Amaryllis

I didn't know I had Amaryllis in my garden but I did. Cindee gave me a couple of seedlings last month but they are still small, I hope they will bloom next year. The one I have must be from the Mounts' November sale, when I bought some things that didn't have tags. The flowers are orange/red.

Plant sale

I had promised myself I was not going to buy any more plants until I planted all the ones I have, on the ground. Well, on Saturday I could not resist going to the Mounts Botanical Garden's Spring Sale. I said to myself I was only going to look but I looked in my bag to see if I had any cash. I had $25 so I said, "well, maybe I would spend $20". I did buy 3 plants and a bag of fertilizer for the banana. I try to use only organic fertilizers but they told me I needed to put some fertilizer on the banana trees or they will never set fruit. I got a begonia and 2 small red Potterweed, one for me and one for my sister.

I was very happy and impressed to see the way the gardens looked. I was there in November and they looked terrible, almost everything was damaged by the hurricanes and most sections were closed to the public. It was very sad. Now almost everything is opened. They lost most of their huge trees but it still looks great. I saw their vegetable garden and I finally got inspired and I have drawn plans for mine. They used Society garlic in some of the beds and it looks so pretty.

Cabbage and sunflowers

My son and I were just in the garden and we saw two yellow Sulphur butterflies and a white/light brown one. It was beautiful, and I wish I could have taken a better picture. I took one but it was from far away.

We are going to cut the cabbage later in the afternoon. I don't want the bugs to eat it. I had planted two and one was damaged by some bugs so I had to pull it out. This one is still growing but I don't want to take chances.

The sunflowers are growing a lot. They are taller than my son.

South Florida

Somebody asked me if I lived in a warm climate and yes!!! I am in South Florida. That is the reason why I have tomatoes now. Our vegetable growing season is during the winter/early spring. This is my first year of growing vegetables and I have learned a lot. This year I grew everything in containers. I need to start planning my garden for next year. I like the potager look so I am hoping to make a garden with edibles and flowers.

Tomatoes!!!

We got a lot of cherry tomatoes today. It looks like they are all ripening at once. It has been very hot lately so I guess this is the end of the season. The plants still have more tomatoes and even some flowers but they seem to be growing faster now.

This is going to be my dinner tonight :-)

Vegetable garden

The potted tomato plants are still giving us tomatoes every day. The plants are not looking great because it is getting hot outside but it keeps flowering and producing fruit.

I just cut the Swiss chard. I was waiting for it to get larger but it looks like something is eating the larger leaves so I decided to cut all the baby leaves before they get them too. I am going to cook it like spinach and see if I like them.

We still have sweet peas in the trellis. The plant is not looking good but it has good sized pea pods.

The fig cutting are getting bigger. One has 2 figs but they have not grown at all, the plant is getting larger and it has more leaves but the figs are the same.

Ginger and miniature roses

I just noticed that the gingers are coming out! I can't wait to see them. I planted pinecone ginger in other parts of the garden because I wanted to have lots of cut flowers in the summer. I loved having them last year. I love the way they smell. I put some in my sister's garden as well. I also saw buds in the walking Iris and the Amaryllis! My miniature roses are blooming now. I love that pink color.

Butterflies

These are pictures of some of the butterflies that have visited our garden during the past year.

Hail damage

Last weekend there was some kind of storm and we had some hail. I had never seen hail in Florida. It was not much so I didn't think it was going to damage the plants but it did. Some of the plants with big leaves have holes and broken leaves. It also has been very windy for the last 4 days and it is affecting some of the plants.
Some sunflowers were cut in half. I guess they are too tall and are not supported. The garden looks sad :(

Back garden

I finally started mulching the garden bed in the back. I am not finished because I ran out of mulch and newspaper but I am glad I was able to do most of it.

Spring

Spring is here! It is amazing how the plants know it and they are growing so fast. It also means that the weather is going to get hot and I won't be able to play in the garden much. The bugs are back too. I have seen more wasps looking for eggs and caterpillars and fire ants have started to make mounds. Somebody told me to put sugar in the mounds to make the fire ants leave and it seems to be working. It doesn't kill them but it makes them leave.

