New photos

So here are some of the promised photos from my yard. First, here is an updated photo of my pineapple. You can see the purple flowers coming out of the scaly pockets along the body of the fruit. It now has a crown starting at the top, so it looks like a pineapple, if not in shape. It still looks like more of a bromeliad to me, but I am continuing to be surprised!

Second, here is a photo of the first of my hedychium elizabeth starting to sprout! I mentioned last week that I didn't know if it would come back after the frost, but I see today that there is a shoot coming up. Yeah!!!! I was concerned that it was gone forever. This is that butterfly ginger I talked about not being patient in purchasing - it is my extravagance!

And finally, I am very pleased to introduce everyone to the newest member of my garden. This is the gift iris that was sent to me from Hawaii. I guess it isn't all that special, a pseudocorus rather than an actual iris. The internet tells me it is a yellow flag iris, a common and invasive yellow spotted water iris. I am pleased with it since it says it will clump and is very hearty as long as it gets water. I am looking forward to seeing it spread, and I will try to contain it if it gets too much for my planting bed.

buying new plants

This upcoming month is full of plant shows and sales. There's the USF Botanical Gardens Spring Sale, St. Petersburg's Green Thumb Festival, and many smaller shows and sales going on in the area. This is the time I generally buy new stuff for my yard. In my few short years of gardening, I have learned a great deal about what, where and how to buy new things for my garden.

1. Be wary of buying online!
Last October I purchased several plants from Ebay. I got some ginger and heliconia rhisomes from Hawaii and Georgia, which I paid very little for, and they are doing great. I bought 35 plumeria cuttings from Hawaii and almost all of them have shrivelled up and rotted. Unfortunately I paid a high price for a lot of cuttings under the mistaken impression that it was a small price for each cutting. You would think that of 35 plants, one or two would take off. Well, I am still waiting for some sign of growth, but nothing so far of the 10 or so cuttings that haven't deteriorated.
That's not to say that all ebay nurserymen are bad, not by a long shot! I have friends who put out wonderfully healthy plants and have a proven track record for the plants they supply. Some of them give extras. One of the ginger providers gave a small cutting of an iris as a free bonus, and it is just about to bloom in my garden. I'll post a photo when the flower is open. I can see already it is going to be a yellow flower.

2. Be knowledgeable before buying anything!
I attended a plant show a few years ago when I thought I needed plumerias to make my garden smell wonderful and to enhance the overall color of the garden. I found a seller who had cuttings available for sale as well as rooted plants - well, I thought they were rooted since they were in pots. I was swayed by the fact that they were in pots, so I paid a fairly high price per plant to get established plants. When I got them home to transplant into the garden, I found that they were not rooted plants, but just fresh cuttings stuck in pots. The price was high, so I was fooled into thinking I was getting more than I got.

3. Comparison shop - don't rush into anything!
If you are at a plant show, there is bound to be several sellers selling the same things. Compare prices/plants - don't buy the first one you see! I was interested in the butterfly gingers available at USF for one sale. I bought a few potted plants, for a reasonable price compared to others I found, but I splurged on a small plant of a variety I hadn't seen before. I had never seen a pink butterfly ginger before and knew that I had to have it. I paid 25.00 for a small plant at that show. Two weeks later, one of the sellers at Green Thumb had the rhysomes available for only 3.00! I quickly learned to be patient!

Have I learned anything from my purchases?
Well, I am very hesitant to purchase plants/cuttings on line, unless they have lots of positive feedback, and have been in business for a few years, and would much rather purchase a rooted plant than a cutting. I much prefer to purchase things I can see and touch.
I now have a mental picture of each of my planting beds and know what will or won't work in them. This way I am not easily swayed by some pretty items and will hold out for what I want. I also have developed some good resources from my experiences. I have preferred sellers who I don't hesitate to buy from. Likewise, I have some sellers I will not go near - burn me once!!

I am putting aside some money now for Green Thumb. I hope to make some sensible purchases there for a north-facing planting bed that is mostly shade, against the house in an area I don't tend to very much - (should be drought tolerant)! I'll let you know how I make out next month!

