Sissy Bananas...

There are probably many, many things in Tampa that don’t mind it one bit when the temperature falls below 40 degrees. Unfortunately few of these things exist in my garden. Even less now after two nights in the 30s.

Bananas are such sissies. They feel faint at 40. Both kinds.

A quick survey shows the blue and the red porterweed are gone again. I lost my entire crop last year, as did most of the nurseries that cultivate the plant. It was late spring before the garden centers restocked. The hummingbirds really love porterweed, so I will probably just keep putting it in.

The brugmansia are feeling woozy and the expected cold front on Monday will probably finish them off. These are well-established plants with deep roots, so they should come back. Some elephant ears are gone; some remain. They grow like weeds here. No problems.

The real troopers (so far) are the knockout roses and the dianthus. The roses in fact did so well with so little attention I planted four more late this fall. They were on sale 2/$10.

I followed this very drowsy bumblebee around the garden today. She fell off the blossoms a few times but got right back up and worked this dianthus. The dry air probably helped her build up some static cling to aid in the pollen gathering. I don’t know if Florida bumblebees hibernate or not but I’m quite glad that there are some flowers for them remaining.

I love bees… big drowsy bumbling bees in fuzzy striped pajamas.

Perhaps the bananas need more flannel...

October Haiku

Tree Shadow

A piece of the moon

Slips down the tarnished dark fork.

Quick grass laps it up.

Hello Peg,

This week in Tampa feels like summer all over again. Last weekend, I purchased flats of the 'cool season' plants... dianthus, snaps, pansies (love those faces!) ... and now they are all languishing in the shade on the side of the yard waiting for that 'cool season' to return. A cool front is forecast to come by for the weekend and there is also a rumor spreading amongst the cloud people that we could see some showers on Thursday. I may plant then.

At least it is an authorized 'sprinkler night'.

For anyone who does not garden in Florida, we rely on seasonal climate changes to augment our irrigation. There is a wet season (June-October) and a dry season (The rest of the year.). The appointed gods of water management control when and for how long residents may use home irrigation systems, including in-ground timed systems, hoses, micro-irrigation and just about everything else.

This October, while beautiful and in the mid-80s (until this week), has been extremely dry. So we have to water. On Mondays and/or Thursdays between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m.

I may just try sweet talking the cloud people first.

October Blessings,

Wren

Tulips! and those lovely end of season sales...

Good morning, Wren!

Today is sunny but cold. I sat outside having my coffee and pumpkin bread a little while ago, angling in my chair to have the sun on me! It should warm up soon. I plan to keep planting tulip bulbs today. yes, my box of 300 tulip bulbs arrived this week! It's a selection of Emperor tulips, early tulips that tend to perennialize. The selection includes red, orange, and white Emperors, plus yellow (Purissima), pink (Albert Heijn, pictured left) and pink/white (Flaming Purissima) varieties. The gardens at Emack and Bolio's will get all of the reds, plus some orange and white. Most of the yellows will go to one of my clients in Delmar. I may sneak in a few orange and pink ones in the various beds at Brushwood (Todd and I will be going out there the weekend of my birthday, and the following weekend my friend Krissy and I will go for Samhain). I love that these bulbs can be planted as long as the ground is not frozen; I've planted them as late as December!

Planted about half of the Albert Heijns and Flaming Purissimas yesterday; worked in some peat moss and manure mix to the soil which tends to be heavy clay. I am jealous of the Delmar soil which is loose, sandy loam! I must have already added at least a dozen bags of manure, mushroom compost, and 3 or 4 huge bags of peat moss to my garden since we moved in May. Plus some blood and bone meal to the roses and hydrangeas.

Doncha just love those end of season sales?!? I got a lovely Miss Bateman clematis at Lowe's the other day for half price; I'd been lusting after ordering one online for months. Also ordered a few more bulbs from van Bourgondien: some Delnashaugh daffodils, plus a mix of different yellow daffodils, some Ballerina tulips (a lovely orange lily-flowering tulip, which flowers in May, after the Emperors are done), some blue alliums, some Cote D'Azur lilies (fuschia!) and a few mixed Asiatic lilies. Also some white grape hyacinths, and some Blue Pearl crocuses. I confess: spring flowering bulb season is my favorite season in the garden.

But I am really enjoying my mums! I transplanted a few from my old yard, and ordered a couple from a catalog, and have bought quite a few from the neighborhood greenhouse, Lowe's and Home Depot. I have many colors now! (No, that photo is not from my garden!) Deep burgundy, bronze red, reddish orange, medium orange, golden orange, peachy-salmon, medium lavender, pale lavender, magenta, white, yellow, and a gorgeous rose pink. I love how most of them have girls' names: Fiona, Hannah, Sly Jenna, Beth, Spicy Cheryl, Golden Cheryl (Cheryl gets around, apparently), etc. Some faves I love but do not have yet are Penelope (buff peach) and Victoria (pale pink).

