Just Because It's a Native . . .

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.

UPDATE: Butterfly Garden

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

TO DO: The Butterfly Garden

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.

UPDATE: The Butterfly Garden

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.

Perdy Pictures

Finally! The season is almost over and I finally have a bloom on my passion flower vine. Just in time too because the caterpillars are on their way.

My butterfly ginger is putting on a nice second showing.

Thought I'd share the plant love.

Weekend Weeding

Spent the weekend weeding out the butterfly garden with my daughter. This is "her" garden and she is very protective of it. Here is the before:And the after:

The garden is looking pretty lately, waking up a bit from the intense summer heat. Above are Mexican petunia blooms.

Some pink salvia in the back of the garden.
I planted a bunch of pentas in the butterfly garden. They were cheap ($.50 for a 4-inch pot) and somewhere I heard they were decent cool weather plants. The cashier said they were "hummer magnets." Yeah, yeah. I've lived in Florida for 20 years, and I've never seen a hummingbird. I've heard that they are around, but I've also heard that big foot is around these parts if you spend time in the forest. Well, damn if I didn't plant these the other night and yesterday evening we saw a hummingbird. It was small, about the size of my thumb and looked a lot like a large bug, but it was a hummingbird. Makes me think I've seen them before but didn't know what they were. I went out this morning and bought more pentas for the front garden. Now I'll be like the little old ladies with all the tacky bright red plastic hummingbird feeders, perched by the window just waiting. . .

Word of the Day: Soggy

Well Fay left us a soggy mess. The storm was not intense, but the wind and rain stuck around for a while, over 24 hours, and we still may see some outer bands of rain later this morning. Fortunately we are not seeing the flooding that some parts of Florida are and we haven't lost any trees like our neighbors have. I thought I'd stroll around the yard and show you what did happen:

The major thing was this branch falling in the corner garden. The branch was dead and hanging ominously over the garden. We cut down as much of it as we could, and since we couldn't afford a professional to trim it up, we hoped that when it did eventually fall that it wouldn't take out the fence or the palms. Fortunately, this is what happened. It did squish my gingers, but they will bounce back with no problems.

This picture of the pool shows how truly concerned we were about this storm. We forgot to take the umbrella down, and it is no worse for the ware.

My oleander in the front garden is strange . . . it didn't really fall over, more like it is bent over. Not sure how to fix it. Maybe prune it back so it is not so top heavy.

My lantana tree fell over, which is not a surprise because it falls periodically even without a storm. Before Fay it was on the agenda to spend some serious time weeding this garden and that certainly hasn't changed. This is the only real damage. I think the branch broke some slats in the fence. No big deal, but I'm sure the neighbors will leave it there for another three weeks. Do you like their paint job? A few months ago they painted as far up as they could reach and then left like that. Attractive, huh?

Update on the Butterfly Garden

Update on the butterfly garden. A rampant lantana has made this area quite weedy looking. That and the weeds.

Butterfly Hunting

Me and my daughter went butterfly hunting this morning. Don't worry, we only shot them with the camera. Even though I have fewer butterfly plants this year, I've noticed a ton of butterflies. A lot of different varieties too. Of course, when we sit in the garden, patiently waiting for a butterfly to flutter by, there none but this little dull one. Oh well, I did some seriously cute pictures of my daughter. The garden looks like a jungle from this angle:

I Love This Time of Year

I love this time of year! I don't feel totally depressed every time go out to the garden. The butterfly garden is looking pretty decent right now. The only flaw (and isn't there always one?) is the empty trellis where the passion vine just isn't taking off. The Stargazer lilies are beautiful and the pink guara by the bird bath have gotten very tall and spread nicely. But nothing compares to finding a little surprise like this one:
One of my Crinums, one of the ones I was pretty sure I killed, HAS A BUD!! I'm SO excited I'M USING CAPS!!!! (You'll be seeing more of this plant in the near future.)

Blooming Gifts from my Garden

I came home to presents this evening:

Canna 'Tropicanna'

Stargazer Lily #1

Stargazer Lily #2

Update on the Butterfly Garden

Just when I've written off a plant, it goes and does something that redeems itself. I was ready to tear out all of the lantana this year, just because it was ready to take over things. But check out that pink! I don't remember planting lantana that pink. And its a color after my own heart. I took a bunch of cuttings today, so hopefully I'll have more shortly.Here's an update of the Butterfly Garden. It is still a bit messy looking and I'm not sure how to fix that.

But next week should be pretty - my stargazer lilies are all set to bloom.

Update of the Butterfly Garden

The butterfly garden has perked up.

Yellow Snapdragons

Happy looking salvia.

Even the lilies have come up.

The Aftermath

Well, the good news is that the bird of paradise made it. It was pretty severely hacked, but the plant as a whole made it through. In the pool garden, the bananas died, but they will grow back. The hibiscus died too, as usual. Hibiscus will grow back, but not enough to bloom before the next frost, so I treat it as an annual. There are hardy hibiscus plants available, so I might try those this year.

The shed garden didn't fare as well. Everything but the palms died back. Not sure exactly what will come back this year.

This is a bit of a depressing sight.

However, the shell ginger, a plant that I thought would be highly effected by the cold, looks like nothing happened. I will have to use this plant more liberally this year. Note the hot pink coleus next to it is not look quite as pink as it once was.

The crinums are perky as ever.

I lost much of the lantana tree, the Mexican petunias, and about half of the sage. The crepe myrtle tree was cut back a couple of weeks ago. The passion flower vine, butterfly bush, and the pentas at the bottom of this picture still look pretty happy.

The pansies have earned their reputation as good cold weather plants.

Butterfly Garden Update

So it still looks a bit dreary, but the butterfly garden has more flowers in it right now than it has had in months. There some pansies in the front, white impatiens in the back and some purple lantana that has come back and is showing some life.

But it is this little vine that has made me happiest by far. Several little tendrils of my passion flower vine have sprouted and started making their way up the trellis bench. I thought the caterpillars finally got to it this year. Wa-hoo!!

The Highs and The Deep, Deep Lows of the Butterfly Garden

The camellias were very, very close to being taken out of the garden this year. They took up a lot of space and last year I only had about 2 blooms for four plants. They had a ton of bugs and one died. But, over the last few months these guys have been have been earning their keep. Lots of pretty blooms. This bloom is from the bud I posted last week. We planted winter annuals, pansies and snap dragons, for some blooms in the next few months. I even have some bulbs sprouting. I don't know what they are, possibly some irises that I thought might be dead so I let my daughter plant them in random places.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SUBJECT MATTER MAY BE TOO DISTURBING FOR SENSITVE READERS.

This hole opened up in the garden. I know, I know. Just the picture is giving me the creeps. Since the old Indian name for Ocala is "Land of Thousand Sinkholes", I'm more than a bit worried. When we bought the house, we had a geologist inspect the land because the owner had tried to get out of the deal by telling us there was sinkhole. Now, we are worried again. We aren't sure what to do besides getting a couple bags of topsoil and hope for the best.