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!)

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 

To Feast Upon Fantastic

Stuff your eyes with wonder,

live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds.

See the world.

It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

~Ray Bradbury 

Through Fresh Eyes

In winter, especially weirdly cold ones like this year, I find myself not wanting to venture outside into the garden. It's just too depressing. The lawn is almost completely brown, and most of my trees and large shrubs are either leafless or covered in ugly brown leaves. So, lately, I have been using psychology on myself...trying to look at the few survivors with a fresh perspective...a new outlook. Here's what I saw in my walk this morning.



This is one of my favorite trees...the Floss-Silk Tree, or Ceiba speciosa. It is a native of Central and South America and grows quite well in Florida. Usually, it has a lush green canopy, and in the fall, it is covered with enormous pink flowers. Right now, however, this tree is completely bare. Making matters worse, I think the branches have some cold damage and will need severe pruning. But look how glorious the trunk is!!! I've always noticed the bright green skin and the sculptural, thumb-sized thorns on the Ceiba trunk. But today, ignoring all the bareness, I zoomed way-in on the thorns and noticed the unusual rings and coloring on them.

The bottlebrushes are standouts in the garden and easily recognized for their unusual blooms. But how often do we really appreciate what creates that strange bloom. Here is a close-up of a new "bud" on the bottlebrush. The stamens are crazy and curly when they first emerge. Slowly, they unravel to become the poker-straight stamens that gives the bottlebrush its familiar look.

This is a tiny little moth I found this morning. The White Ermine Moth (Spilosoma virginica) is only about an inch long. I am quite guilty of ignoring little creatures in my garden, especially when it comes to the butterflies and moths. The larger species get all the attention! But when you zoom in, you realize what a beautiful creature you might miss by ignoring the little guys. I just love its furry head and thorax!

This is a close-up of a flower on the Purple Shrimp Plant (Justicia Scheidweileri). This plant is really only grown for the deep-green, striped leaves and very striking, magenta-colored bracts. We gardeners typically don't notice or appreciate shrimp plant flowers. They are so teeny-tiny. So I'm giving this purple flower some attention today. It's actually kind of pretty.

I snapped photos of a rose and a cabbage in separate parts of the garden today. When I uploaded them, it struck me how similar these two very-different plants actually are in form. For some reason, I never noticed before.

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Winter Interest: It's All in the Details

When I walk in my garden on a normal day, my attention is drawn toward the bright, colorful blooms and giant tropical leaves that make up my garden. But for a couple of months every year, we feel winter's effect here in my Zone 9 Florida garden. It is during this time that I really notice the details in my garden. Searching for little, interesting things makes it much easier to ignore the all-consuming brown. And that is what I did on my walk through the garden today: