The Marvelous Month of March

It rained all night.  And this morning, we are still enjoying the downpour.  Oh, how I love a rainy day!  I had breakfast on the front porch this morning, watching the rain fall and the hummingbirds flit back and forth to sip from bottlebrush blooms.  It was a bit on the chilly side, but I knew I was going to love this day anyway.  The rain is much needed here at PITV, especially since we have just put in several new plants. 

New Beginnings

Today, I announce "New Beginnings" on my blog.  I had recently become disillusioned by Blogland, as I seemed to be attracting more spammers and scrapers than real followers.  Yes, my blog was being repeatedly copied by scrapers, as well as being linked to on numerous sites, some of which I couldn't access, due to the requirement of a login.  I reacted the only way I knew how...adding watermarks and copyright verbiage and monitoring my hits on Statcounter.  But it just seemed to be getting worse.

Weekend Ramblings

So far, we've had a pretty busy weekend!  (And it's only half over!)  I'm throwing a bunch of stuff into this post, since I really don't have the time or energy to organize it better.  We've rambled all over this past couple of days, all the way from the Valley to the Ridge, something I don't do often. 

Face Value

Quadratics.  Parabolas.  Imaginary Roots.  Tesla coil.  λ.  Frequency.  Hz.  Ionosphere.  300 µm.  Ugh.  Does it all make you want to scream?  I have glanced down at the myriad notes spread all over my desk, and these are a few words that pop off of them.  My desk and my mind seem always to be in a state of clutter.  I try to clean and straighten the workspace, stand back and gaze in awe, and I swear, in two or three days, the books and notes have piled up again, and it's all back in a state of nightmare!  

Meander on a Misty Morn

Were I called on to define, very briefly,

the term art, I should call it

"the reproduction of what the senses perceive

 in nature through the veil of the mist."

~Edgar Allan Poe

Gentle January

With a cold and frigid December...one for the record books actually...I had really dreaded what January might have in store.  But in the end, it was such a soft, gentle January, as January's go, with so many spring-like days to enjoy.  Today, there is evidence that the garden has begun springing back to life.  There are little leaflets peeping out of the ground beneath dead branches of pentas and clerodendrum.  Brightly colored foliage is rising out of the stems of the crinums and bananas.  If February holds out for us, and it does look promising, I do think we shall have a splendid and floriferous Easter this year.  (It's been a while!)

What a Load of Crop!

Before I get into the real purpose of my post today, I have to announce that it's Tab Time here in the valley!  The Tabebuias are out and creating quite a riot of color here in this quiet Peace River town.

The Many Sides of my Florida Winter

Gardening here in the center of the peninsula can be quite a challenge, which is why readers of this blog are exposed to such a roller coaster of my emotions.  I am one of those rare Florida gardeners who have planted deciduous trees...the crape myrtles and red maples and Drake elm.  While I love them the rest of the year, I truly hate them in winter.  Their naked branches add such a feeling of doom and despair to my garden landscape in winter.  And, oh, there's those tropicals.  While we do have blessed green, lush winters that are reminiscent of the tropics, we also have winters that leave our tropicals in a state of brown devastation.  This winter, as well as the last two, have been such winters here in the valley. 

Dotting my i(so)'s and Covering my ti's

The other day, I received a book in the mail that my husband had ordered along with my new dSLR, a Nikon d7000.  The book was specifically published to go along with this camera, but it turns out it is more of a photography-class-in-a-book than a how-to-use-this-camera-book.  As a result, I am now trying to challenge myself on a creative level and attempting to figure out all of this photo terminology.

A Virtual Garden Walk

Please come join me for a quick morning walk through my garden.  I love having virtual garden friends to share my daily walk with.  Is there anything better than walking and talking in a garden?

Jewels of January

Flowers that are so pathetic in their beauty,

frail as the clouds,

and in their coloring as gorgeous as the heavens,

had through thousands of years been the heritage of children

~ honored as the jewelry of God....

~Thomas De Quincey 

Hindsight is 20/20

You know the old saying, "Hindsight is 20/20"?  Well, I'm seeing things pretty clearly these days.  As I walked through my garden today carefully peeling off sheets and blankets from my tenderest of tropicals, I was seeing everything I had done wrong and everything that should've been different.  If only I could hit rewind and plant this garden again from scratch!

