Robellini plant bed

Here's what I started with Saturday morning, a clean slate. DH was called into work, so I went out to the nursery

And picked up a few plants - here's a large agapanthus (lily of the nile), 2 smaller agapanthus, and 3 aztec grass to start. Oh, and there's 2 small golden dew in the back. They're ok in shade and get pretty big, so I didn't want them to hide the others in the front.
Then I went to Lowes and Home Depot. Lowe's had flax lily and society garlic 3 for $10 - a 1 gal flax lily was $7 at our local nursery and society garlic was about $4 there too. So, I picked up 3 flax lily and 2 society garlic. I also wanted some form of yucca that could take the sun for the right corner. I found this at Target for $10 - good deal! It's a 3 cane yucca, resistant to 0 deg F, likes full sun and can do good on frequent waterings.
So far, this is what we've got - I counted, I planted about 21 plants this weekend! We went with yucca cane on the right corner, agapanthus, aztec grass, society garlic, flax lily, golden dew and canna - but many many of each.

Last addition to come soon will be a Mandevilla (formerly Dipladenia). There are many different colors - white ‘Summer Snow’, yellow, pink, red. For now, I'm set on 'Sun Parasol Crimson' aka Red Riding Hood, because I've heard that is most resistant to bugs. I'm going to try to train to climb the small part of the fence shown at the left, it's about 6ft high and 3 ft wide before the swing gate. It's a flowering vine, sometimes called Brazilian Jasmine that is great trellised in containers or in hanging baskets. This will be the only plant out front that's not rated to withstand freezing weather.

But I also like the other colors. The pink may go better with our lavander azaleas. We'll see.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Today is St. Patrick's Day and yes, I'm wearing green! I've had corned beef and cabbage cooking all day in the crockpot and we may even go out for a green beer. I'm not even a hint of Irish, but I think DH is a little, so for tradition's sake, we're Irish for the day.

In other green news, we picked up and planted our 4 trunk robellini this weekend. It looks great! I've been having to hand water the azaleas due to the recent heat and drought, and they're looking good too. We had some rain last night, but don't expect any more for at least another week, so more hand watering until they're established. What do you think? And notice the new fence on that side of the house. We're extending it to be flush with the house
Sunday night was the last night launch for the shuttle. It was perfect - so clear we could see everything. Here is Discovery on it's way to space around 7:30pm. The reflection of the sun setting made the smoke look like a rainbow. More photos as viewed from our front lawn on flickr

Belated blogging

First things first, today is my Aunt Joyce's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

I know, I've been MIA in blogger world for the last couple of days. To tell you the truth, the weather's been so beautiful and since it doesn't get dark until around 8pm now, DH, Rufus and I have been living outdoors everyday after work until we absolutely have to come inside. We've been playing in the garden, planting plants, going on walks, and last night DH was teaching me how to golf. Real golf, not putt-putt!

Thankfully he set me up to practice with a pitching wedge on a part of the grass that has been affected by bugs, so there's not much grass to start out with there - and after I was done, it was like I used a tiller! I would either swing 6 or so inches ABOVE the ball or dig the club into the ground sending dirt everywhere. Rufus enjoyed that - typical boy, loves the dirt. After several complete misses, I started to get the hang of it and actually hit about 3 or 4 good shots. Oh, that reminds me, I have to go into the neighbors yard and get one of our golf balls. (DH hit that one - I was learning with little wiffle-like balls, so they wouldn't go very far even if I did make contact.

DH and I have tickets to the Gatornationals for tomorrow and since we're leaving early tomorrow morning and staying over in Gainesville Friday night, Rufus gets to stay over at grandma's for 2 nights. I mentioned it to him last night, he does know the word 'Grandma', but I made sure to tell him, 'not right now'. I don't think he has a sense of time, but he knows what that means. I know he's going to have a blast!

This is our front yard. The first photo shows the ixora that didn't survive the cold, once again. This plant is beautiful when flowering, but it's not cold hardy enough for our area. So, we went out to the nursery this weekend and got some azalea plants. So far they're doing great. Eventually, they'll bloom to look like the second photo below.
I'd like to start a notebook where I keep all the detail info on all the different plants we have in our yard so that I can remember their scientific names and also remember their likes and dislikes and other data. So, this is what I've compiled for the species of azalea we have in our front yard now, Azalea, Formosa Lavender.
Full name: Rhododendron simsii 'Formosa Lavender' - Azalea: Formosa Lavender Southern Indian Azalea
Size: 6' - 8' tall, 6' - 8' wide (can reach 15 ft in height), slow grower
Bloom: 4" Pinkish Lavender, in Early May - Formosa is a twice-a-year bloomer!
Leaf: Green

Natural attraction: butterflies
Light and soil: Full Sun or Shade, Acid and humus rich Soil, Blooms on Last Years Growth

Notes:

- Water regularly until established and during dry spells for best performance. Maintain a mulch layer year round to conserve moisture and limit pesky weeds. Prune after flowering to maintain desired shape and height.
- This is considered to be an old-fashioned heirloom plant which endures popularity amongst gardeners. Minimal care and it withstand drought, heat and cold (hardy to 10 degrees F).
- The 3 inch blooms of the shrub often completely cover up the leaves showing off its beautiful lavender color. Lavender blooms that turn deep pink or magenta hue during the fall, depending on where you live.