I just went through a bunch of photos taken in my garden this summer and am going to post an album of them on Facebook...but here are some favorites!

Asiatic Lily; I forget what the name is.


Green Man sundial in my herb garden.


Bunny in the yard next door, captured just after that Green Man photo!


A blue columbine; this was taken in early August! It came from the greenhouse and I planted it in August so it bloomed way later than normal.


"Bon Bon" Cosmos: I planted these from seed. Photo taken in early September.


One of MANY bees that covered my cat mint for weeks on end!

October means planting bulbs!

Good morning, Wren! We had two luscious days of rain and the flowers are shaking off their droplets and shining again! I also received the beginning of my spring bulb shipment this week, from Van Engelen and John Scheepers; really they are the same company, but Van Engelen sells in larger wholesale quantities.
So, I have some Twilight crocus bulbs, some Gypsy Queen and Sky Jacket hyacinths:
and some other blue bulbs, like Valeria Finnis muscari, and English bluebells (which are endangered, because of cross hybridizing with Spanish bluebells; the bulbs sold as English bluebells are a close imposter I guess, since it's illegal to dig them up in the wild now).
I must confess, spring flowering bulbs make spring my favorite time in the garden! But of course right now I am loving the mums, asters, zinnias and marigolds: so colorful! Next up: photos of my own gardens...

Too Early To Harvest...

Hi Peg! I am watching the Weather Channel daily now and eagerly anticipating the arrival of the 'fall cooling front'. It's a Florida tradition: the boundary between the 'hot weather plantings' and the 'cool weather plantings'. One day it's summer; the next day it's autumn. It can literally happen just like that.

I was at the garden center this weekend and did manage to resist the lure of teasing blossoms. (It's too early.) I left only with the honeysuckle shears I came in for. But promises were made... Oh yes, promises were most definitely made and the dianthus, phlox and grinning pansies know I'll be seeing them again soon.

Fall Puts On Some Lipstick

Hi Peg,

It seems strange to speak of fall when it will still be around 90 degrees here in Tampa for a few more weeks. But the gardens know it is coming.

The backyard sages are almost leafless now and I'll prune them to the ground next week. The pentas are bit bedraggled but since the bees are still working them over, I'll leave them until I can get some pansies, dianthus and snapdragons in the beds.

The bromeliads that Don Waterhawk planted for us around the Norfolk Pine in the front yard are about to bloom. No asters and red maple leaves for we Floridians! We're bringing out the lipstick!

...While I Touch The Sky

The Mexican Sage -- which did exceptionally well this year -- is peeking over the fence and spying on the neighbors!

Purple Haze...

Hi Peg,

The elderberry bush provides berries for the mockingbirds and endless amusement for the cats watching from the window.

Eye Spy...

This little guy followed me all across the garden. Just keeping an eye out, I suppose...

And this is AFTER the weeding out!

Hi Peg,

The garden is growing like crazy because, as the Power Station song states, "Some Like It Hot". The ones that didn't are long gone. Alas, fine dianthus, I knew ye well! (But do not despair for they hath surely seeded themselves and will return in the fall.)

Bromeliads abound and thanks to our friend, Don Waterhawk, I now have quite a selection. I can harvest a pup or two for you if you want to try a few indoors.

(I hate a quiet garden)

I hate a quiet garden

Where things are all just so,

Where nothing gets too out of bounds,

Or messes with the flow.

I like my garden lively:

Bees lining up to the bar,

Brugmansia overflowing,

Botanical repertoire.

It gets a bit untidy,

With vines rambling to and fro.

But it’s better than wild blossoms

With nowhere else to go.

Irises!

Good morning, Wren! Today, some lovely iris photos.

Guerilla Gardening Update: The irises did not winter well in the patches on Delaware Avenue (the city basically just dumped mulch down, and irises need decent soil that's a bit more sandy and loamy). This bums me out, as I had relocated them last fall (when it was unclear when we might be selling our house and moving) hoping to be able to subdivide in the future, and had no idea what colors or varieties I was planting. I hope I didn't lose any precious varieties. Some of the newer cultivars seem to take a bit longer to get established than those trusty heirlooms. But of course these newer varieties often have enormous, thrilling flowers so it's worth it to grow them!


