Second Spring Surprises

Have you ever had an extremely gorgeous weekend that just begs you to spend time in the garden and you have to spend most of it doing errands, or worse, work? It is enough to make you cry a little. The weather has cooled dramatically in the last few days and is just wonderful. I had to stay inside and clean the house before my husband threatened to move out. The plants have really enjoined their second spring and gave me a few surprises.

This is plain ol' lantana, but I like this shot.

The butterflies have been plentiful this season, but it seems like only the dull ones stay on the flower long enough to for me to take a picture.

The purple pentas are perfect.


The elephant ears became HUGE over night.

The butterfly ginger are gearing up for round two - yeah!

And the most massive surprise of all, a completely jaw dropping one, was that a stargazer lily from last year decided it would bloom after all, sneaking up behind some salvia. It's almost October! I was so disappointed that last years bulbs didn't bloom. I suppose it was just trying to be fashionably late.

Camellias and Spiders

I have camellias! I came home from work and from across the yard I could see the flowers blooming. I also have this little buddy:

The Nursery Nazi came over not too long ago. Since she studies garden bugs for a living, she took a look at my yard. Fortunately, she said "Looks good. You have lots of banana spiders, so its good." I'm guessing it is because it they eat so many garden pests. Since she came by, I've be a bit more tolerant of the spiders, my organic pesticide.

I spent the weekend puttering around the garden and figured I do a few update photos. Above is the side of the shed.The front of the shed.

The mealy cup sage in the butterfly garden is starting to form buds.

Dwarf Mexican Petunia Cuttings

This week, I bought a Dwarf Mexican Petunia (Ruellia brittoniana )and took cuttings of the dense plant today. Regular ruellia roots like crazy - put some cuttings in a bucket and a week later you'll have thriving plants with masses of tangled roots. These plants, which typically get to about 3 to 5 feet tall, have about an inch between leaf nodes. Root buds come out from in between these nodes. As you see below, the nodes on the dwarf are much closer together. I like this plant, and I am hoping to get a lot of babies from it, but I'm not sure how it will take to rooting. Here is what I did, and what I do for almost all of my soft root cuttings:

I took several 5 inch cuttings and stripped the leaves off the bottom. I also took off flowers and flower buds to encourage the plant to focus energy in to roots.

The soil I use is a typical seed starting soil mix with perlite, peat moss and sphagnum moss. Regular potting mix, while I have certainly used it, can be too dense. Stay away from anything with fertilizers already mixed in. Some people use sand, and I might start because I happen to have a extra bag of sand, and I'd like to extend the life of my mix.

Next is a key part of most of my cuttings. While plants like coleus and sweet potato vine don't need it, more difficult to root plants must have root hormone. Basically it is a powder that encourages root growth in the cutting. You can find it wherever you find garden soil. Just dip in the some water, dip in the powder and . . .

Stick it in the soil. Pretty simple really. I know, this is all ol' hat for seasoned gardeners, but hopefully there is a newbie out there who could use a pointer or two. Besides, I always like learning what other gardeners are doing, so I hope this is useful.

Finally, I put the cuttings in a "high-humidity environment." In my case it is my propagation station, or big clear plastic tub with a lid. You can also cover it with a plastic bag or cover it with empty soda bottle, but I have found this to be the easiest. I used to skip step this in the past, but I tried it this year and I have to say that it dramatically improved my success rate. Usually I'll keep the plant in here anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks. Then they go on the table above, which is in a shady spot on the north side of the house for about a week. Finally, they typically spend a week in their future home before actually being planted there. Watch your plants and check on them every few days. Some really don't like the propagation station. In my case, the vinca didn't preform well in it. Others preform beautifully and I when I take them out they wilt after an hour. They are just not ready yet. The Ruellia are in here, as well as some pentas (another experiment), some Angle Trumpet seedlings and oleander cuttings.

Anyway, here is what do. How do you like to propagate plants?

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. . .

Waterfall

I want this waterfall!!

Why I am so excited for my girl to start school . . .

This is the school she is going to. They have their own organic garden!!!

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?

I might have spoken too soon . . .

Fay's coming right at us!!! And the party is deferred, because after two false-alarm, sunny-as-could-be hurricane days I'm definitely having to go to work. Actually none of it would be a big deal if my daughter's first day of school wasn't canceled again, and I didn't have to shuffle her around between parents and grandparents. She's mopping pathetically around the house saying "I want to go to Kindergarten!"

I can't wait until this is a gardening blog again.

Ocala Wore its Hurricane Repellent Today

Overnight, Fay went from the west coast to the east and is headed back north, completely going around us. After school closings, changing work arrangements, buying emergency supplies (matches, batteries, beer, etc.) it turns out, we have pretty sunny skies right now. Ocala wore its hurricane repellent. A bit of a bummer too. Here's a secret every Floridian knows, but you almost never hear about. Hurricanes can be a bit of fun. Our version of a snow day. Now, by all means, you need to take all necessary precautions and always leave if the authorites recommend it. But once you are hunkered in, off from work, house full of non-perishable snack food, and no electric, what are you going to do but have a party? It also makes a bit of sense. When you have bunch people you can pool your supplies and take care of your friends who's living conditions may not be so favorable (aka mobile homes). In the '04 storms, we hung out in our garages and barbequed with neighbors - kegs going up and down the street from one house to another. But the real parties where in college. In Tallahassee, which was more prone to flooding and had actual hills, one hurricane party featured drunken party goers riding plastic garbage cans down the flooded street. Ahhhh, those were the days. Anyway, if you have suffered from hurricane damage, I don't mean to make light of it. I just wanted to post the other side of hurricanes you don't often hear about. Do you want to plan your own party? Check this out. (Really, a gas powered blender. How genius is that?)