I'd like to try pairing with Autumn Royalty Encore Azalea, Azalea x 'Conlec', the Azalea that blooms up to 9 months a year, but we'll see how these hold up for a while.

Effects of a freeze

Winter is a strange season in Florida. Most winters we can be out on the beach every day, some winters we have to light the fire. This winter has brought a few good, cold freezes and our plants are there to remind us of it. Before we went out to CA, we had 2 nights below freezing and we covered all the plants. While were were out in CA, there were a couple more nights of freeze and when we got back, we had a lot of trimming to do. Below are the bananas and elephant ear a few months ago at their peak and third is a photo from last weekend. Their leaves were all wilted and brown so we had to trim them all back. Don't be sad, we're seeing green sprouting through and there's actually 1 leaf about to open up so there's still hope! A couple of the smaller ones I don't think made it, but we'll keep them in the ground for a few more weeks to be sure.

The crotons didn't survive at all. They all dried out so quickly, you wouldn't even be able to tell they were there. Our nightblooming jasmine didn't make it, but it had a fungus before the freezes. The areca palms are brown, as are the bird of paradise but I see some green on birds. The ixora and ficus trees out front were all brown and we trimmed them back last weekend. There's new green leaves coming out so they're all clear. We also modified the front flower bed so that it's not taking over the whole yard and walkway anymore and made the outline for a new flower bed with room for a tree or bush. Don't mind the dirt, it's covering transplanted grass that seems to be taking to its new home.

One plant that did well through the cold is the lily of the nile, or Agapanthus. This is great news as these are ones we love - nice big green leaves with beautiful flowers in the spring and summer. We first saw these at Epcot last year. Wonder what Disney puts on theirs to make them so big and full?

Who knows if we're past the freezing temps. Forecast for early next week show lows in the upper 30s. Usually by mid-March, the weather warms up for Spring Break, so we'll see.

We've got a nice weekend planned. DH went golfing out at LPGA today with his dad. Saturday we're doing some work around the house and yard - weather looks perfect, upper 70s. Saturday night our church is starting Saturday Night Life church and that's where we'll be. And we're also going out with DH's dad for a belated birthday dinner. Sunday our friends are playing a gig out at JB's Fish Camp so we're going to support them and eat some delicious rock shrimp! We'll have to bring our jackets as there's 40% chance rain and a high of 62! But tonight, it's a movie and Giuseppes for pizza and wings.

Oh, and side note. Partylite Summer Catalog goes into effect April 1. That's a long time to wait!

Landscape curbing

We're in desperate need of some landscape curbing for our front flower beds. We tried the black plastic edging and that just warped and didn't hold in the mulch. Then we tried something DH came up with: slats from wood fence panels cut to size angled on top stuck in the ground. We had extra fence panels to use (although they do sell strips of wood for this purpose - see photo). It was sort of like a picket fence for our flower bushes. We set them too close and didn't allow for expansion, so they're all laying all over the place now. The ones from the store are pre-spaced with wires to make install easier, allow for expansion and to help keep them in place.

We looked into stone borders from Home Depot similar to retention wall stone. They're about $1.50 per stone and for our 80 ft. line, we'd need 2 layers which would be about $300 plus all that time and lifting. Plus it would take away from the visual height of our flower beds since 2 levels of stone would be about 8 inches high. So then we started looking into concrete edging. Typically, this is done by a professional with a concrete forming machine that he just runs down the outline of the prepped border and wha-la, permanent edging to withstand the rain, sun, sleet and snow. There's all types of stamping and color options to decorate the concrete. There's even different forms to make the border a different shape.

This first one's supposed to look like cobblestone.

These two like real rocks with texture. I'm not a big fan of the one on the left - the random lines are not orgainzed enough for me. The one on the right is ok. It may be an option as this shade would match the brick front.

But the one I like the most is the plain concrete color in mower's edge style. The concrete is natural gray color, I say classic, some may say boring. See the little lip near the grass, this allows the lawn mower to ride right up to there assuring an even mow all the way up to the edging.

