties, the plants are all dead. I know it happens every year about this time, and they will all come back by March, but I'm still bummed out. I'll show you all pictures of the carnage over the weekend.

Cats

2009-01-17T19:31:00.003-05:00

What is up with this? A family of cats has moved in under the shed. The babies are very cute, but Mama is kind of mean and I'm nervous about my daughter playing in the yard with a bunch of strays running around. If anyone has any ideas on how to get them to move out, I'd appreciate it.

TO DO: The Pool Garden

2009-01-17T18:50:00.003-05:00

Do you ever walk into your garden and see nothing but to do lists? That's how I've felt about the gardens lately. Gotta do this. Gotta do that. Just thinking about it makes go back to sleep on Saturday mornings. Northerners may complain about not being able to garden all year, but frankly, I wouldn't mind a break. Ok, so I've taken a break anyway. But it would be nice to have a legitimate excuse for being so lazy. Like a couple feet of snow.

(Wow - Look how dark the corner garden gets!)

TO DO LIST FOR THE POOL GARDEN

1. Clean the pool.

2. Clean up the purple queen in the corners and replace the rocks there.

3. Cut back the banana.

4. Try to find a pesticide free way to keep the caterpillars off the cannas.

5. Replant some pots.

6. Extend the patio out. (Getting rid of the sand box, which has become a huge litter box.)

7. Pull all the rye grass seedlings (I'll be doing this till April)

TO DO: The Corner Garden

2009-01-17T18:24:00.004-05:00

TO DO LIST FOR THE CORNER GARDEN:

1. Move the crinum bulbs from the corner to the side of the shed. Replace them with some of the butterfly ginger and ti plants.

2. Mow (Ok, ok . . . That should really be on the honey-do list. I don't mow.)

3. Plant the circle with annuals.

4. Work on a border for the circle.

5. Finish a bamboo trellis for the back fence and plant it.

TO DO: The Butterfly Garden

2009-01-17T17:04:00.007-05:00

TO DO LIST FOR THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN:

1. Fill the hole that opened up again in the back left corner. (The details of this get me depressed. Here's what happened last year.)

2. Add compost and mulch

3. Clean off the stepping stones (Somehow.)

4. Work on some sort of trellis (Maybe.)

5. Level out the bird bath (What happened to it, anyway?)

6. Keep the annuals alive. (The soda bottle was a make shift IV, dripping slowly dripping water. For some reason these plants struggled week.)

7. Find some summer annuals I'd like to put in here.

8. Get some milkweed.

8. Remove this bougainvillea. It is doing well in this back corner but it is too shady and hasn't bloomed. I'm moving it to the pool area.

2009-01-12T21:25:00.005-05:00

In lieu of anything exciting to say about my garden, I turn instead to the wisdom of my 2008 calendar:

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;

There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

- Matsuo Basho

I really want a compost sieve.

2009-01-03T13:34:00.000-05:00

I really want a compost sieve.

Update on the Front Garden

2008-12-28T17:02:00.005-05:00

Turns out that the oleander was just a bit top heavy. I cut off a bunch on the left side and it popped right back to life. I think this took care of a lot of the caterpillar problem, although I'm sure there are still a few there. My husband has commented that he likes this bed (and he rarely comments on the plants.) During the week, we only see it in the dark at this time of the year, so I purposely picked white flowers so we could enjoy it more.

The snapdragons are coming into their own now. Makes me wish I planted a hundred of them.

Too Much Eggnog?

2008-12-22T07:46:00.008-05:00

I'm on vacation this week, so after washing mountains of laundry, scrubbing the kitchen floor and wrapping a bazillion presents, I might have a little extra time to do some gardening and, hopefully, get back to some regular posting. My focus will mostly be on the front garden. I think the backyard is at least temporarily a lost cause. The petunias above were an experiment. I wasn't sure how they'd hold up to frost, so I didn't want to by a ton of them. But so far, so good. I know we really haven't had a very hard frost yet, so they could still get damaged, but I might get some more today, just to make the bed all spiffy for Christmas.

