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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.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Hello December


I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We enjoyed our traditional gathering here around a spread of yummy food and treasured family time.

Sharing our hearts of thankfulness as we sat outside in an after-dinner pow-wow of sorts we played board games into the night. We have so many blessings to count.

It is difficult to comprehend another year is ending and it is already December. Where does the time go?

The garden is still going strong and for that I am grateful. I'm pretty sure I've managed to fortify it for winter should we have an occasional frost.

Foundations have been laid that ensure cold hardy plants are left standing while tender ones enjoyed most months out of the year could be lost. Winterproof plants such as irises and agapanthus that actually perk up once the weather cools look great in this season. Of course we would have to say goodbye to coleus in case of frost until spring.

This is the time of year when we can be outdoors and truly drink in the splendor of our Florida fall. There are scads of butterflies and pollinators dancing about in the bright sunlight under a ceiling of clear blue skies.

Mild temperatures and occasionally briskly cool days beckon for us to join the excitement that is celebrating relief from the heat we thought might never end just a few short weeks ago.

Skippers are out in record numbers... dozens of them flitting to and fro to every available nectar source.

This must be their season. I've never seen so many at one time.

The last of the White Wonder Caladiums remain... sparsely scattered now but living up to their name have proven to be of great value to the front garden since before summer.



Crimson pentas are providing ample nourishment for the butterflies and buzzing critters.

Those volunteer impatiens just keep popping up under the filtered light of the oak trees. December is a favorable growing time for them as they drop their seeds so readily.

So far most of the tropical plants are still flourishing among the natives which adds some variety of foliage color and texture to the side garden.

And yes, those are really Miss Muffett caladiums looking spunky and bright in a container mixed with starts of alyssum. Just for fun I planted them in late September. It was a personal experiment of sorts. I'm going to be very curious to see how long they last.

I hope you are ready for December. I'm anticipating another beautiful month. Happy gardening friends. Meems

17 comments:

  1. What beautifull photos.
    The blog world is really great when you can see how the gardens grow all over the place.

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  2. Beautiful words Meems! I to had a wonderful Thanksgiving being with my family.
    The Skippers have been so numerous here I about run into them every time I walk around in the yard.
    My pentas seem to not be happy at this time. May need to additional fertilizer.
    Happy Dec. to you and yours.

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  3. Your white wonder caladiums remind me of the wonderful white we had this week. The seasons are rolling away. So glad to hear you had a good Thanksgiving.

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  4. Cathy,
    I always welcome my friends from Israel. What a treat to have you visit here.

    WG,
    Bumping into the Skippers is one of the joys of the season. Use a slow release fertilizer if you decide to give your pentas a boost. Mine have not been fertilized. But I did try to pay attention to pruning them back all summer. Rather than cutting them all back at once and living without flowers I soft pruned 1/3 of each plant at a time. I think it helped to keep them flowering longer, too.

    So nice to hear you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

    Lisa,
    I kind of think your *white wonder* was covering a lot more territory than my straggly caladiums. Happy winter!

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  5. Your garden looks lovely, Meems.
    What is that beautiful blue bloom in the photo right before you talked about the skippers?

    Glad you had a glorious holiday. It sounds like one I'm hoping for sometime in the future...

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  6. Daisy,
    Adult children and the joys of grandchildren are the fruits of life we can hardly imagine when the little ones are running around in our early years. But it is the sweetness our Lord provides for our later years. You will get there faster than you can blink an eye. Believe me.

    The plant you ask about is a purple Philippine Violet (Barleria Cristata). It was a volunteer. I have NO idea how it got there. But I can be sure more will come because they drop seeds easily.

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  7. How refreshing to visit your garden!

    We had beautiful Autumn color in the trees, but that's gone now. If it weren't for evergreen trees - pine, cedar, holly - we would be completely brown. We've had several grey, rainy days with temperatures below freezing at night and barely into the 30's by day, but today is sunny with expected high in the mid 50's. Hurrah!
    Lea
    Northern Mississippi

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  8. December looks a lot different in Massachusetts, but I am celebrating my 4th blogoversary with a Giveaway, a copy of Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin. Help me celebrate.

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  9. Your early December garden is full of color and life. I like the mass planting of the pentas. We've had lots of skippers here too. Earlier I was not happy that their caterpillars were eating up my cannas, but now, I like having them about.

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  10. I love your garden any time of year, Meems, but it is such a delight in December. I love how you capture the glint of the sun in your shady domain, the butterflies and flowers and caladiums - and chartreuse. All so beautiful. Your photography puts us right in the midst of it. Thank you!

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  11. Got home from work at 9:30 tonight, and just wanted to check my email, and ended up getting lost in your blog again. I went to some of your posts from over a year ago, and loved getting a bigger picture of the development of your personal Eden. You are an inspiration!

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  12. Not a hint of the coming frost in your garden. It still looks as wonderful as it always does.

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  13. What a lovely garden that resembles mine in summer...how wonderful to have all those pollinators..

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  14. Hi Meems, i might already sound like a broken record of always saying i love your garden, but it still is, and up to now they maintain the lushness even near the end of their lives. I don't get that long blooming spike of photo #4 which i forgot the name. Maybe because mine is too shaded, and of course not fertilized and just depend on rainwater. Our caladium also are starting to droop and lessen producing leaves.

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  15. Dear Meems, it all looks so beautiful~I know you are enjoying the pollinators~I miss the skippers most of all. gail

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  16. I love visiting your blog anytime, but especially in winter when I can garden vicariously through your photos! Drool! :-)

    Happy Holidays! I've gotten lazy with blog commenting because of Facebook. Hmmm....

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  17. Hi Meems, Merry Christmas to you. Thanks for the nice spruce up of the point.pot. I'll share it with my wife. Your Miss Muffet look great. I really think people are missing an opportunity by not replanting caladiums throughout spring, summer and fall. Minus a hard freeze I'll bet the September planted Muffet will look good at Christmas. Congrats on being #3 blogger. You're number one to me. Dr. Bob

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Have a blessed day,
Meems


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