To Shoot with a dSLR

Oh, what fun I'm having with my new camera!  Some of you will probably say you can't tell the difference, but the main change for me is the speed in which the capture takes place now.  I also see far less grain in my photos.  A big difference I'm noticing, though you'll just have to take my word for it, is the size of this thing.  Wow!  This dSLR is heavier than any camera I've ever owned.  Not so great when you have arthritis in your hand.  But supposedly, this magnesium-alloy body is a good feature and makes it fairly indestructible and somewhat weather resistant.  Anyway, I am trying my very best to practice with this thing every spare minute I have.

Out with the old...In with the new!

My garden is going out in style!  Check out my end-of-the-year photo shoot:

The Sanctuary: Part III

Part III: Pinewood Estates and Camellias
Last week, I took a couple of hours to ramble through one of Florida's finest garden gems, Bok Tower Sanctuary in Lake Wales.  I took so many photos (around 200 actually), that I've had to split the visit into separate posts.  In Part I, we visited the tower and the swans.   In Part II, we explored the botanical wonders of the place. 

Words that Inspire - My Interpretation

(Thank you, Noel, for creating this inspiring new meme!  If you'd like to participate, visit A Plant Fanatic in Hawaii.)

"A flower touches everyone's heart."

~Georgia O'Keefe

What a great quote!  Flowers truly touch everyone's heart.  In me, they evoke so many emotions and memories in the deepest reaches of my heart.  To interpret this quote today, I grabbed my camera and my daughter, and we searched the garden for flowers that touched our hearts.  Indeed, this brought back many memories for me, as my daughter has reached "THAT" age and doesn't hang out with me as much these days.  When she was little, she would run all over the garden, while I worked, picking every imaginable flower she could find.  She would pile up her rainbow of colors on the white wicker chair that set on the front porch, and then ask me to take pictures of her colorful arrangements.  Looking back, oh, how I wish I had left the work and run around picking flowers with her!  She has grown up all so suddenly.

Red Touch Yellow...Thrill a Fellow!

***

red touch yellow...

thrill a fellow!

(No, this is not about snakes!)  I am so struck by the everblooming blanketflowers in my garden right now that I took a million photos of them today.  What a thrilling, exciting color combo red and yellow make!  Actually, I just realized that many of my all-time favorite flowers share this combo.  Here are some photos of today's gaillardias along with some older photos taken in my garden.

The Bee's Knees

Every morning, I take a walk through my garden, camera in hand. It’s my reflection time, and I am renewed by it. There seems to always be something that catches my eye…a lovely flower, an interesting creature, a pattern in the sky. Yesterday, what I saw was an experience that I can only describe as the “bee’s knees”!

Winter Winners in a Zone 9 Garden

Yes, I have planted far too many tropical plants in my yard. The brown wasteland in wake of the recent "Arctic Blast" is testament to my Zone 9 gardening blunders. But, once again, I have searched my garden today for plants that didn't just survive, but are shining in this wintry garden.




The classic conifer is given a subtropical twist in the Bunya-Bunya Tree (Araucaria bidwillii). A native of Australia, the Bunya-Bunya thrives in my Zone 9 Central Florida garden. It is a tree that grows to massive proportions in its native environ. This tree was honored by aboriginal Australians in annual festivals to celebrate the ripening of the nuts that come from its enormous coconut-shaped cone.

This evergreen Autumn Fern is a bright splash of green in a bed where caladiums and gingers have gone to sleep for the winter.

The knockout roses were unfazed by our "Arctic Blast" and are loaded with buds. This is Rosa 'Radtko.'

Not real sure if this Aechmea bromeliad is cold-tolerant, since it hid under a blanket and a beach towel for the past week and a half. It has a scape rising up, so I had to protect it just in case!

The Neoregelia bromeliads all survived these frigid temperatures. Those under tree cover were not protected.

'Red Ruffles' Azalea is Florida-friendly and offers splashes of color in a winter garden. Just really slow growing, though. This is growing in the shade of an old oak tree.

This was my first year growing Indian Blanketflowers. I wasn't sure if they would go dormant at the first sign of cold or what, but they are still green and lush after our worst winter in years.

Camellias are clearly the stars of my winter garden. I look forward to their bloom every year, with their 4- to 6-inch layered blooms and sweet-tea-like scent. Above is Camellia japonica 'Kramer's Supreme'; below is Camellia x williamsii 'Blue Danube.'

The African Iris buds dropped and flopped all week, but the plants are still all intact and green.

The Florida Cracker Rose ('Louis Philippe') is one of my favorite garden plants. The ones in my garden have been evergreen and everblooming (in flushes) since I planted them years ago. Definitely a winter winner!

Another Australian native, Bottlebrush thrives in our Zone 9 environment, throwing off its giant red blooms year-round. Above is stiff bottlebrush. I also have a weeping bottlebrush tree.