My oleander has a problem lately. Its been curving to the ground. Not falling over, as the trunk seems straight, but curving. Did it have too much to drink at the garden party? (They get crazy every year.) Oleander osteoporosis setting in early? I have no idea what is causing it or how to fix it. I was thinking about lopping off the top third to make it a bit less top heavy. That would stink because there are quite a few buds on the tree. Of course, these little bastards will probably get to the buds before I do:

Here I thought caterpillar season was over.

As I'm taking these pictures, I can literally see the vultures circling. Talk about a sense of doom.

Jackson Pollock Cookies

2008-12-17T19:21:00.008-05:00

Above is my batch of holiday cookies I made this year. They are yummy and super dunkable. I'm getting everyone (neighbors, teachers, co-workers) a dozen. Since I don't know all of your addresses (and couldn't afford postage anyway,) I'm giving you the gift of the recipe. Now this is important: This recipe for seriously time crunched, "only bake once a year" people with no artistic talent, preferably mothers with kids who always want to "help." I was tired of sugar cookies that looked like they were in horrible accidents. So please, if you have extra time and talent on your hands, make something more complicated and leave this one to us.

Here you are: I call them Jackson Pollock Cookies (Seriously, NO ONE I work with understood why.)

1. Bake a package of pre-made sugar cookie dough according to package directions. Let them completely cool. I made them a night before. If you are ambitous, you can roll out the dough and cut out shapes, however that would be streching my baking skills past their breaking point.

2. Get a bag of regular chocolate chips and two bags of white chocolate chips. (Reserve one bag of white for later.) In separate bowls, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir and repeat until melted. If needed, add a capfull of veggie oil to make the chocolate flow better. (The more oil you add, the softer the chocolate on the cookie will be, so use sparingly.)

3. Split the remaining white chocolate chips and melt the same way, adding red and green food coloring to the bowls. Add a couple more capfuls of oil to these to make them very drizzly.

4. Place the cookies on a table covered in wax paper. Dip half the cookie in either white or regular chocolate. Set on the wax paper. When you have a bunch of these, let the kids dip forks in the colored chocolate and drizzle it over the cookies. It helps if you close your eyes and pretend you are Jackson Pollock. Can't really mess this part up and kids love it.

5. Let the chocolate harden. This can take up to an hour if you are like me and always put in too much oil. Putting them in the fridge helps too. Then enjoy dunking them in some coffee or hot chocolate. (I'm pretty sure I've made this sound way more complicated than it is. Its pretty simple if I can do it.)

This will be the only recipe that you see on this particular website, because I don't know how to make anything else. That's what husbands are for.

May your holidays be filled with Peace and Love.

End of a Blog

2008-12-14T13:35:00.008-05:00

You know how it goes: Your favorite blog misses a week. You are troubled. "This is so unlike them," you think. You've seen this before and you know the first signs, but you understand. People just get busy. So you wait, and periodically check up on them. Two weeks pass. What is going on? Have they moved on to new, spiffier blog that they have neglected to tell us about? Three weeks pass. Worry sets in. Has something happened? Are they okay? Is their family alright? A month passes. If you are lucky, they write a quick a post, full of excuses:

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. You know, with Christmas sucking up all my extra time and money, job issues, computer issues and a generally uninspiring winter garden, I just have been doing other things right now. But I still love you all and promise to post updates soon. Promise.

Suddenly, you can breath easier. At least they are still alive. And yet, it seems hollow. Another month passes. Then another. And another. You have to come to the eventual conclusion that they have moved on with their lives, and that you must too. Yet you hold on, checking them, hoping. Then comes that fateful day when you go to your blog roll, and press the delete button.

Don't delete me, people! I know it's been two weeks, but I swear I'll be back. I will go and leave comments on your blogs just to prove I'm still around - just don't give up on me!

Maybe, one day when they start blogging again, they'll look you up like an old boyfriend and you can start back where you left off. . .

This post is dedicated to Kim, Hunky, and Andrea. I miss you all.

Naked Americans

2008-11-26T10:46:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, my daughter had a "Thanksgiving Feast" at school. She called Grandma to tell her all about it. She described her costume, a headband and faux leather vest, decked out with feathers. "Grandma, Grandma!!" she said, "I was a Naked American!"

