Memories

May 29, 2006
Memorial Day brings back such memories of growing up in a small New England town. We always had a parade through the center of town.. There were only about 380 residents, but so much history packed into that little town in the Barkshires. We always ended up at the cemetary in the center of town and had speeches on the town "green" Everyone brought flowers and most people had planted geraniums or such on the graves. It was a big day for everyone. The day this year made me think of my grandmothers gardens: delphiniums, morning glories (my grandfather helped me learn to count each morning with the open flowers) peonies everywhere, 3 kinds of lilacs, climbing roses, daffodils, narcissus, crocus... and assorted small flowers everywhere. There was a huge old maple up above the yard on the hill, carpeted with lily of the valley. If you ventured into the woord where we played around some huge rocks, there were pink lady slippers in the spring. There were always trillium along a very small stream that ran down behind the garage where the chickens were fenced. My flowers here are so different. Hardly any of those flowers are happy with the summer heat in Florida.

Yesterday I tried to identify a really pretty white flower on a plant I've had for two years. Its been bone dry, overwatered, in sun and in shade and yet it looks healthy. I posted a picture on the garden web and found out its an Amazon Lily. I like the other name.. Eucharist Lily.

The flower is such a clear bright white and the fragrance is wonderful. It is certainly needing a larger pot, but think I'll wait till this stalk is done blooming. They say that if you withhold water for a period after blooming it will bloom again and again.

Hans brought home some more bromeliads last week. I've been reading to see what their requirements are and find that you need to know the cultivar to know whether it needs sun or shade. Someone said to put apples into the centers to help them 'bloom'. I noticed there are now red inflorescenses (? smile) on two of them as they lay there awaiting planting. Most all that I read talked about them being in pots even though I see them planted in the ground around trees.

This morning when I went out to water I noticed that there are droppings on the 4 o'clocks and holes chewed in all the leaves. Time for some garlic and onion water sprayed onto them. I assume that the droppings are from some sort of catepillar.

My grandfather used to grow sunflowers that were about 12 feet high... We loved to have our pictures taken with them and loved it when they were taken down to harvest the seed for the birds in the fall. I also remember the metal box with seeds in it hidden in one of the sheds. 30 years after he had died we found that box and planted some of those seeds. The tomato seeds were still viable. Memories are something that never get old.

Into the Rainy Season

May 27, 2006
Sometimes we dread rainy days but after a long dry period, rain is relaxing and cleansing. When the days are hot the afternoon thunderstorms aren't far behind. Its enough to help me not have to water every other day. hooray!!

The ferns are getting lush. This spring the rabbit's foot fern had ONLY furry feet.. then those beautiful fiddleheads as the leaves opened and stretched.. and now lush, curly leaves. I was so excited about those hairy first beginnings !!Just beautiful. The staghorn fern is now hanging in its new location....over a border under the same oak tree. Its also getting bigger and bigger and will soon need something more sturdy to hold the forthcoming growth. We grew small pots of assorted ferns for the wholesale market years ago. I'd love to have some of those to add to my fern bed.. or perhaps to put among some of the shady flowers.

Last year my cassia fistula had only a handful of blooms. This year it looks like it might be covered with buds. None have opened yet, but its a beautiful plant/shrub. I've seen others locally that are large and covered with such long lsting brilliant yellow blooms. The butterflies just love it.

I have an unidentified plant purchased last year. The name firespike is in my mind and the leaves do look similar. Hopefully its a firespike as theysould like a great hummer plant.. very tall and will take sun or partial shade.
Cassia Fistula March The Cassia bloomed in March in 05, but as yet have only tiny blooms. I'll be happy whenever it blooms. After the Electric company cut back the tree there is a lot more light, so perhaps it will do even better.

The impatiens that I put into 4" pots have taken over. Right now they are carpeting one side of the stairs to the side porch.. beautiful peach color. There is also a dark red one which was nearly dead from neglect, drought and spider mites. I sprayed it a few time with a few drops of dish liquid in a sprayer of water. Does wonders for so many bugs. If there are particularly pesky ones I might add the juice of onion or garlic.

When trimming back the red hibiscus I found a small pot lost under the leaves. I put it in water to see what it might be and within a few days there were some shoots coming up. It turned out to be a caladium Nice find. What bad care they can survive!!

More than enough

May 19,2006
God tells us that He gives to us "in abundance". Sometimes want far more than we need. For so many years I longed to have LOTS of places for different types of plants. Now I have more than enough space and find its more than I can handle. When I go to the grocery store and look for something like salad dressing - its the same thing. I find myslf wishing there were fewer choices. When did I get so tentative in my choices and decisions?

Sometimes there are so many things going on in our lives its hard to focus in one spot and accomplish something. Its tiring to look at the whole picture at once. SO - after running errands this morning I'm going to concentrate on ONE small area...the flowers around the birdbath by the side door. I have several amaryllis plants which have bloomed for such a long time this spring, a french blue salvia, some yellow margueritas, white madagascar periwinkles, some red pentas and some deep peach impatiens. I started some alyssum, but have procrastinated so long in getting them into the ground, I fear that they no longer have the stamina to bloom. Sometimes we do things because of convenience. The tree men brought a load of mulched trees from our street. I laid layers of newspaper and then spread the mulch on that bed before the plants were in the ground. I'm now finding it is SO much harder to rake all this back just to put the plants into the ground. It would have been so much better to put in the plants and THEN add the mulch. Live and learn. This picture is of one of my favorite plants - a peach double impatiens. I'm delighted each time I see them referred to as 'busy lizzies'.

