You might remember that last year I got a little obsessed with passiflora, and wound up getting ordering four different varieties of them from Hirt’s. All four of the plants took off as soon as I repotted them, and grew like crazy. However, only two of them bloomed. One of them (I believe it’s a [...]
Every year my garden sort of tells me when it’s time to start thinking seriously/planting for the summer: the Alyssum begins to wither. And it started to happen this week, which surprised me. How is it already the middle of May? Spring seems like such a blur. And the weather has been weird, too. Just [...]
A few years ago, Tom got me a pair of airplants for Mother’s Day. I think they are super cool even though they are the least interactive and demanding plants I have ever cared for. I knew air plants bloomed, but I figured that the ones we had were maybe post-bloom or something. I basically [...]
Today If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage, indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, a day when the cool brick paths and [...]
Tom downloaded images off his camera today and there were a bunch of the garden, so I thought I would share some of them: For Christmas, Tom got me a peony plant- it was basically a root sticking out of a tiny pot of soil. So I transplanted it, put it in the sun, and [...]
One of my absolute favorite things in the garden is when I spot new growth. It can be anything- seeds starting to sprout, new buds forming on exiting plants, a little spot of green on a branch, a tiny fruit starting to form. This is a pot of “sprouts” that I found growing in the [...]
So, I have a confession: I didn’t know how to harvest sunflower seeds until a few weeks ago. I mean, I knew the seeds were *in* the center of the flower, and the flower itself had to be done blooming and be dried before the seeds could be removed, but I had no idea *where* [...]
It’s definitely spring! No matter how many seasons I go through in my little garden, I always *forget* how busy autumn and spring can be in a Florida garden. For most of winter, my basic task was watering, and a little planting, and a tiny bit of pruning. This week, that all changed- I went [...]
When I first started gardening, I was OBSESSIVE about being out there every.single.day, rain or shine, winter, spring, summer, and fall. I checked every plant, monitored every leaf and bud, counted and marked every seed I planted. I watered daily- some plants just a few drops, some a light mist, others a little more. I [...]
Here are some really crummy iPhone photos of my garden taken at exactly the wrong time of day. But I figured I might do a quick overview of what’s happening out there. When Tom’s not quite as busy, I’ll have him go out at sunset with his good camera and take better shots. But in [...]
Whenever I talk to people about my garden, the one thing they always seem surprised about (besides the fact the entire thing is in containers) is that I get a lot of plants via mail order. I’ll admit, when I started gardening, the idea of ordering a plant and having it sent in the mail [...]
I have a “First Kiss” Hibiscus in my garden that I picked up several months ago at Home Depot. The blooms are an apricot color, and the longer they are open, the paler they get. If we get a cool snap, sometimes the blooms will last two days (usually Hibiscus only bloom for a day). [...]
Saturday, January 19 2013: I didn’t mean to spend a lot of time in the garden today but I wandered out there and wound up spending more than an hour pruning, soap-treating for pests, fertilizing, misting things, shifting some plants around, and taking general stock of what’s going on. I need to move one of [...]
This is my third season planting and tending nasturtiums so I figured I might share what I have learned. I always tells myself that I will “cool it” on the nasturtium planting, but every year I find myself with anywhere from 30-50 individual nasturtiums, from seed. (And yes, they are all in containers.) I have a few [...]
Serendipity! One of my “garden” resolutions was to invest in more orchids. On Sunday, when we were at Trader Joe’s for some shopping, they had a huge selection of orchids for a good price. So I got two: I believe they are both “Phalaenopsis” orchids. I’ll be the first to admit I know [...]
As I started thinking about what I wanted to accomplish to try in 2013, I naturally included gardening. Gardening is such a regular part of my life now, and it makes me so happy. In some ways, it’s hard to believe I’ve been plugging away daily at my “little” garden (which now takes up about [...]
Christmas was *great* in the gardening sense. I asked for a few plants that I really have wanted, but never purchased. Tom got me a BUNCH of great stuff: a peony seedling, a new hibiscus (BLUE double- can’t wait to see this one when it blooms!), two camillia (one a four year bonsai, the other [...]
Even though I haven’t been in the garden much at all this week (dreary weather, HUGE amount of rain, health issue), it continues to surprise me. On Saturday night, Tom was outside covering the pool when he smelled something very strong and sweet. He came in to tell me about it and I tried to [...]
Guess what?! My second Passiflora (I have four, total) started to bloom this week! I wasn’t expecting it at al, to be honest- it started forming buds a while back but they are much smaller than my other in-bloom Passiflora, so I figured that I had a while left until I would see any flowers. [...]
These are some of the things I love about my garden right now (sorry for the super crummy pictures- something is off with my iPhone camera…) When the weather started cooling off, I cut back the coleus BIG TIME. They are now bouncing back, and some of the smaller ones that were hidden under [...]