Happy Thanksgiving, All You Naked Americans!!!

Shock and Awe

2008-11-22T21:58:00.006-05:00

So I went out today expecting total death and destruction of all my plants from 4 days of freezing temperatures. Especially since I did just about nothing to protect any of my plants. What did I find instead?

BLOOMS!

What the . . ? Even the ginger is blooming.

After a bit of hunting, I found some coleus that took a beating, but is still ticking.

Freeze Tonight

2008-11-18T21:40:00.000-05:00

Yuck.

There's Always One . . .

2008-11-16T17:51:00.005-05:00

Look what popped up in my "white" snapdragons.

In my brilliance of buying discount gingers yesterday, I failed to actually look at the weather. No planting with freezes on the way. It's not cold enough to worry about covering the plants, but at 33 degrees, I have to pull in all the unestablished babies, just in case. So the gingers have to stay in their pots a little longer. (No wonder they were so cheap . . . ) It's a dilemma for me because I'm a notoriously bad container gardener. Frankly, when it comes to gardening, Mother Nature does all the heavy lifting, I just let her know where I want things. When plants go into containers and are dependant on me to actually water them, they don't do so well. With the time change making it dark when I get home, it is even harder to remember to care for them. So I don't like to keep any more containers than I have to. With any luck, I won't kill the gingers before I get them in the ground.

Kenny's Place

2008-11-15T22:14:00.014-05:00

Globba Ginger

For ages now, the Nursery Nazi has been telling me about a great nursery across town called Kenny's Place. They are always clean and she's never found a pest or disease problem there. Better yet, they employ mentally handicapped people in the community and teach them job skills in horticulture. She says they assist customers with their plants and are very friendly and smiling. (I joked she only likes the place because its the only nursery in town that has employees actually happy to see her.) They also have gingers and other exotics galore. Yesterday, we finally made the trip.

The nursery is small and unimposing from the outside, but once you get out and walk around, you quickly realize it has a huge amount of plants you can't easily get anywhere else.

And, (cue the angels singing. . . ) this is the GINGER SECTION! It goes on forever! I was a kid in a candy shop and wanted one of everything. From what I've seen, this is toward the end of their inventory of the year. I would have died to have been here back in August.

Another neat thing about the nursery was it was also an inadvertent butterfly garden. They where everywhere, and monarchs, which I've never seen in Florida before. They had more butterflies there than I've seen at many "butterfly exhibits" I've been to.

Now for the stash:

Here is what I got: 1 Blood Lily, 4 Globba Ginger, and 2 Hedychium coccineum 'Disney' gingers All for the amazing price of, hold on to your hats people, $23 dollars! Including tax! (If you don't think this such a great price, go ahead and price one tuber of the Disney ginger. Even on Ebay it is way more expensive. And each of these pots has several tubers.) A trip to Kenny's Place may become a weekly pilgrimage.

Sholom Park

2008-11-08T21:47:00.024-05:00

Today we went to one of my favorite spots, Sholom Park. The name implies that it might be a specifically religious place and I've met someone who thought it was a cemetery. It is actually a meditative park and gardens. They discourage pets, disruptive play and don't really encourage joggers, although you occasionally see them. It is a place that encourages quite contemplation of nature and the world. Kinda cool, really.

A little courtyard looks out on to the surrounding countryside.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, maybe a crepe myrtle? I love the bark though. Looks like giraffes.

This is the rose garden. Normally it is filled with roses and camellias, but I think

I hit it in between blooms. It was a bit of a flower hunt.

Found one!

A Florida vista.

A lily in the pond.

The tropical garden, like mine, is starting to fade. I should find out if they need volunteers. Unfortunately, most garden clubs meet on like Tuesday morning, which pretty much excludes anyone who works for a living. This little garden cemented my love for tropicals. My heart fluttered a bit when I saw it. It was full of gingers. One spiral ginger had fuzzy new leaves that I could have petted all day.

I think this is a ginger, but I'm not sure. I'd love a positive ID. It was the only thing blooming and it was really pretty.

