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?

Oh, How the Garden Sizzles!

What gloriously blazing blooms are sizzling in my landscape here at November's end!!  I am submitting this to the Hawaiian Plant Fanatic's Hot, Loud & Proud meme that he hosts at the end of every month.  Pop on over if you'd like to see other sizzling blooms or join in yourself.

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:

Fall Floats In

No, I am not blind.  I peruse the Garden Blogworld daily, and I have not missed those brazen displays of autumn glory out there...the pumpkins, the scarecrows, and worst of all, the changing leaves.  There is something about growing up in the Deep South that makes one feel as though they are missing out on something in the fall.  I know some folk who get downright depressed over it.  Those Floridians who have time and money to burn will be found journeying northward these next few weeks to witness the splendor of this changing of the seasons.  Those who don't...well...they will feel a little empty, even if they can't quite put their finger on the reason.  Perhaps we would have never noticed if shops and schools and restaurants in town were not festooned in leafy garlands and pumpkin displays.  This decoration is surely the inspiration of northern transplants missing their homeland: a Florida native would scarcely even know of such things as changing seasons were we not under such influences.

Learning Curves and Growing Pains

I know many of my blog readers are experienced gardeners of the master sort.  I can tell from viewing your garden photos, which are always from the long view, by the way.  You know who you are.  Back a long, long time ago, in my early gardening days, I read in a magazine article that it takes about five years for a garden to reach anything near maturity.  Period.  It just takes that long for one to figure out sun rotations, soil idiosyncrasies, weather patterns, and that mysterious thing known as "microclimates."  And of course, it takes time for perennials to clump, for trees to stretch upward, and shrubs to attain some girth.  So every time I've moved into a new home and planted that new garden, I've worked and worked and waited and waited patiently for that elusive five-year anniversary to come.  (Leave it to me to take things so literally.)

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.

Conversations with the Botanically Insane

Oh, shall I admit it?  Shall I let you in on my embarrassing secret?  Yes, I am possibly insane.  I talk to my plants.  Not in the audible way, but that telepathic sort of conversation.  Yes, neighbors, that is what I am doing when I meander around the garden, touching this bloom, stroking that leaf.  Today, I'm inviting my readers in on the conversation.

Confessions of a Photo Faddist

I have a teenage son who is a very picky eater.  What makes things even tougher is that he gets caught up on these "food fads."  He absolutely loves eating a certain food for lunch everyday for two months, then suddenly won't touch it.  Never mind that I just bought a month's supply, and no one else in the house wants the stuff.  Then we're off on a new food fad.  It really drives me crazy.  Don't get me wrong, we don't spoil him.  Most nights, he must sit down and eat what the family's having for dinner.  (Though in his younger days, many a tear was shed over broccoli.)   But for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, we pretty much just grab stuff from the kitchen.

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.