I guess it really is true, that you learn something new everyday. I never gave pineapples much thought, they were something to put on ham, something that comes in a can, or something fresh that you splurge on for picnics. My cousin Judie brought over a pineapple cap that she had rooted, thinking I would like to grow a pineapple. This was about 2 Springs ago. I potted it in a large pot and put it in the center of the backyard, in the sun (don't pineapples grow in Sunny Hawaii?). I watered it occasionally, and it grew into what looked like a nice big agave, with about 3 foot long stalks. Wasn't I surprised to see the start of a red dome growing out of the center, about 2 weeks ago. So, now I have what looks like a bromeliad that is starting to crest.

Well, like I said, I never knew how pineapples form; I never gave the actual plant much thought. I know that the pineapple is a bulbous fruit, with scales on it. Today it looks like the plant is separating, allowing the fruit to branch off above the plant. I could see that the scales were becoming more pronounced, and now, I discovered that those scales are each home to a flower. I was watering and found all these lovely purple flowers coming out of the pineapple.

I never knew it happened like that!

It's raining, but not raining men!

I woke up today to find it sprinkling rain. It wasn't a downpour, but enough to keep the patio wet and some noticible drops in the pool. It figures, doesn't it? I just get the irrigation working and it rains so I don't need it! I'm not complaining, mind you. It's good for the plants and saves $$$ on the water bill.

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop for my lawn!

Jim Nevers was here yesterday to check out my yard and to see what passifloras I need to keep my own growing and fruiting. He saw just how bad we are at housekeeping - thank-you mom, for putting all the blame on me! He also saw just how poor I am at weeding and watering! He pointed out that many of my plants were too dry for the heat, and I needed to get busy watering to prevent a major killing.

I didn't know if I would be able to water due to our current water conditions, so I thought I had better investigate. I made the mistake of going to the StPete.org website to see what our water restrictions are in this water shortage. I really didn't want to know! After spending a half hour trying to decipher the most confusing set of rules, I have decided to go with what I think they are trying to enforce. Since I have a drip system, I am able to water when necessary, but never during daylight hours. I don't have a timer on my system, so I have to get up early to turn it on and turn it off. Today was not that day! I set the clock, but slept through it. It was just as well since I had half-heartedly planned to check the system since I haven't worked it for a while.

I finally got out there this afternoon, and I turned on my faucet to start the water flowing. Suddenly the ground was peeing up into the air in several locations. With vicegrips in hand, and pockets full of sprinkler heads, I set out to pull out all of the poorly connected tubing and replace with sprinker heads. It only took me about 30 minutes, but I ended up soaked and out of breath, but the system is working without problem. Again, this whole problem arose from the infamous mulching. I know that this drip system can be partially underground, so I just put all the mulch on top of the tubing. Little did I know that the weight of the mulch would pull some of the connectors out, and since everything was covered with mulch, I couldn't see where the problems were - I just knew that water wasn't getting where it was supposed to.

So tonight I am relaxing, with water flowing. The irrigation started 25 minutes ago, and I will turn it off in about 30 minutes. If all goes well, I will start irrigating every 3 or 4 days, to keep my plants from drooping. Now I have to plant the rest of the potted items in my garden so they can get the advantage of the fixed irrigation system! I thought gardening was supposed to relax you - I keep giving myself more work!!!

What's missing - what's new

I am heady with all of the scents coming from my garden this evening! The freesias are in bloom, as are the winter jasmine, which are bursting with perfume. When I tell people I have freesias, they tend to argue with me saying freesias don't grow down here. I don't know about that, since I can't get most things I want to grow to grow. I can't get gladiolas, callas, azaleas, or gardenias to grow for me. I can get freesias, however.

I sent to Dutch Bulbs for a set of freesia bulbs and they have been coming back for three years now. They seem to bloom in cycles, depending on color. Yellows come in first, then the red with yellow centers and now the white. They all smell the same, though, but the white has the most powerful smell. So now all of the freesias are competing with the jasmine that are blooming. Winter jasmine on the back fence, and orange jasmine by the pool.