The park has a bunch of signs throughout the paths that make you stop and think about your surroundings. I could see this one on my tombstone.

Yay!!!!

2008-11-04T23:07:00.004-05:00

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't have to move to Canada!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Nothing against Canada. My plants would just do terribly there.)

Election Night

2008-11-04T18:41:00.002-05:00

I'm online tonight, watching the results. Leave a comment and we'll celebrate or commiserate together.

This Blog is for Pansies!

2008-11-02T19:45:00.008-05:00

Halloween, at least down here in Florida, seems to indicate the end of summer even more than the traditional Labor day. When the weather is still in the 80's, it seems like summer will never end. But now that we've seen frosts, and my gingers are quickly fading, I have to admit that even here, it does come to an end. This year, my goal is to have year round flowers. After a few small experiments last year, I'm going full on with pansies and snapdragons. Yesterday I bought Majestic Giant Pansies (above) for the corner garden and white snapdragons for the front garden. Both of these plants can take a couple of frosts, even freezes, when many of my other plants die back. I'll be adding more in the next month. I was hoping to find seeds to make this mission a bit cheaper, but I think pansy seeds are one of those things you only see when you don't want them. Truth be told, pansies aren't really my style. A bit old fashioned for me. But when January comes around, beggars can't be choosers. I was disappointed at the selection. I REALLY wanted black pansies that were so plentiful in the spring for Halloween, but now they were nowhere to be found. I also wanted those neat tricolored snapdragons that glow pink, orange and yellow. I was lucky to find any pansies, which just seems crazy to me. Nurseries instead seemed to be big on getting rid of their impatiens which have only have a few more weeks in them at best. Well, I've learned my lesson. In the spring I'll raid the seed cataloges and keep seeds for August/September sowing. Until then, purple and white will be ruling for a while.

This kitty seems to have adopted us. It has been hanging around for the last week. Tonight my husband fed it. Do you know how much trouble I would have been in if I fed it? I guess a name is next. . .
She doesn't seem to understand why we won't let her in. She is pretty cute and pathetic looking. How do you say no?

Monsters in the Garden

2008-11-01T22:42:00.004-04:00

What do you do when there are monsters in the garden?

Wait a while. They'll go to sleep eventually.

Halloween was fun, if a bit low key this year. Our parents all came over for food and hung out to entertain trick-or-treaters while the monster and I took the little monster out to make the rounds. The little one was a cutest witch ever:

Overall it was a fun night. (Oh, and thanks for the comments on our anniversary. Two years and counting! Our Halloween story is here. )

A Long Over Due Post

2008-10-28T20:10:00.013-04:00

One of the things that I have learned about gardeners is that they are generous beyond words. That is definitely true of Garden Bloggers. And I've also learned that your baby is your baby forever, even if someone else is taking care of it, at least I feel that way. So I thought that the very generous gardeners that have sent me seeds and cuttings might like to see how their babies are doing:

First are Red Yucca seedlings from VanillaLotus at New Sprout. She sent them back in May and they shot right up, but they've looked like this for several months now. I had several containers that more or less look like this and I planted one in the ground to see if it would take off, but that was only a week ago. Not sure if this is just what yucca do (hee, hee) or if I'm doing something wrong. I really hope it takes off because I love yucca blooms.

Second are Angel Trumpet seeds from the Gardening Fool. They are going gang busters. I think there about 7 to 9 plants and I can't wait to see how they progress. Then came the mother load: Green Jeans from Central Florida Gardening extremely generously sent me a box of great plants, including some of her spiral ginger:

This was from the tuber:

These were cuttings.

She also sent hibiscus seeds (below)

. . . and air plants, which I really thought I got a picture of until I turned on the camera tonight.

Last but not least, Annette from our Our Garden Dirt for seeds from her fabulous four o'clocks. I'm following her specific instructions and not planting them until spring. (BTW Annette, where did ya' go?)

Many THANKS to all of you!!!

