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"Possibility and promise greet me each day as I walk out into my garden. My vigor is renewed when I breathe in the earthiness and feel the dirt between my fingers. My garden is a peaceful spot to refresh my soul." Meems






Welcome to my Central Florida Garden Blog where we garden combining Florida natives, Florida-Friendly plants, and tropicals.

Friday, October 19, 2007

to everything there is a season


the uglies have taken over

it's not like i didn't know it was going to happen. but i feel the need to bemoan the situation anyway. my beloved & adored caladiums are as ugly and wilty right now as they are colorful, spunky and beautiful in the spring and summer. every year it is the same. but this year they lasted so well... i mean it is october and until now they have performed outstandingly. i guess it makes it doubly hard to see them go because they are everywhere and right now that makes me feel like everything is ugly.

this week in the garden has been one of those weeks. do you ever feel like every where you look there is work to do? honestly, it is as if all of a sudden what was left of the annuals are spent ... the perennials are droopy... the ginger is overgrown... the confederate jasmine is climbing into my neighbor's yard... my lawn is desperate for some rain... the asian jasmine is creeping into the flower beds... even the palmettos need to be de-frond (is that a word?)


today's bounty

all i want to do is plant some fall annuals and enlarge some flower beds (so i can plant more plants). BUT for the past two days i have had to muster all my discipline to stay focused on the fall clean-up. AND it is still so hot!!!! i know i speak of this in every post lately but REALLY... i need to get more work done that what the morning hours allow.

here's a quick run-down of fall maintenance checked off my list the last two days:
  • fertilized the lawn with Scott's Bonus S weed and feed
  • spruced up with new plants and moved to new locations some potted plants
  • dug up some overgrown bromeliads to reveal some landscaping stones i couldn't see anymore.
  • transplanted some clerodendrum seedlings
  • marked off a grassy area on the backside of a flower bed with spray paint then sprayed the grass with round-up. next week i will remove the grass and my bed will be larger for more plants.
  • cleaned out two large flower beds of caladiums; trimmed back all the impatiens and palmettos and ferns.
  • cut back the mexican petunia (which is on the invasive plants list) because it can go everywhere in a hurry.
  • pulled up and re-laid a pathway made of stones that had gotten out of alignment


i leave you today with some photos i took yesterday because it just wouldn't be nice to show you only the ugly ones...


amazingly, these caladiums are still providing a pleasant display... but... i am preparing myself for their certain demise in the next couple of weeks.

i happen to be a big fan of white flowers. i have a tray of white petunias to plant - probably tomorrow.

yesterday i discovered this plant flowering. i can't remember the name of it but it only blooms in October/ November. i actually pull up seedlings of this everywhere- it re-seeds so easily.

note added 10.23.07: i found this plant online it is a Phillipine Violet-Barleria cristata. Also comes in violet, mauve and a violet and white variegated.

5 comments:

  1. Whew! I am tired just reading your blog! That is why I only have a few shrubs across the front of the house, which I keep shaped, some flower pots on my patio, and a couple of crepe myrtle trees (which my hubby keeps trimmed back when needed), and a small lawn hubby keeps looking good. If I could afford it, I would fill my back yard with a large pool and waterfall. The Florida heat & I do not get along any more. As I said in a long ago post, I prefer indoor time during the summer. It does bring back memories though of those days when I loved the yard too, and was always avid about it like you are.

    I have been wondering what your fall & winter posts will be about, since the lovely summer plants will be dormant soon. And what is the 'big new project' you have been promising to let us in on?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, gardening in your climate is soo different. For example you will plant petunias now, yes? First question comes to my mind is why to plant petunias in October? You know what you are doing, so next question comes how long will they last?
    In our climate we plant them in May and they last till October. This year I decided to take surfinia home for winter and see what happens :) how it will survive winter. they die usually after first frost in October.
    Such heat as you describe we can have in June, July or August - never all 3 months in a row, rather one of them or part of one of them :)
    greetings for weekend,

    ReplyDelete
  3. sg: i don't blame you for scaling down... your yard is lovely and quite adequate! i commented in an earlier post how i put my 'big project' on hold for some cooler weather...

    i, too, have wondered what i will have to post about in winter. most likely it will about Christmas shopping. :-)

    actually our winters are so short and i typically save my big projects until winter because the weather is so nice. we shall see...

    ReplyDelete
  4. ewa:
    yes, gardening here is year-round. not much of a break at any season.

    i plant petunias now and unless we have a hard freeze- which is highly unlikely-- they will last until Feb/March. petunias, snap dragons, pansies and the like never last here past April/May at the latest. our summers are torturous for such cool-loving annuals.

    your summers sound delightful! have a great weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If "defrond" isn't a word, it should be. We can just use it over and over until it's adopted into everyday language and eventually the dictionary! Gotta run...time to defrond!

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Have a blessed day,
Meems


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