Good morning, and welcome from “La Florida” so named by Juan Ponce De Leon in 1513 after disembarking from his ship in the early spring. It roughly translates to “Flowery Land”.... Hmmm guess he has not been to "La Florida" in the intervening 400 odd years, it is now known as the land of sunshine and sadly the flowery land has been bulldozed and paved over.
I am sitting in for your regular host Frankenoid, for her once a month Saturday off. Merry Light will guest host next Saturday. I hope Franki is relaxing and spending time with DaBoys, DaMister, and DaKitties in her beautiful garden.
Gardening in “La Florida” presents many challenges this time of year, in these "dog days” of summer, or "ugh, its August". First, its hotter, than “billy blue blazes” as my mother would say, (those of you in the deep heart of Texas, with your unrelenting, record breaking heat, I hope it breaks for you all soon). We have rain, rain, rain in the afternoons, well almost every afternoon, (some parts of the state have not been so lucky as we are, I wish I could direct some rain your way). This rain is all followed by steamy streets along with hotter, more humid air in your face the minute the rain stops. Next up would be the bloodsucking, big enough to carry you off mosquito’s. All of that makes for not a very pleasant time to be spent in your garden. Say, if you want to go out, and fight those elements to dead head your flowers, pull the weeds, mow your land, or pull those plants that have died from heat stroke or heat exhaustion, you will melt quicker than an ice cube in the oven.
I used to think that I did not have a lot of flowery plants in my garden this time of year, till I started reading SMGB a while back. Once I saw everyone’s pretty pictures, I started to look at my plants more closely and realize I have quite a few flowery plants, shrubs and trees out there. I have crepe myrtle, penta’s, hibiscus, geraniums, bleeding heart vines, roses, lantana, jatropha, plumeria, crown of thorns, orchids, gingers, and some volunteer zinnias blooming right now, and even some of that purslane you all have been talking about, looks pretty right now. Bougainvillea this time of the year is really all about putting energy into growing wild runners and putting out 2 inch long thorns on those branches. They do this, so that you can go out into your yard, in the sweltering humidity, with the sun beating down on you and wrestle the new growth to the ground and give it a haircut so to speak. If you make the bad error in judgement and tread upon said branches you have whacked off and thrown to the ground, you will be rewarded with scratches all over your legs, and a thorn through your shoe. Bougainvillea, they do fight back.
With all of this rain, rain, ( sorry Jayden), the nutrients are being leached out of the soil, so it needs to be replenished often, or all the green turns yellow.
I have gone to container pots for the flowers, so that I can enjoy their beauty from the air conditioned comfort of my home, or I can sit out on the patio the enjoyable months of the year and take in their delicious scents as I sway in the hammock in this "flowery land" . I live on an acre of land, and I used to have arm wrestle 100 ft of hose, out to the back 40 to water the plants. Thats why I went to the containers on the pool deck. Now I only have to wrestle 50 ft of hose to water those flowers.
We are very lucky here to be able to have flowers all year round. Our gardens never take a rest like yours in the north do, but you all have those beautiful flowers, that won’t or cannot be grown here. We can’t have hanging baskets with the types of plants like fuschia’s, bleeding hearts, petunias or begonias, this time of year, or they will shrivel up and die from the heat. No snowballs, lilacs, poppies, columbine, tulips, daffodils or my favorite peonies, for us here in the "flowery land".
Now a lot of people in this land of sunshine, did not get Juan Ponce De Leon’s memo about the "flowery land". They instead got the memo of only green trees and shrubs, no pretty colored flowers. The only pretty colors those shrubs and trees see, is, if at the holiday's, they are strung with brightly colored outside bulbs, er, I mean lights.
I was raised in the north and my father always had a beautiful cut flower garden in the backyard. He would make cold frame boxes to give a start to his seedlings in the early spring. He also had a compost pile, I think he was the only one in the neighborhood who did. Compost piles, I don't think were real popular in the city back in the 50's and 60's. The neighbor next to us, a nice gent from England, and my father used to see who could out do each other with their flower gardens, and they were beautiful....My mother was the winner for we always had cut flowers for the house.
I wish I could have beautiful flower and vegetable gardens like my dad and all of you must have this time of year. But the big, fat raindrops, will drown those types of northern flowers, or the heat and lack of moisture will fry them like an egg. I now get to enjoy those beautiful flowers again, with all the pictures that you post on this blog during the summer and all year long. My only wish is that we could have smell- a-vision on the computer so that I can breathe in their delicious scent. But the photo’s are great eye candy for me and I look forward to this blog every Saturday.
This is also the time of year, spent with a watchful eye to the National Hurricane Center. To see if any of those harmless tropical waves, that turn into depressions, that turn into tropical storms, hopefully won’t turn into those nasty hurricanes. So they won’t come roaring in and knock down all my palms, and trees down, and drown my yard in water and smash my flowers. Like Frances, Jeannie and Wilma did.
Soon it will be fall, and I can plant my tomato's, then winter and if cold, have to pull them inside. Then spring, the best time of year for me in "La Florida".
May all your vegetable garden's provide you with plenty to eat and your flowers bloom to your hearts content.
May you soon have cool breezes and your rain barrels always be full.