Starting seeds

I haven't posted in a long time... Today I am starting seeds for some of my cool weather vegetables. I am going to start some of the heirloom tomatoes I got from Treefrog, sweet peas, lettuce and carrots.

August

Passion vine flower

I came back from vacation and I immediately went to check the garden. The only casualty seems to be the mulberry bush. I didn't have time to put it on the ground before I left so I put the pot in an area that I thought it was fine. The lower leaves are brown and only the tips are still green. Maybe it didn't get water there. It was raining when I got here so it was watered but who knows how it was the other days. The 4 cuttings I started are growing! That is excellent news because I want to have lots of mulberry bushes.

Some of the plants are overgrown and two potterweed plants were leaning, perhaps from a storm, but everything else was fine.

I trimmed some things this morning and I hope to be able to work more in the garden now that the kids are going back to school.

What's blooming now: The red firespike looks good, the bulbine, black eye susans. milkweed and firebush are doing great. I also got two flowers on the tiny hibiscus. The pentas don't have as many blooms as before but they still ok. The shampoo ginger is sending more flowers. I am not sure if I like the plant or not. I like the flowers but I don't like to see the ginger leaves leaning so much. The Hedychiums had lots of flowers. They don't last a long time but they smell great. I brought one inside the house and Don made me put it outside, the smell was very intense. :)

The roses are still blooming. I got my first passion vine flowers! It is from a plant I got from a gardenweb friend. I think it was Joanmary but I am not sure. They are purple. I also have a red one that hasn't flowered. The pink morning glory is stil doing well. I love the mandevilla, the flowers are so big. The ruellia is growing. I also got some flowers in the blackberry lily. I am going to plant it in the yellow/orange bed.

I have a mango!

Last week Carlos and I went to Excalibur Trees and got a mango and a mulberry bush. I can't wait to go back and buy more stuff. I started a cutting of the mulberry immediately and I hope it will take. Tony from GardenWeb told me he had success with cuttings. I tasted my first ripe mulberry and it was delicious. I hope the birds will leave it alone. It should have more berries tomorrow.

In the morning I put the mango on the ground. I hope I put it in a good place. I was thinking that I had planted the banana trees in an area that got a lot of damage from hurricane Wilma. The stuff on the north side of the house did much better. I put the mango on the north side but it is not protected by the house because it is far away from the wall. Well, I hope it will grow well and I will try to protect it as much as possible.

I also put the Telosma cordata on the ground, right next to the swing set. The swing set is starting to rot so I am sure we will have to replace it. I put cord on one of the posts and trained the vines.

I need to propagate the bulbine. I love it!

More work

This week I was able to work in the garden in the afternoon. It has been raining and it has been cloudy so I took advantage of that. I planted the 3 small cotton plants I got from Misti and her husband. I also moved the Rudbeckia (sp?) next to the milkweed. The plants in that side of the garden are orange/yellow and look good. I also planted more okra seedlings in the bed with the other ones. Only one is growing tall, the other 2 are smaller. I have seedlings for Red Malabar Spinach and I will put them in the other vegetable bed.

I put more mulch around the beds. I finally connected the new bed with the one that has the 3 queen palm trees. I still have to do a lot but little by little I am doing it.

This morning I worked on the back beds, next to the pool screened. I trimmed most of the plants and cleaned around them. I got two bags of cuttings.

We saw 3 types of butterflies and 3 or 4 different moths. One was a Gulf Fritillary and it almost landed on Carlos and Titi, it kept flying around us. It was much prettier than the pictures I have seen on the internet. Orange in one side and brown, orange and red on the other. Most of the pictures only show orange and brown. We also saw a Yellow Sulphur and a Zebra Longwing. People were saying that they had not seen Zebras since last year's hurricanes. I guess they are back.

This weekend

I was not able to work in the garden on Saturday but today I put 4 bags of mulch on the bed by the corner, next to the palm tree. I planted a couple more bulbs, I think they are crinum ginger and put mulch around them. I used almost all the cardboard I got on Saturday. I need more.

What's blooming in the garden in July

The orange orchid is still blooming! It is such a pretty plant. I need to get more.

One of the gingers is blooming now. It smells great and I love the flowers but the plant doesn't look good. Most of the leaves are leaning. I got another flower in the gerbera daisy. It has grown lot. The duranta erecta is not blooming as much as other years. It has some kind of insect making nests (webs) in most of the branches. I sprayed them with water and hope it is going to help. The ixoras have the same problem. The flowers get brown and die.

Fish emulsion

The garden was pretty stinky for a couple of days. I got a bottle of fish emulsion and used it in most of the plants. It was a lot of work because I needed to dilute it in water so I walked back and forth from the kitchen to the garden. My hands were smelly for a long time too. It is an organic fertilizer and I am hoping it is going to help the plants. We need to fertilize the grass, we got a letter from the homeowners association, but we are going to have to use regular fertilizer. I need to find something organic.

Getting rid of grass

After seeing the movie The Inconvenient Truth, I decided I needed to really get rid of most of our grass. I know Don won't like it much and he won't help at all but I need to do at least something. It is cut by a gas lawn mower and I have read they pollute the air much more than a car. I cannot stop driving since there is no public transportation around here but I can try to limit the amount of grass we have. My problem is that I am always running out of cardboard or paper or mulch. I has been raining a lot also so it has been difficult going outside. This morning I finally did something.

We got our first Queen butterfly. I found the caterpillar outside and brougth it inside. It was the one that looks like a Monarch caterpillar but this one has 3 sets of horns. The chrysalids was smaller and we thought it had died because it became totally black the day before. The butterfly is so pretty. It is smaller, similar to the Monarch but much darker.