Side note: I brought all of the babies in tonight because it is getting COLD tonight. Not quite freezing, but too cold for the little ones. The cold weather has me mentally skipping Halloween and going right to Christmas. I'm trying to get in a festive mood, but I'm not quite feeling Halloween this year.

Attention Florida Voters: Read This Post!!

2008-10-24T23:05:00.010-04:00

Prompted by Julie at A Succulent Life!, I searched the Internet for info on the almost incomprehensible amendments to Florida constitution. As I am planning on voting tomorrow, I wanted to be knowledgeable. (Yes! Early voting in Florida includes Saturdays! Wah-Hoo!! Not all locations, but the one I was planning to use has it.) There are some really important ones on there, and the wording is simply ridiculous. They need to be translated into English. This was a really good site, and I wanted to share it with my fellow Florida gardeners.

http://www.flamendments.org/

(BTW - Again, I'm steering away from flowers, but I think there is an amendment or two here us nature lovers can get behind. Amendment 4, anyone?)

(BTW, BTW - If you do live in Florida, try to vote early. The lines are already crazy long and are sure to be worse on the 4th. I tried today and the line wrapped half around the building. And these people were standing in the rain! Don't wait if you can help it.)

UPDATE: The Butterfly Garden

2008-10-23T20:05:00.005-04:00

My daughter loves touching the pussy-willow soft blooms of the Mealycup sage.

I realized that it has been a while since I've posted updates of the gardens. I guess it all feels a bit repetitive to me, but as always, I'm so surprised about how much it changes when it feels like it is staying the same. I have posted links at the bottoms of these posts that tell the story of each of the gardens. I love seeing how much they have changed since March, but it is a bit sad to know that dreary ol' January is just around the corner. Until then, here is the butterfly garden, which is much nicer in person than comes off in the picture.

Here is the Butterfly Garden's Past.

Wicked Gardener

Shuttin' Her Down

Crinum Lilies

Tersa Sphinx Hummingbird Moth

Update: Front Garden

Finally!

No Rain

How to Recycle a Driveway

Getting Cheap and Dirty

I'm Totally Crushin' on This Guy

Update of the Front Garden (And Other Bits of Happiness)

Does Anyone Else Still Have Their Christmas Lights Up?

Best Cat Ever!

In The Weeds

I'm Back!

Going to Chicago!!

The Best Thing You Can Put In Your Garden

Summer on the Sill

Irises

WWPD?

And the Winners of my Undying Respect and Admiration are . . .

Mystery Plant

Daylily

Just Because It's a Native . . .

My Newbie List

This Gnome is provided for your viewing pleasure.

Lesson Learned

Don't tell the Squirrels

Worm Poo

Facebook

What has Lived

New Layout

IT SNOWED!!!!

Updates

Gardening for Dummies

In the Garden this Evening. . .

My Kind of Pest Control

Signs You've Neglected the Garden Too Long

Recent Flowers

Once Bitten . . .

A Letter

This is so cool . . .

I've Been on Vacation.

OMG!!!! I NEED THIS!!

Buggin' Out

Mother Nature is Hating Me Right Now

UPDATE: The Front Garden

UPDATE: Pool Garden

UPDATE: Corner Garden and Shed Garden

UPDATE: Butterfly Garden

What is blooming right now . . .

The Good Thing About 3 Days of Rain

Lizard Porn!!!!!

Rain

Bastard.

(*^&*&^% Squirrels!!!!!

Bits of Joy in the Garden Tonight

Happy Easter Everyone!

I'm a-goin' plant huntin'!

Seeds and Weeds

All About the Worms

Oh! Yes, yes! A Carrot!

I HAVE WORMS!!!

Great Garden Day - Finally!

Buddha-Man Rules

Notes to my Husband, Regarding Staying Married.

Rainbow Springs

If you are looking for me . . .

I Heart Hurley

Seeds

The Freakin' Freeze

Fellow Ocala Garden Bloggers

It's FFFrrreeeezzzing Here!!

Cats

TO DO: The Pool Garden

TO DO: The Corner Garden

TO DO: The Butterfly Garden

I really want a compost sieve.

Update on the Front Garden

Too Much Eggnog?

(^&&^% Squirrels!!!!!