I love a rainy night!

Well, I love a rainy night,

Well, I love a rainy night,

In Celebration of Spring

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,

and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

~Song of Solomon 2:11-13a (KJV) 

February is Bustin' Out All Over!

Spring is bustin' out all over here at PITV!  Oh, yeah!  With a whole month of 70- and 80-degree days behind us, I think it's safe to say winter is officially over.  This has been the best February here in my neck of the woods since 2008.  : ) 

Flexin' the Mighty Micro on Macro Monday

Today, I'm joining in on my first Macro Monday post.  I often check out the meme participants, but I've never actually posted one myself until today.   : )  Macro Mondays are hosted by Lisa's chaos.  This is one of those well-rounded memes that encompass all sorts of blog genres and photo subjects.  Pop on over to check out all the other fascinating photos.

Spring Cleaning; No More Hibiscus Hoarding

No doubt about it, the gorgeous weather is here to stay.  No excuses anymore for this mess of a garden.  I've let things go all winter, since I can't bear the chill in my bones.  No, it isn't just about being wimpy.  I have serious cold-sensitivity issues that cause my bones to ache and my skin to burn when the temperature falls below 70°F.  TMPI, huh?  So anyway, this Saturday is spring cleaning day here in the PITV garden, and BIG changes are taking place!  Bless my husband's heart!  He has been out there chopping and digging and weeding for hours already this Saturday morning.  And he has made decisions for me that I have been waffling over for two years! 

Fantastic February Foliage

Sometimes foliage is just as fantastic as flowers, don't ya think?  Today, I am featuring a few photos of fiery foliage that is filling up my February garden.

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!  

Wonders of Winter

On this beautiful Saturday morning, my camera's attention was drawn toward some winter wonders that I have in my garden.  Fortunately, while the perennials and tropicals sleep in the ground, a few beauties utilize this season of the year to do their thing.

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!)

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 Big Sigh of Relief

Oh, how wonderful it feels to get back out on morning and evening walks in the garden!  I've been out there very little throughout December, due to the cold.  Actually, the only time I've spent out there this week has been for the laying on of blankets and sheets.

My Garden, My Teacher

You are teaching me so much about life, Dear Garden.

Not Quite Paradise

A wiser, older gardening friend/neighbor once told me, when she observed the tropical garden I had planted, "We get a hard freeze about once every ten years...but don't you worry.  When that happens, you can just dig up those tropical plants and start over." 

Blogaholics Anonymous

Hello, my name is Floridagirl, and I am a blogaholic.

Flamin' Hot and Pretty Loud!

Ya know, this blog I call "Peace in the Valley" has been active for about nine months now, and I'm afraid that I've failed to learn how to use

R-E-S-T-R-A-I-N-T. 

As a matter of fact, I seem to have gone bonkers lately posting unlimited photos of my plant babies as though I were a proud mother. 

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:

Enjoying My Eden

***

Who can explain the secret pathos of Nature's loveliness?
It is a touch of melancholy inherited from our Mother Eve.
It is an unconscious memory of the lost Paradise.
It is the sense that even if we should find another Eden,
 we would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly nor stay in it forever. 

~Henry van Dyke

***

The Power of Purple

All the other colors are just colors,
but purple seems to have a soul.
Purple is not just a noun and an adjective
but also a verb - when you look at it,
it's looking back at you. 

~Uniek Swain

September *Sighs*

September brings its sighs.  Sighs of relief, that is.  I took a walk through my garden yesterday and can honestly say I'm sighing that big sigh of relief that I still actually have a garden.  The devastation of winter's arctic blast is history.  Tropicals are flourishing once again, and while I do know another winter is on the horizon, and we cannot predict its fury, right now, I'm trying to just enjoy the bounty day by day.   This year, my garden has taught me valuable lessons in patience, perseverence, humility, and hope.  So come, walk with me, and see what my garden is today.