I have finally gotten around to planting the things I have acquired in the past 3 weeks. I have about 10 different plants to get into the ground. I started by planting the hibisci, since they have been in the place I want them to be for the past two weeks. I got three of them in the ground, and have one more to go tomorrow. I will also get the hollyhocks in tomorrow. I am hesitant about deciding on a final spot for them because I don't know if they will get the right light where I want them. I know I must do something because I am constantly picking them up after they fall over.

I am beginning to think that I have lost the majority of my heliconias in the freeze. My gingers are coming up here and there, although still no sign from my favorite Elizabeth - but there is no growth where the orange gyros and sharonii usually come up. Likewise, the Lady Di, Andromeda, and Guadeloupe are all still missing! Hopefully they are just late, but I don't know. These are all small varieties of heliconias, so even though the iris binoche is growing strong - it is a very large-growing species - the same can't be said for the smaller ones. With the GreenThumb festival coming up next month, I should be able to get all of the plants I want for a decent price, once I determine what I really need to replace.

More to come - Bryan

Meeting Day

Today was meeting day, the monthly garden club meeting. As usual, I was totally organized, and ready to go out the door with everything pre arranged - Right! So I did pot up the tropicannas, and they were very healthy looking in their pots. I even put them in a box to make them easier to transport. I had decided on the taco salad for the pot luck, but it was 10 am and I still didn't have half of the ingredients. I didn't have my club shirt clean, and my camera wasn't charged up for the meeting. For some strange reason, I seem to do better getting to the summer meetings in the evening than I do for the spring meetings at 1pm. Well, miraculously it all came together and I got to the meeting on time with everything I was supposed to.

Deb and Dani welcomed us into their house, which was lovely with incense burning. The garden was well established and well-tended. The pool was very inviting, though no one jumped in. I don't want to talk about the meeting very much since that is what our newsletter is for, and Brad does such a great job with that. I will just say that there was a very nice turn out, with much food, lots of plants, and great conversation. Thanks Austin for the wonderful discussion on your passion - coleus. I didn't take any, even though there were plenty of them to choose from, because I tend to kill them every time.

In the raffle today I won two plants, a clerodendrom and what looks like a variegated chiflera. I know what the chiflera is like, as my neighbor has a huge one in the front yard, but I don't know much about the clerodendrom. It should be a welcome addition to the yard. Brad says it has white flowers that have a sweet fragrance. That is always welcome. I will need to decide were to plant it, though since most of the back yard is occupied. I have been having a hard time choosing plants for one of my planting beds, so maybe they will do well there. I try to let the potted plant sit in its future home for a couple of weeks before planting to make sure it is the right spot for them. This method has worked well for me so far.

In upcoming blog items I will try to tell you about each of my beds since there is so much going on with them, and since most have been plants won in the monthly raffles. You already know how ocd I am, so it is a struggle to keep the beds harmonious with each other. I don't know if I am succeeding, but it is fun trying. Bryan

New Growth

I am so happy to see all of the new growth in the yard. I have already mentioned the winter jasmine, which I have a photo of now. I can't wait for all of the buds to open since they are so prolific! Now I can report that my orange jasmine is also full of buds. I will have the sweetest smelling yard within the week.

I went through the entire yard spotting new growth everywhere - the gingers are sending up shoots, the cannas, heliconias - everything is popping up and through. I was really worried about the plumeria because I cut it back this past fall for the very first time, and I didn't know if I did it correctly, if I had damaged it, or if it would continue to grow. I was so happy to see all of these sprouts coming out. They gave me immediate relief from worry about the rest of my plumerias. I am looking for space to plant all of the plumeria cuttings I have. I planted them in October, but they quickly started to fail, so I dug them up and put them away in the dark for the winter. Now that I see the growth on my established plants, I can see that it is time for the cuttings to go into the ground.