I am considering dumping a 5 gallon pail of aged horse manure onto a section of the lawn out back and putting watermelon surrounding it. The lawn at this point is merely a collection of green weeds way out back, so nothing would be harmed. I could then add mulch and allow the watermelon to lay on top of the mulch.

Today I'm off to find a birthday present for my 'baby'. She turns 37 this year !! Our other daughter is 42 !!! Can we possibly be old enough to have children that age??? LOL. She also loves photography - Both of us fill in relaxing moments at Flickr.com enjoying others photographic art. I'm off to find a 'compatible' larger memory card for their older Olympus camera.

Florida Weather

May 17, 2006
This has been a couple days full of Florida weather. I tell people that we have that wonderful spring like weather for months and months... there is just a bit of too cold thrown in to keep things interesting, but from November until April is absolutely wonderful.

We had gentle rain all day yesterday. The 4 o'clocks grew about 3" !! I noticed this morning that the crepe myrtle at the front of the house has one or two blooms opened. It blooms over such a nice long period of time.. a few blooms to start and then just wild abandon. This year I want to cut them back severely so that they will be thicker with flowers next year. I've read conflicting suggestions on when to prune. Since they form their new flowers on new wood, I think they ought to be cut back right after the main bloom period. The one out back has huge scoops of delicious raspberry colored flowers.. The one out front is just a little paler in color.

I've had no luck getting the bromeliads to bloom. Someone suggested cut pieces of apples in the 'cups'... and in two weeks they said you would begin to see color. The plants have thrived and multiplied, but the color is very shy. Perhaps a totally different location would help.

Went down past the lake again today.. I absolutely love those clumsy blue gallinules. When they run, they make me think of the road runner cartoons.. and then their white petticoats show under their tail feathers. When the sun shines on them they look unreal.. Incredibly beautiful blue! It almost looks like they have someone else's huge feet. God does delight our hearts!

Rain

May 16,2006
Today is one of those very slow, dripping kind of days. We've been blessed with two good heavy, lasting rains in the last few weeks. Things are brown and dying in so many places that I'm doubly grateful for the rains no matter when they come. so many times I think I've watered adequately but after a long soaking rain, I notice that things just seem to jump into growth.

I love the "golden dewdrop" flower (Duranta Repens) ..although it took several months to understand why its called that. The seedpods/berries do look like deep golden dewdrops. This spring I cut this back severely to make mowing around it easier and covering it during next year's frosts easier. Butterflies just love this bush - no wonder its another called butterfly bush.

We went to a family type lunch on Mother's Day - it was fun and all the people were wonderful. I had planned to bring some watermelon plants for them to plant near their manure pile from the horses... hoping for great yields!!! We had all sorts of animals when we lived in Maine and so had wonderful gardens. Most was composted before being spread in the garden and anything volunteering in the area thrived.

There was a fairly large stand of horseradish behind our barn. Our only experience with horseradish came in very small jars. We belonged to an organic gardening club in New Gloucester, Maine - absolutely wonderful, back in time town. Someone told us how to prepare the horseradish. They did forget to mention that you NEVER grind horseradish INSIDE. It took more than 8 hours for the volatile fumes to come out of the kitchen so anyone could enter. We've laughed so hard at our inexperience back then. I'm thinking that had we eaten it, we may have gone blind!!! No doubt the manure piles were great encouragement to those plants. There was also a stand of rhubarb about 10 feet from the pile. Another surprise bonus crop.

One daughter has horses and so has a pile which is probably wonderfully composted toward the back. The only thing holding me back from running over there with pails to harvest some of this is lack of energy and very large Arabian horses. LOL. Suzi is home these days. Perhaps I'll call her and we can do it together. She isn't intimidated by those curious, helpful HUGE animals.

I have several years worth of Country Living and Gardening magazines which have provided so many hours of dreaming and planning. All those years of being sick and having to stay in that temporary apartment were filled with gardening sereptitiously. Now that we have another piece of property with amazing opportunities for garden beds, the energy has flown. How do you balance having the time as you're older, but not the energy of being young?

My grandmother had beautiful gardens - even after her broken hip. Her secret was a y oung boy who came after school 2 days a week. He did her weeding and any other thing that required being up close and personal with the ground. I have two foam swim mats that are wonderful for sitting on the ground. Its the humorous picture I imagine in getting up that prevents my gardening from the ground when everyone is home in the neighborhood.

I have so many seeds to start. I love starting seeds, but my energy and the plantlets readiness doesn't always coincide. Gardenweb.com has so many gardeners who exchange plants that perhaps I'll start plants and just offer them to anyone who comes through this area. I would love suggestions on what to do with my yard from anyone in exchange.

The mulch seemed such a good idea, but I'm finding it makes it so much harder to put things into the ground. The mulch will have to be raked back and the newspapers pulled up... where I laid them down. We have an abundance of worms in this yard.. aren't we blessed? The concensus on Garden Web was to lay wet newspapers down and then mulch. No doubt it would have been a wonderful idea AFTER having planted the plants. LOL.

Sometimes I wonder whether its the flowers I love, or the birds and butterflies they draw.. or perhaps an equal love at different times. Nothing calms my spirit more than sitting on my side porch in the morning with the cool breeze and the cacaphony of birdsong.. its amazing !!

Today is a day to read and look at other's gardens... I need to go to the store, but find that my window refuses to go up or down in my car... and so I've covered it with plastic until the rains subside.... I need to find how to get the cleome to germinate. Never had good success with them. We started so many hard to start, fine as powder seeds when we had the greenhouse.. but now I can't even get the cleome to sprout. Off to learn.