When It Rains, It Storms

We've received a whoppin' 6.5 inches of rain here in the valley over the past two weeks.  It has been a blessing after that prolonged drought, and the glory is showing in the green, green grass all around us.  Of course, having said that, I do have a gripe today.  It's just a tiny, little gripe in the grand scheme of things, and I know I shouldn't be complaining at all, considering the damaging storms they've had in the Midwest.

An Evening in the Garden

Don't have a lot of time to spare today, but wanted to share some photos I took yesterday evening.

Frogs, Frustrations, a Few Flowers, and One Fantastic Fern!

We've been so busy lately, both in the garden and in that other place...the real world.  Anyway, this weekend, we happily got out in the garden again to finish trimming away winter's wrath.  Most of our burned foliage was cut back in February, but we never got around to some of the bigger stuff.  This weekend was time to cut back dead leaves from the giant birds of paradise, the bananas, and the starburst clerodendrum.

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!  

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. 

Peace and Quiet

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My Favorites...This Month! (October 2010)

Oh, glorious month of October!  Such a month of ambivalent feelings for me.  I am always quite saddened to see the crapes shedding leaves, and caladiums and curcumas slipping into the ground for winter's rest.  Yet I am thrilled to see those special blooms of autumn reveal their beautiful faces!  It's almost like having a second spring.  So today, I share my favorites for October, the splendid month of autumn:

Hot, Loud, and Proud: July 2010

For July's "Hot, Loud, and Proud" meme, I've searched my garden for the hottest, loudest, and proudest tropicals I could find.  No, I don't live in the tropics.  But I am one to push the limits.  Here are some of the tropicals that help give my "SUB"tropical garden some exotic flair.

Flaunting my Flowers (and Foliage) on Fertilizer Friday

I'm joining up with Tootsie for Fertilizer Friday in this post.  From what I understand, this is just a way to flaunt your flowers, and that is what I'm doing.  (I know...I do that all the time anyway.)  I certainly don't use any kind of store-bought fertilizer, except for on the orchids, so this is not about Fertilizer at all.  Well, I did get some old newspapers yesterday, so I can go cover the top of my compost hill.  They'll smother the weeds that have been trying to grow here and there.  I can throw some leaves we recently cleaned out of the gutters on top.  They are already nicely composted, which means we waited way too long to clean them.  Oh, and I can mix in some eggshells, banana peels, and apple cores that have been sitting in the kitchen.  There, that's my "fertilizer" piece.  Anyway, here are some of the things I want to flaunt in my garden today:

MGB-June 2010: Independence Bouquet

It's time for the June Monthly Garden Bouquet (actually, I'm a little late to the party), hosted by Noelle of Ramblings from a Desert Garden.  This is a fun meme and a great way to encourage hesitant gardeners to cut those stems.  (I personally find it very hard to take the scissors to my flowers.)

summer scene stealers

Like every other garden in the world, mine is dominated by the color green...green grass, green shrubs, green leaves on perennials...even green weeds.  But all around the garden, here and there, can be found pops of brilliant color bursting out of that green sea.  If you're not careful, you just might get smacked in the face by one of these as you round the corner.

My Favorites...This Month (May 2010)

I'm joining in with Susan of Simply Susan! to post My Favorites...This Month.  Pop on over if you'd like to join in.  May was a really hard month to narrow down favorites, but here are a few.  Click on the collage to enlarge.

MGB May 2010: Bouquet of Serenity and Sunshine

Well, here it is almost the end of May's third week, and I am finally getting around to cutting a bouquet.  So much has been going on in the garden and in life recently, that I've just not had time to think about it. 

Ha! I laugh in the face of winter!

Old Man Winter just can't keep a good garden down!  For those who haven't read my blog from the beginning, you are probably fortunate to have missed out on the whining and belly-aching that flowed from my fingers for the first three months of this year.  Central Florida was hit by a frigid, long-and-drawn-out winter, the kind that comes maybe once every twenty years here in my neck of the woods.  Just in time for me to start a garden blog.  Exactly the kind of winter that those pushing the boundaries with tropical plants dread the most.  But no more belly-achin' here!  I am thrilled to find that each week of May brings more growth and more flowers to this pseudo-tropical garden.  I'm so glad I didn't rip the whole lot of it out and start over.  From here on out, my only complaining will probably have to do with the incessant weeds.

GBBD: May 2010

It is a happy Garden Blogger's Bloom Day for me here in the month of May.  There are so many more new blooms to share than last month.