This is my newest addition to the yard. I won a pink brugmansia in the raffle at one of the last meetings. I planted it and it is nearly double in size already. I was hoping to get a yellow trumpet to go with the pink, white and apricot ones I have already, but I am very happy with a pink one. As soon as the white and apricot get big enough, I will be taking cuttings to give back to the club. I still have a few potted plants that need to go into the ground, and I will be planting everything by the weekend. The weather has been great, 80 degrees today, so I am sure I can start things off in the warm soil.

I already have dug up a bunch of pots full of cannas for this week's meeting. I chose the tropicanna praetoria to share. They are the varigated leafed variety with bright orange flowers. I have 2 varieties of tropicannas, although I don't know the name of the other variety. It looks the same, with varigated leaves, but it is a dwarf version and it has yellow flowers. I'm sure someone will be happy to get them. More to come - Bryan

surprise Jasmine

Last night I was surprised to see the first blooms on my Winter jasmine.

This jasmine plant was a gift from John Starnes in Tampa who was a member of the garden club and who writes a lot of the gardening articles that appear in the St. Pete Times. He knew I was interested in jasmines and thoughtfully gave me a cutting of his winter jasmine (I guess this is the same as Spanish jasmine). Well, last night I caught a whiff of the most buttery sweet fragrance and followed it out to the back fence and my jasmine.

I mentioned a few days ago that my plant was full of buds. Actually, I am very surprised by the whole plant. I got the rooted cutting and promptly planted it behind one of my hibiscus plants, so it could climb the fence. This was 2 years ago! I promptly forgot about it since it was getting watered by the irrigation drippers. I was startled the other day when I was out pruning and discovered that it had been growing behind and up the fence and now reached well over the top of its 6 foot height. Of course it isn't readily visible as the vine and leaves are rather lacy, but there it is, and now it is blooming. I will include photos in a couple of days since 1 small flower isn't very photo worthy.

I hate our fence. It separates us from the Florida Power easement behind and our rear neighbor. There have been weed trees growing in the easement and Florida Power says it is our responsibility to maintain clear access. When we bought the house 35 years ago, the fence was up, completely locking us out of the easement. Unfortunately it didn't lock out the trees, or the damage they caused the fence growing through the slats. It is a chain link fence with venetian blind slats woven through. The cuban laurel and florida holly trees did a job on the slats when they grew through the fence, leaving open and bent areas. I am grateful for the passifloras and jasmine that are growing on it, that keep it hidden from view.

My other jasmine plants are all thriving, except for the night-bloomer. It has an ugly green worm that is eating all of the foliage. I hate to spray it because I don't want to kill off any butterflies, but they are really doing a terrible lot of distruction to that plant. Still, the plant is growing, so I can't complain too much.

I found lots of new growth in the yard, so I hope this will be a bountiful summer and fall with all the flowers. I'll keep you posted! Bryan

City Mulch

Okay, so I can now tell you about the mulch fiasco! At one of our garden club meetings we had a discussion about mulches, particularly those available from Pinellas County. There were 4 different grades of mulch, some free and others not. I, of course, went for a free load of mulch from the city. I got 6 or 9 cubic yards of mulch delivered last February. I didn't start spreading it out right away and since it was only taking up part of my circular driveway, I didn't feel any rush. Well, in April I had a car accident and broke my wrist. That delayed the mulch spreading for a few more months. Today, a year later, there is still a pile of mulch in the driveway! That is not because of my lack of ambition, although there are those who will say so. It is because of the mulch.

I started spreading the mulch in my planting beds, starting in the areas that had never been mulched. I never had a weed problem, per se, but I was certain that I would be able to pull up any of the weeds that poked through the mulch. What I didn't expect is that the mulch would create its own mass of weeds! My only weeds up to the point that I mulched were those daisy growing weeds with the stickers that you can't get off the bottom of your pants or socks. I always managed to keep those under control since the dog usually ended up wearing all the stickers whenever he came in from outdoors. After putting down the mulch, I started getting this long ropy vine with yellow flowers. They took over! These weeds were choking off all of my gingers, and they are, I have found, totally impossible to get rid of! They have killed off my dwarf and hybrid cannas.