Mandevilla

Carlos and I got a pink Mandevilla the other day and I finally put it in the ground this morning. It is in the arbor and I would need to cut it off if we get a hurricane warning. We would need to bring the arbor inside so anything that I plant there it is going to get cut. I put the coral vine on the other side. I can't believe it is growing so well. It was a dried stick when I got it at Ricky's swap

Bulbine

I finally finished the bed with the bananas and pineapples. It took me weeks but it is done. I got bit by red ants near the bed so I could not plant the arboricola around the palm tree.

I also put in the ground the bulbine I got from Ebay. It is orange/yellow

Joanmary's Plant Swap

I had a fun day today. I went to Joanmary's (from GardenWeb) plant swap and I loved it. She has an amazing garden, with lots of special plants. We all loved what we called her secret garden, full of butterflies and birds. She was very generous and gave us plants and cuttings of her most prized plants. I didn't take as much as I wanted because I still have lots of things that I need to put in the ground. When I got home I was able to plant most of the cuttings and repotted some of the plants. I put the Florida violets under the tree, it is still a young tree so it doesn't have shade yet.

Epcot's Flower and Garden Show

We went to Epcot and I was lucky enough to see the Flower show once again. I just love looking at all the beautiful displays and flowers. I got inspired and this morning I worked a little in the garden. I know I should be cleaning the house but it was a perfect morning to be outside. It is cloudy today and not too hot.

Fertilizer

I usually don't fertilize my plants but they told me I needed to fertilize my banana trees or they won't grow and set fruit. I bought some fertilizer at the Mounts Sale and I finally put it on the banana trees this morning. I need to start using more organic methods to improve the quality of the soil. So far I have put newspaper and cardboard under mulch to prevent weeds from sprouting and to improve the soil. When I change the fish water I use it to water my vegetables. I also use the caterpillars poop for my vegetables. It is not a lot but enough for a small pot. I also use Epsom salt. They have told me I should use alfalfa pellets but they said they smell a lot and I am not sure Don or the neighbors will be happy about it. My dream of course if to go across the street from the development's entrance and ask for horse poop. They have lots of horses there and I could get so much!!! Maybe one day I will do it.

I finally put the Memorial Day rose on the ground. Mimi's has grown a lot and she said it had 3 roses this morning. I love the smell but my roses don't last much, they only look good for a day

More blooms

Some of the plants I got at the February Swap are giving me blooms. JoanMary gave me the plant with the redish/brown flower. It is Aristolochia fimbriata, a native of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. They said it is best used in hanging baskets. It is a delicate plant, the flowers are approx. 1 inch tall.

The blue flower is Butterfly Pea or Blue Pea Vine (Clitoria ternatea). I got it from Chippi. I love the color of the flowers. I think she also gave me a double one but it has not flowered yet. I can't wait to see it.

More pictures

I took some other pictures of flowers. The Agapanthus is blooming now. I love it. We also got another gerbera daisy, morning glories, roses, ixora, duranta, plumbago, the orchid (epi ?) is still blooming.

Sunflower pictures

I finally took pictures of the sunflowers. They are very tall and have beautiful blooms. I wish I had planted more seeds. There is one flower, the biggest one, that looks great when seeing against the blue sky. I also took a picture of one that was half open. It looks cool!

Sunflowers and back garden

The kids and I planted some sunflower seeds. The ones near the swingset are supposed to be tall and big. They are tall but the flowers are small. I don't know if it is because we didn't fertilize them. The ones near the screen are small too but they are pretty. I love the center of the flower.

I guess the back garden is all yellow/blue/purple/fuschia. The Cassia alata is growing a lot and it has flowers already. It is full of eggs and caterpillars but we haven't had luck bringing them inside and most get eaten by the wasps. There are lots and lots of wasps flying around.

More planting

I am very tired. They said on TV that today was going to be a low humidity, cooler day, and I decided to try to plant some things on the ground. I finally put the other 2 bananas on the ground. I repotted the figs, planted the dragonfruit near a palm tree to try to train it, planted the begonia I got at Mounts, one of the datura I am growing from Cindee's seeds,. I also discarded one of the plumbagos that was not doing well and the ginger I had planted in the ixora's bed. It didn't look good there. I put another plant there. I don't remember the name but it has dark pink flowers. I moved a small penta near the other ones. I love them, they have been blooming non stop since I got them.

I also mulched some areas in the back. I got too tired so I had to stop. I am still not done with the beds around the pool area. It is taking me months to do it! I did mulch around the swing set because it was full of weeds.

The birdhouse gourd is growing. It already has 2 gourds growing on it. They are so cute. I saw that the long beans are starting to set fruit.

The agapanthus is about to bloom!!! I saw many in Orlando and I can't wait to see mine bloom. I have the light purple/blue. I want to get white too.

Banana trees

I finally planted one of the bananas on the ground. It is a Plantain, with bananas for cooking. I need the plant the other two and the figs, and the pineapples.

More mulch

I got lots of cardboard from one of my neighbors yesterday. Well, it was from his garbage pile. The kids played with the boxes all day but I told them they were for the garden. This morning I was able to go to the Bushel Stop and got 8 bags of mulch. I have been using Melaleuca (sp?) mulch and that is the only place that sells it around here. I had to wait until it was late in the day to go outside because it was very hot but I was able to mulch a large part of the corner bed. I am so happy about that. I am going to try to finish tomorrow but I only have 1 bag of mulch left so I need to go back to get more.