Dance of the Swallowtail

"No garden truly blooms until butterflies have danced upon it."

~Kristen D'Angelo

The Southside Garden

So I've been away from the blog for a while.....

But that ol' camera has still been in my hands.  I am a bit upset that I will not have this record of my late spring garden, but that's life.  Anyway, here are a few shots of the lovely blooms gracing my garden right now:

Spring Rushes in With Kindly Magnificence

So many beautiful blooms are bursting forth in my garden this week!  The season Spring brings with it renewed hope, springing from the knowledge that the garden did indeed survive Old Man Winter, despite all the fretting and despair...knowledge that we were once more victor over last year's nagging pestilence... knowledge that, yes, those little bulbs grew larger and multiplied, the trees eked out a few more inches, and Gardener gained a whole lot more insight.  There is only one direction the garden can head over the next year...toward magnificence!  We are sure of it.  Such is the hope of spring.  Oh, how I love spring!

Oh, happy day -- lily !

Guess what has opened just this morning at PITV?!!!

Sunny Weekend + Evil Foreboding

So here it is....  It's official. My little spot o' Florida is under a freeze watch for Monday and Tuesday nights.  I am truly almost speechless.  With five full winters under our belt, I can honestly say this garden has ne'er seen a December freeze.  What does this mean for the rest of winter?

MGB October 2010: In the Pink

It's that time of month again: time for the Monthly Garden Bouquet meme, that is.  This is hosted by Noelle of Ramblings from a Desert Garden.  Check out the arrangement I threw together this morning:

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

Susan of Simply Susan! asks us to share our current favorites each month, but I've found the further we travel from winter, the harder this task becomes.  I do think there must be hundreds of plant species in my garden.  Some day, I will have to catalog the lot of them.  It is unbelievable how many plant babies I can cram in this tiny space.  Problem is, nearly everything looks great right now, and of course, I love 'em all, so it's hard to narrow the faves down to a reasonable number.  Well, I'll give it a go anyway:

Farewell, Sweet Summer....

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart. 

~Celia Thaxter

It is difficult to believe that summer ends today.  It seems only yesterday that my garden wakened from winter.  I will truly miss you, Summer.  I will miss those long days.  Oh, how I dread the days when darkness falls early.  Even I, garden-obsessed as I am, will not sit in my garden in the dread black of night.  But seasons must come, and seasons must go. 

Of Order, Diversity, and Madness

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am no garden planner and that I cannot seem to bring myself to plant in large groupings.  I write on the sidebar over there that my garden style is "cram-as-many-plants-as-possible-into-a-half-acre-lot."  Well, that is about as true a statement as I can make.  I don't believe in putting on airs that aren't there.  This garden is what it is: a reflection of a botanically obsessed, compulsive plant collector.  It is not a garden that will appeal to everyone.  It is a far cry from the self-control of landscape design with its perfectly trimmed shrubs, ideally spaced trees, and huge groupings of colorful annuals.

Plant of the Month: September 2010

Pentas
aka Egyptian Star Flower

Pentas lanceolata

Come, walk with me.

Come, walk with me.

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

I am joining up with Simply Susan! again to post my favorites...this month!  What a great month it's been in the garden!  It's truly hard to play favorites when there are so many wonderful things to choose from.   I can certainly say that the curcumas, peace lilies, and blue butterflies have been tops with me this month.  However, I've posted them so much, that I'm not featuring them here today. 

MGB July 2010: Bouquet of Summer Breezes

As I headed out to cut my Monthly Garden Bouquet, I  have to admit I was feeling a little green-eyed over all the giant roses and peonies I see gracing the Northern gardens in spring and summer.  Those splendid, full-petaled beauties make wonderful bouquets, but I don't seem to have any gorgeous blooms of that sort, though in winter, my camelllias do put on a nice show.  But this is not winter.  Far from it, actually.  The days have been blistering, brutally stretching out for hours in the mid- to upper-90's.  At least at night, we know it will dip down to 78.  Whoopee.

A Palatable Palette of Pinks

My all-time favorite color in the garden is PINK!  Sometimes I feel like apologizing for such a deficiency in taste and for overusing this brilliant hue...but not right now.  For although my garden is swimming in pink this summer, it is perfectly balanced by an array of whites, purples, blues, and yellows.  So no apologies today.  Just a perfectly palatable palette of pinks:

Starbursts and Fireworks!

In celebration of the Fourth of July, I have searched out my garden for festive explosions.  Here's what I found:

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.

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.