Amaryllis

I got some Amaryllis! Cindee sent me a seedling, a couple of bulbettes, some african iris seeds and a rooted brug cutting!! She is so generous!!! I planted the Amaryllis in the back and put the brug cutting in a pot until I make a bed for it. Thank you Cindee.

What's blooming in my garden?

I haven't had time to take pictures but I want to write about the plants that are blooming right now. My ground orchid (Phaius tankervillaea "Nun's orchid") has flowers. They are very pretty. The kings mantle is doing great, it has lots of blooms. It is in the north side of the house so for months it has been in full shade. The bulbine I got on Ebay is blooming too. I love the pink begonia, very easy to propagate, the small white flowers are bacopa. They have been blooming for months. I also like the daisies I got. The lavender is still blooming and the potterweed is starting to bloom more. I am also excited because for the first time my bouganvilleas are blooming. Not a lot, but they have blooms. I have had them for a couple of years and once they lost the blooms they had when I bought them, they had not bloomed at all.

Orchids

I got two flowers in the orchid that I put outside in the tree! The poor thing looked dead after going through Hurricane Wilma but it is giving me beautiful flowers.

Don got me a beautiful Vanda for Valentine's and I love it. The ground orchid I got at Mount's plant sale is blooming too. The flowers are small, orange color and very pretty. I also got two other ground orchids that are ready to bloom. I can't wait to see what color they are.

I also got two more orchids inside. I bought them to give them as presents and I kept them for myself.

Chrysalids

We have been releasing two Monarch butterflies every day. The kids love them because they stay in their hands for a long time. We have some more chrysalids and caterpillars. The Monarch's chrysalid is green, like a jade. They really look like gems, with specks of gold. We also have a pink chrysalids. I have been trying to research if it is a Monarch too but I have not been able to find information. The caterpillar was very similar to the Monarch but it had 3 sets of horns and the stripes were different. We are hoping it is a different butterfly.

Update: June 1st, 2006. I think I know what the other caterpillar/chrysalid was. A queen butterfly caterpillar, Danaus gilippus. A very close relative of the monarch. It is brown instead of orange. We gave some chrysalids to Hailey and Andie so we never saw them open.

Planting

This morning I went to my yoga class and then to my sister's to help her plant some stuff. We could not do much because it was too sunny but I was able to weed a little in the front, cut back the sweet potato vine and put more soil in the planter and we planted one hydrangea, one golden dew drop, one firespike and one Potterweed in the bed by the window in the back. Right now they are in shade all or most of the day so they should be fine. The plants in the new bed in the front look good.

When I came home I weeded some of the front beds and mulched the Philodendron Xanadu. I am tired but I am happy I was able to accomplish something.

The mommy bird is back!!!

The mommy bird is back in the nest!! We are so happy about that. We also saw the daddy dove when he brought food to the mommy. We think that is what he did. He flew to the nest, put something there or gave something to the sitting dove and flew away.

Rescue

I put the nest back in the palm tree. I picked the eggs with a spoon and I am hoping the dove will come back to take care of them. They are so perfect!

Nest

I can't believe it happened again. The bird nest fell again. It had 2 little eggs. There is a family of small doves (I think Mourning dove) that live in our garden and this is the second time one of them makes a nest in one of the palm trees and it falls. Last year it was in the back and this year in the one by the front door. I guess the mommy dove doesn't know that those palms are self prunning and shed their leaves. This time it must have been the wind or another leave falling. She had been sitting on the nest for a long time and just this morning I showed it to Titi :-(

Last year we put the eggs back in the nest but the dove never came back so I guess there is nothing we can do.

Repotting

I finally had time to work in the garden. We were away for the weekend and I didn't do anything with my plants. This morning I repotted some plants. The Passiflora subarosa vine, Aristolochia fimbriata and Belamcanda chinesis I got from Joanmary and the Bird Pepper, Capsicum annum var. glabriusculum I got from JoanM. Also the Key Lime I got from wannarun. I also put on the ground the Four o'clocks I got from chippi.

I also weeded a little.