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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.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

weekend ramblings

woo-hoo! that's my excitement over the great rain we are finally getting this evening. just one nice steady rain like we're having is better than a week of irrigation for sufficiently watering in the lawn fertilizer i put down a few days ago. not to mention we just need the rain to help the
drought conditions we are enduring.

i broke in another pair of new gloves this weekend made by the rumford gardener. i had purchased them back in September in a little gardening store in north carolina. they are goat suede and spandex and washable. they protected my hands quite well and i like the way they fit. several pairs of workable gloves are helpful to have on hand (no pun:-) depending on the type of gardening necessary.

over grown ginger plants --before

severely trimmed back ginger plants --after

saturday was my third consecutive day of diligent fall clean-up (and more to go--yes, it's true). the weather was nearly 10 degrees cooler (80) than the days prior and the humidity was down enough to make the day very manageable. so i worked right through the afternoon hours with no trouble. the section of my front yard shown in the photos above is quite expansive (not fully visible here) and consists of several layers and variety of plants. along with trimming the ginger and all the palmettos, the droopy caladiums in the front of this area had to go. it is ready now for new fall annuals. not sure what i will plant there yet... still designing in my head.

my sweet elderly neighbor, helen, i have spoken of in previous posts came out to chit-chat as we were both doing some gardening. i always like to take a few minutes to walk around her garden with her because she loves to talk about her latest gardening triumphs and woes. before long she insists i dig up seedlings of some sort to transplant to my garden. when i'm in her garden it is as if around each corner and at every turn there is another unusual flowering plant. she rarely knows the names of many of them, like me, she just knows what works and doesn't work.

this blue ginger plant is now happy in my garden and i am happier to add it to the many wonderful plants she has shared with me over the years.

this is an example of a plant helen gave me a few years ago that she doesn't know the name of still and i can't find it out either. it drops its own seeds and sprouts up new plants quite easily.


i planted a butterfly bush and some daisies in one of the smaller areas i cleaned out. I still have a couple of firebush plants and the rest of my petunias to go in the ground. much more left to do in the next few weeks.

16 comments:

  1. ooooo, I like that blue ginger plant! So pretty!

    How do your new gloves compare to the other ones you raved about earlier on your blog?

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  2. Yes, I too am interested as to your preference in gloves for gardening. I thought the last ones you featured were the "best". My simple cotton gloves with the bumpy finger tips are getting worn out, so I will need a new pair soon. And with my limited gardening, one pair is all it takes.

    How nice it must be to have a gardening neighbor to kibitz with and share plantings. The 'blue ginger' is lovely. Blue is such a rare color in flowers, but such a nice addition to your floral rainbow. Isn't our Master Gardener amazing, with His infinite variety of growing things to beautify our world?

    I don't recognize the orange flower with the seed pods either. Could you show more of the plant?

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  3. mlm: i thought of you when i took that photo... kind of thought you'd like it.

    okay... my attentive readers... re: the gloves comparison...i REALLY like the ones i featured in an earlier post. so much that i ordered another pair recently. they are extremely comfortable and can be washed - which is a huge plus. the newest ones i mention in this post are just as nice and i was coaxed into the purchase mainly b/c they were about $10 cheaper and yet looked like a durable and comfortable glove. they have proven to work just as well as the first mentioned. typically as one pair is soaking i am using the other so it works out well. currently i have 4 pairs i can alternate. one pair i've never even mentioned in the past and i wont' bore you now. i know you guys really wanted to know all of that! :-)

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  4. sg: i like that word "kibitz"... you can be sure i will use it in a post sometime.

    having someone to meander through any garden and speak of the work of our hands is very fun and satisfying. sharing common interests with helen and learning from her years of experience is a blessing for me. she actually gave me several other plants i will possibly share another time. many of her plants she brought with her from Coral Gables when she moved here. they are all so tropicalesque.

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  5. I wonder if your orange (red?) flowers are some sort of clerodendrum? I don't know all that much about them... it's just the first thing I thought of when I saw your pic.

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  6. I also like the blue ginger. I do have a question about the ginger you cut back...Does your ginger bloom? Mine hasn't yet and just wondering if it ever will.

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  7. sophie: the orange flower is a definite orange and i'm pretty sure it isn't a clerodendrum of any sort. at least i haven't seen any variety with its characteristics. i will keep looking for the ID and do a follow-up post if i find it.

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  8. jane:
    yes, the ginger blooms an exotic sort of trailing white flower in the spring/early summer. although there were actually a couple of latent blooms on the trimmings from saturday.

    it will help yours to bloom if you feed it with a liquid fertilizer regularly... especially since yours is indoors.

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  9. Enjoyed visiting your site, meems ... thank you for the kind words written on mine. Always interesting meeting 'fellow gardeners'. I'm a Mimi also!

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  10. I glad you also had good weather this weekend, it looks like the good gardening weather is finally here. I which I had a neighbor like Helen not many gardener around my house

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  11. joey: thanks for stopping by...fellow mimi's are always welcome.

    rusty: it is 90's again this week... i keep thinking this weather is going to turn a corner for good ... maybe next week?

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  12. Meems, I remember having some goatskin gloves and I really liked them before I eventually ruined them using them for the wrong chore. I'm murder on gloves and keep lots of pairs handy. Must have gloves! I know lots of gardeners don't, but I require them.

    And gardening is always more fun when you're visiting with your neighbors at the same time!

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  13. Hi Meems, thanks for stopping by, glad you enjoyed The Greenhouse in Tyra's Garden. I say, great photos especailly the close-ups!. You are an artist, what camera do use? Do you use a special lens? Just curious.lol Tyra in Vaxholm

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  14. lostroses: welcome. i didn't use gloves for years and my hands sadly show the results. now they are a must and i ruin several pairs annually so i have multiple pairs around.

    yes, my neighbor is a big blessing.

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  15. Your photogrpahs are beautiful. I believe your friend sophiemae was correct in identifying your orange-flowered perennial as a clerodendrum. It is Clerodendrum speciosissimum, the Java Glory Bower. That is, if it is the same plant pictured in your August 16th post.

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  16. George: welcome, thanks for stopping by. you are correct about the august 16 post... that orange beauty is a java glory bower which i ID'd since that post.

    the orange bloom in this post however is from a very different plant. i will post a photo of the entire plant sometime so perhaps someone will be able to help with the name of it.

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Have a blessed day,
Meems


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