I have many irises to relocate and even though fall is best for transplanting them I am going to dig more up tomorrow. I'll put them in at Emack and Bolio's, so I can subdivide them after they're established. I also planted some at Christine's place yesterday. She has gorgeous sandy, loamy, soft soil in Delmar, I am so jealous of it! I hope the irises do well there.

I love irises! These photos were all taken in my yard last year. How about that gorgeous purple one? I'm not sure what the variety is.I have so many that keeping track of the names feels like a fool's errand. I also love the burgundy one; the beard is a deep orange, almost rust. The lavender/tan one is a vintage variety called "Shaker's Prayer" or something with Shaker in the name (ETA: It is actually "Quaker Lady" ha ha). I like how it bridges/balances the colors between all the yellow and purple varieties of iris many iris lovers seem to have in their gardens, bringing out subtle tones in both. I also have a deep purple one called "Dracula's Shadow" and a lovely pale blue one I can't identify, as I got it in a grab bag of irises from Ebay. I  think it may be a "Princess Grace of Monaco." It has a glistening quality and a soft yellow beard.

Can you grow bearded irises in Florida? What about Siberian ones? I think there may be southern varieties, like the Louisiana Iris. They're gorgeous, super colorful.

Clean-up!

Good morning, Wren!

Here in the Hudson Valley region, we've had a lovely spring thaw. The huge mounds of slushy snow are slowly melting away. After yesterday's temps in the low 50s, it dropped below freezing last night and the ground was hardened again this morning. But by the time I finished my walk around 9 am, it was softening again. It will go up to 48 degrees today, NOAA tells me. So, despite there still being some snow lurking in my yard, I'm going to attempt my first spring clean-up.

There are daffodils, crocuses and tulips poking up their leaves, so I'll gently remove the leaves and trash and other accumulated detritus of our urban winter. I'll also gently prune some of the late blooming shrubs, like the caryopteris, the hydrangea, and the roses.

I have plenty of seeds I gathered last fall to sort through, and I'll be sending them off to you this week: some deep purple bachelor buttons, hollyhocks in various shades of pink, Chinese forget-me-nots in deep blue, and zinnias in all colors. I hope they grow beautifully for you!

The catalogs keep arriving, of course. My faves are Wayside Gardens, Bluestone Perennials, Gilbert H. Wild (great prices and wide selection of daylilies and peonies!), Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (here is their blog), Park Seeds, and Brent and Becky's Bulbs. For hardy plants real cheap (like creeping phlox, coreopsis, or dianthus) I also like ordering the 1-cent specials from Spring Hill. I've also found some great plant sellers on Ebay (after a great deal of hit or miss!); my favorite seller is a retired botany professor who sells really nice perennial shrubs and hosta. I've gotten nice hydrangeas, lilacs and a flowering quince from him.

I love to go through them and circle things. Since we'll be moving soon, and we're not 100% set on a new house (though hope to have it narrowed down by this week), I can't quite bring myself to order anything yet, though I am also planning more plantings at Brushwood this spring, especially some more shade plants like astilbes and hostas.

Speaking of which, I'm heading out there next weekend with my friend Krissy. Weather permitting, I hope to do some clean-up there, too, to allow the spring plants some more light and air. I planted plenty of tulips there last year. as well as a few daffodils and hyacinths in pale blue and bright orange! When we head out there for Beltane there should be plenty of colorful blooms to greet us.
(Fire shrine garden in spring 2009 at Brushwood Folklore Center)

Outside...

It is still too cold to plant. I pruned the dead banana stalks yesterday. I was surprised -- and the kitties delighted -- that the catnip was lush and full. A good time was had by all.

Today it is raining. Poetry must take the place of flowers for now...

Outside,

The tree waves.

Tickled with squirrel paws,

Trickled by rain,

She knows her place,

Plants her roots,

Holds her ground.

What does that feel like?

To remain so steadfast?

To watch the changes of time?

Birds in our hair.

Worms in our toes.

Seasons on our tongues.

Inside,

I think we used to know.

Blooming Where I'm Planted...I Hope

I made it! I'm in! Now if only my garden was "blog worthy"...

Unseasonably cold weather hit Florida and my poor plants are still feeling the pain. The pygmy date palm is as brown as a toasted...well, piece of wheat bread. Organic, multi-grain, buttered...where was I again?

I've already -- and who really can stand to look at those poor wilted dears for the recommended 'wait a few weeks' time frame? -- pruned the brugmansia down to the ground and some tiny buds look willing to help me forget the entire tragic affair.

I'll have to wait to see what else can be rescued until this weekend since we have an extended rain forecast for most of this week...

Wren in the House!

After patiently waiting for Wren to join the blog, she has agreed, and we'll now be blogging on our gardens and anything else that catches our fancy! Hope you will join us here.