Of course I shouldn't complain - it's my own fault for being cheap and not using my usual cypress bark mulch. This stuff is already deteriorating, and for the most part is already gone. I guess it will be good for the soil, adding all of the organic material to the sand, but I truly wish I hadn't gone for the free mulch!

My Garden

Okay. So I am a bit OCD, but not in an unhealthy way. I tend to want to get all varieties of something if I like the thing. For instance - I like butterfly ginger (hedychium), so I have all of the varieties I have found in this area and am now sending to Hawaii to get more exotic varieties. I have Coronarium, Flavum, Elizabeth, Kahili Ann, and now I have gardnerianum, so I have gingers in white, yellow, mauve pink, pale peach and now orange.

Likewise, I have the jasmine varieties - winter or spanish jasmine, night-blooming jasmine, confederate or star jasmine and mock orange jasmine. I know there are a few more varieties out there, but I haven't broken down to get them - yet!!

Now I am working on Hibiscus. I already have dwarf hot pink, single pink, double peach and double red, schyzopetalus, a powderpuff red hibiscus and I just got double pink, double white, double yellow (debbie morris?), a darker version of double yellow, and single nairobi orange. I think I am working on constructing a multicolor hedge across the back fence.

My friends and family are very surprised to see my garden since I was never one to do any gardening at all. Our yard was totally devoid of plants other than a terrible tangerine tree and some suriname cherries. Well, I joined a garden club as an outlet to meet people and make new friends. Our garden club has monthly meetings in member gardens, with potlucks and plant raffles. I was always bringing home plants that I had won and was filling up my patio with all of them. I finally broke down and started planting, so I wouldn't kill everything off. I started with a pink brugmansia in the corner of the yard and moved out from there. The hibiscus went along the back fence, and the gingers went against the screen porch. Things have progressed to the point that I now have a 3 foot wide plant bed that runs fully aroung the back of the house and another fully around the plot line, against the fence. That lead to putting in a drip irrigation system, and getting a truckload of mulch from the city (big mistake)! I will tell you all about that fiasco very soon.

My newest obsession is plumeria! I currently have 10 different color plumerias growing around the house, and I sent to Hawaii to get 35 more cuttings - thank heaven for Ebay!! I can't wait for it to get warm enough to plant them. I just took the first cuttings of my original plants and have been very anxious to see if they would sprout again. I am so happy to see the first leaves appearing on those bare sticks.

Well, I am pleased to say that in 4 years of my new found hobby, only a handful of plants have abandonned me, much less than I expected that first year. Oh well - enough for now. I have so much more I can talk about - passiflora, shell gingers, cannas, - you'd think I have acreage instead of a small back yard! More later - Bryan

Welcome to our blog

This is the first blog I have ever attempted, and am only doing so for our garden club. Hopefully we can get a person from the club who is interested and competent enough to maintain this effectively. For starters, we are a garden club in St. Petersburg, Florida. We have been in existance for more than 4 years, and have a membership of 80 or so. Our website - yes, we have a website - is http://www.rakesandbladesfl.com/. I am the webmaster, so I am already kept busy with the club goings-on.

This past weekend I went to a great plant sale at a local seller's home. I got so many tropical plants - hibisci and hollyhocks - that my yard is sure to be full of color most of the year! Mitch Armstrong and Annie Sprague run one of the booths at the local Saturday Morning Market in downtown St. Petersburg, and they have a great selection of plants at very reasonable prices. I spent more than I planned, but I got much more than I expected! Check out their blog - heyplantman.

I am not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination. I have only resorted to gardening to clear up my patio of all the plants I have won in our club raffles. Since I like flowering plants that require minimal care, I have many hibiscus plants, brugmansia, jasmine, butterfly gingers and heliconias. Since we just had a freeze this past month, I was hopeful that I would survive without having to have a funeral for any of my plants and I think I have succeeded. Lots of things have died back or lost some leaves, but nothing has gone bye-bye! Yippee!!!

Well, this ends our first posting, and I will keep my fingers crossed that I can find someone to take over this for the club. If not, you will be hearing from me soon - Bryan