We had 1 guy come give us an estimate, and if you know me, you know I've got to check all my options and compare prices, so we've got a 2 more companies coming over to give us an estimate. Hopefully I'll have some nice 'after' pics soon so I can do a before and after post.

TGIF

Friday already? I love it when this day just sneaks up.

I finally got to take some pics of our recent gardening progress. But first, let me show you what Rufus did when he saw me bringing the camera out to the back yard. He ran and I think he may have thought he was hiding behind the oak tree...Precious little pup! Hard to believe he's almost 2-1/2 already.

On to the plants...
Let's start with before and afters of parts of the back yard.

The 'before/first' pics were taken mid-June of this year.

The 'after/second' taken just yesterday, 11/13/08.

The before and afters of the pool area show how much we did last weekend. (well, DH actually planted all of the agapanthus (lily of the nile) while Rufus and I were visiting my MIL).

In the banana tree area, we started out with just 5 banana trees from my MIL and they've grown and sprouted another 3 or 4 more already. The elephant ear plant is also doing very well (also from my MIL). The first few weeks with that one were rough. It just wilted and I didn't know if it would last. Then with all of our summer rains and hurricane storms, it strengthened and now it looks great.

Hopefully we'll put another dent in it all this weekend and next week I can focus the blog on the specific plants we have and how to care for them all (I'll work on the research for that this weekend!)

Weekend update

It's been an interesting few days. I guess it's more realistic to say I'm going to blog Monday through Thursday, but yesterday I was in bed for half of the day so there was no blogging going on then. I woke up feeling fine at 7am, but after DH left for work, I started to feel light-headed and dizzy and then my knees started giving out like I was walking in a moon bounce. It was very strange. I started feeling a little better and went in to work, but my mind just wasn't functioning, so I went home at noon and rested the remainder of the day. I'm feeling better today, just still a little cloudy with a slight headache. If I had to get sick, I'd much rather it be a common cold, or allergies or something that could easily be diagnosed rather than on and off dizziness and confusion, but oh well, such is life right?

We had a good weekend. DH did smoke his pork butt Friday and it was great (yes, I did try a little bite). I think by the time he lit the smoker to the time we shredded the pork took about 12 hours. Next time we'll definitely cook more meat since it doesn't really take much more time cooking 15 lbs rather than the 4.5 lbs we cooked this time. He also made another batch of his mustard based sauce that is delish! We also did go to Deland Friday and got a 55 gallon metal drum so DH could make a smoker. That's going to be a fun project...

Saturday we slept in and then went to Babies R Us to shop for DH's cousin's baby shower which was later that day. Neither of us had ever been to a Babies R Us so we didn't know what we were getting into. We located her registry and printed it out and spent about an hour to find a few things. We actually got items that we could find, not items that I would have actually been looking for. Apparently there are icons on the registry that match the high signs for each department, but this store is so small we should have been able to find the items easily. The employee offered to help but we decided to try to find the items ourselves. We did ask where one item was that I really liked and I'm glad we did because it was on the Toys R Us side of the store; a cute little seahorse that glows and plays music for the baby to go to sleep with (Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders™ Soothe & Glow Seahorse, photo from amazon.com). Similar to the glow worms of my time. Several packs of onsies and baby washcloths later, we were done. One thing I did like was that they had wrapping paper there (for free!) so I just rolled some up and wrapped the items when we got home.

Sunday was gardening day. We tried Home Depot for plants but we were really looking for blue flowered Agapanthus, or Lily of the Nile which we had seen at Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival in May. We headed out to Big Value Garden Center which we then found out was not open on Sundays. The trip all the way out there wasn't a waste because we also visited Harbor Freight which is always an adventure in itself. Then it was out to Butcher's Nursery at the Flea Market. They had our blue lily of the nile! We decided to get enough plants for the area near the pool pump, the sort side of the pool screen and also the side of the pool nearest to the shed. We ended up with (3) 3 gallon Agapanthus, (2) 1 gallon Agapanthus, (1) African Iris (white flower I think), (8) various crotons including broadleaf and corkscews varieties, (2) Society Garlic, (1) Lakeview Jasmine (blooms year around and smells like orange blossoms), and (1) Nightblooming Jasmine. And I think that's it. We also got (1) variegated Cordyline from the Depot to add to the mix. The last plants to complete the area will be either a variegated ginger or Helicona (false bird of paradise) or both. I'm really starting to love plants! We moved our (2) bird of paradise plants to the pool side nearest to the shed on either side of the palms and added the agapanthus to complete that area. I'll have to take photos of it all later. For now, here's a pic of the bananas and elephant ear when we first put them in this past summer. Tomorrow, when I show you a pic of how this area looks now, you'll be amazed how quickly these plants have grown.