Florida Trip -- 4

My Aunt is a Master Gardener and voluteers her time at the local extension center. So, of course we stopped by there before we caught the train home. And I took lots of pictures.







And some portulacas and a mystery blue flower. Edit: The blue flower is Blue Daze.

Recent Developments

I've gotten back in my garden this week. And for more than watering and being eaten by mosquitos. I mowed the back lawn and mulched my poor flowers. Maybe now they won't need watered so much. I also dead headed my hostas and removed a few spent blooms from the hydrangea. The hydrangea is still going strong.

Despite the bugs determined to eat my sunflowers, they are doing quite well. Blooming in fact.

Florida Trip -- 3

Continuing up the boardwalk and over the dune, there was the Atlantic Ocean.





At low tide, there were a lot of rocks on the shore. The tide actually lifted them up and washed the shells underneath them. There were also fossilized shells in the rocks.



On the cove side of the dune, various birds would feed at low tide, ibises and rosy spoonbills. Too bad my camera does not have a stronger zoom, or I'd have a good picture of the birds.



Back at the visitor center, the fire bush was in bloom.



Inside the visitor's center was a 9 month old baby loggerhead sea turtle. This one's name was Kiwi. She's supposed to be released after a year.

Florida Trip -- 2

Further along the trail at MacArthur State Park in Florida.



And a sea grape hanging over the trail. We even saw one with "grapes" on it!



My mom was quite amused to spot this little cactus off to one side. They didn't even have it marked in the trail map!



A "close up" view of a local butterfly. The butterflies here were really flighty and did not want their pictures taken.



A brown cuban anole partially hidden by a wild flower. These little lizards and their green cousins were all over the place down there. And well welcome to eat the bugs.



A shot of the steps leading up to the beach.




More to come...

Florida Trip -- 1

Since I don't feel like doing normal blogging, I can share some pictures. The first place I took pictures of was John D. MacArthur State Park in West Palm Beach.

These are some mango trees on the protected cove side.



And here are some palm trees along one of the nature boardwalks.



A wild coffee plant along the nature trail. These were all over the dune.



And the pointsetta before it was bred into the one we see spray painted at Christmas.



A tall palm tree outlined against the sky.



And some more trees along the dune.




More to follow later.....

Da Funk

I'll admit it, I've been on a blogging slump. It started up when it was too hot to work outside, and to sweltering to be on the computer. Took two weeks to get them to replace it this time around. And then, in the glory of the coolness, I just don't feel like doing much. Not to mention, I've been assigned to a different location for work, which means that I'm without internet all summer. It wasn't supposed to be that way, but inertia being what it is, I doubt they will get me hooked up before I leave again. And the adjustment in working hours has thrown me off schedule completely.

Not much is going on in the garden. The nasturtium bloomed, but I keep missing them with the camera. The beebalm I tried to transplant seem to have not liked the swampy conditions and died back. The hosta are blooming away happily. While I had to take out one of the mystery plants so they could replace the air conditioner.

Suet

I think I need to get a suet feeder. This morning there was a red-bellied woodpecker sitting on the deck and pecking away at the seed I had out. First off, a wood pecker sitting on a horizontal surface looks silly. And pecking away almost sideways to pick up the seed was even sillier.

But obviously, the suet needs of woodpeckers in my neighborhood are not being met. And that needs to change. Which means a suet cake feeder. The ants will just love me.

My hostas loved all the rain and are blooming. The one little nasturtium has put up a reddish-orange flower, which I haven't been able to photograph well. I'll keep trying. But in the meantime, here are some garden shots from last week, before the rain started. First up is my rearranged birdbath garden.



And the newly extended hosta garden, sans the purple beebalm I just planted.

Sorry Agnes

Well, records are broken and evening showers still plague the area. Had another creek in the parking lot this afternoon. Anyway, in DC, it is the wettest June on record, which beats Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Not to mention, our 30% (nearly six inch) deficit turned into a 32% (over six inch) surplus. Good for the water table, but bad for flooding.

In the midst of all this, I visited my mom last weekend for her birthday. It went swimmingly, although, they did have a power outage when she woke up on her birthday. While there, I hijacked some grown beebalm plants. My seedlings just aren't growing up. The fun part was that I dug them up in the rain, and then planted them in the rain. My poor yard is so soggy, that when I lifted up a shovelfull of dirt, the hole was filled with water. It is probably still the same today.

But still, I don't think we have to worry about wildfires from fireworks this weekend. Do you?

Soggy Weekend

Well, on the tail end of last week's heat, came a humid weekend. 100% humidity weekend. Water falling from the skies weekend. A weekend so damp and drenching, that even a Florida Hurricane blog commented on it. My little rain gauge overflowed, which means more than nine inches of water fell this weekend. Silly me didn't empty it before last night's big storm, so I don't know precisely how much rain fell.

We did not get any flooding in our little development, but the flood plane was hard at work as always. The best part about the soggy ground, is how easily the dandelions are pulled out. I mean grab the leaves and the whole root comes out easily.

Happy Summer

Happy Summer Solstice!

It's been summer here for a couple days. Temperatures are in the low 90s and there is no breeze to speak of here. Which is why my front lawn is starting to look like a jungle. It's too hot to mow. Although, it is now looking like a brightly colored jungle, since the neighborhood kids seem to have had a waterballoon fight outside my place and there are lots of bits of rubber laying about. I need to go out and pick that up.

The petunias are not happy on the deck. I can't figure out if it is the intense sun, or the dirt just drains too quickly. Two of the seedlings have bit the dust. Everything else seems good. My hydrangea is blooming away and so is the amaryllis. I think those blooms are finally dying, but the display has been nice.

Roaming About

Well, it's a beautiful day, that is probably going to hit the 90s temperature-wise. However, the sun is way too bright to take pictures. I'll get some of the new garden arrangements soon. It's hard to keep track in the mind.

Last night, I planted seedlings while Zeppe roamed about. Several petunias were added by the bird bath and the new garden by the hostas. Some dwarf morning glories and a few more sunflowers and butterfly weeds were added to the bird bath garden. I also stuck a few more beebalm seedlings in with the primroses beside the shed. Two more beebalms were placed in the extended hosta bed.

Then I attacked the weeds. I've been smothering grass by the fence with the cable with grass clippings for awhile now. But some of the grass and dandelions right at the fence think of it as mulch. So, I took my trusty trowel and proceeded to dig them out. It was amazing the shear amount of earthworms and pill bugs and spiders roaming around in that mulchy verge. You rarely think of earthworms as being above ground creatures, but there they were. Makes me glad I was wearing my gardening gloves. Those spiders did not look happy at being disturbed.

Peony Sins

Forgive me, Peony, for I have moved you. My peonies which were absent-mindedly planted in the shade are less than two feet tall. Not at all the height a normal herbacious peony should be. Since I feared that the rhisome would not be able to store up enough energy to get through the winter, I moved them out of season, so there would be time to establish themselves. As it turned out, the poor things had not really established root systems. Which is not good.

Two plants were placed in the new garden, and the other four were moved to the opposite side of the birdbath garden. They will actually get sun there. While I was moving them, I spotted two milkweed seedlings which had bounced back after whatever had gotten them. I took those seedlings out to put the peonies in. Then, I moved the birdbath to where the peonies had been, since the birds don't need sun to bathe. The milkweed seedlings went where the bird bath had been.

I hope my peonies forgive me and establish roots.