Shed Garden

For all my complaints, my one love in the garden is the butterfly ginger.

It is stunning every time I look at it.

Pool Garden

Big changes for this garden next year. Out will be the bananas on the left. In will be more birds of paradise, on the left. We might try to clean our pool, too.

Corner Garden

This garden is still a baby. I can't wait to see it next year.

Butterfly Garden

Ugh - I don't want to even talk about this garden.

Thinking about my beautiful passion flower vine totally eaten by caterpillers just makes me cry. Next year I will plant more of the pink salvia that is doing so well and some more guara that I like. Also, I want more of the stargazer lilies that were so pretty mid-summer. I have to do research to see which plants bloom later.

Update - The Front Garden

The Front garden is coming along. A few weeks ago the oleander bloomed and the vinca looks good no matter how hot it gets. It was so humid, the camera lense kept fogging up.

Lowry Park

I'll have admit, it has been hard to post lately. It is September, there is little new in the garden, and most of it is weedy and long. I just read The Ruins which is enough to make anyone shy away from planting anything remotely vine-like. I haven't wanted to write too much because I feel like I'm complaining. But after a trip to Lowry Park Zoo yesterday, I was inspired. Maybe not to start all the work my garden needs, but to take pictures and post a few updates. (If you are a Tampa area gardener, check out their Zoo Poo program.)

The zoo has an Asian themed aviary that I really like. This picture does not do it much justice, but I like the orchids above the ginger and the clay pot. This the direction I'd like the corner garden to go to.

Green Thumb Sunday

Green Thumb Sunday

JoinGardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Go figure. Today was the first day in several weeks that I was motivated to head into the garden and of course it has been a very rainy morning. It did lead to some cool pictures of the elephant ears, however.

The raindrops are pretty.

One of the prettier things in the garden now are some pink saliva that got from cuttings of larger plants in the front yard. This variety of saliva appears to do very well from both seed and cuttings. It also hold up in the hot weather. I can't say any of that about the blue salivas. They are growing scraggly and yellow. This pink variety will have a prominent place in next year's butterfly garden. Next to the salvia is a tiny camellia bud on a plant that I'm amazed I haven't killed yet.

And check this out! Azaleas in August! (Ok, it is officially September, but they were there yesterday too, so my amazement counts.) I didn't know they bloomed at this time of year!