Sunday, July 29, 2007

Going on vacation

My family and I are heading to Sanibel Island in the west coast of Florida for two weeks of R and R. The water sprinklers are on automatic, the potted plants are in the shade and I am hoping for some rainy days in between.
I’ll see you in two weeks.
PS – My contractor tells that my house should be done be the time we return.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

A new garden gadget


My wife talked me into going to LinensNthings to shop for pillows today and I got a new gardening gadget. Who knew?
I did not know that LinensNthings sold gardening gadgets. I got a Garden Rocker, great to do gardening while seating it makes it easy to move in any direction and it’s great to reduce stress on the knees; it comes with packets for tools and can be adjusted in height. I got it for $19.99 the original retail price was $39.99. Not bad for a trip to get pillows.

Yellow alder, consider a weed by many but I love this yellow flowers and this plant is very low maintenance

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Mango season is here


Delicious mangos everywhere, I don’t have a mango tree but my back yard neighbor does. Some of the mangos hang over my property (My luck) but the majority rot on the tree, to the delight of birds. He is not a mango person and the tree was there before he moved into the house. If it was me, I would give it to my neighbors but not everyone is that neighborly.

My Cactus Orchid had a record 87 flowers last night, the most ever in one night.

Butterflies are everywhere this time of the year.

My first Coneflower, I got the seeds on my trip to Vermont last fall. I didn’t think they were going grow in Miami but to my surprised it did. Is not as spectacular as the ones growing up north but I am happy with the result. Maybe they will do better during our winter.

Update on my house renovation. Things are moving along not as fast as I would like but I am told that this normal, my contractor tells me it will be done by mid August, will see.
My Garden looks a bit abandon and over grown, I going to try to dedicate it some time this weekend to weeding and pruning.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Happy 4th of July Everyone

Well, we moved and we are settled in our temporary home. The work has begun in our house and it is a big mess.
The moved was not as bad as I predicted, the only casualty has been my computer. For some unexplained reason it refuses to recognize any of the USB ports and that means no mouse or key board. After countless hours with Dell on the phone talking to some one some where on Planet earth but speaking something that resemble English (and my English with a Spanish accent did not make for good communication) I was told that the only solution was to restore my compute back to the original settings which means I loose all my documents and pictures. (This is the only solution these technical support people know how to do) Now I am using my old computer which I kept for this reason.

This morning I did a little bit of gardening very early in the morning, I cut back all my Pentas and Begonias, I pulled some weeds and transplanted a Palm tree that was in the wrong place and has been bothering me for a while. I discovered that my Cannas have been infested by this little bug that has eaten a lot of the foliage. By 9 am it was time to come in the heat and humidity was too much to take.

I hope every one in the US has a Happy and safe 4th of July.

Update on the family Red Head wood peckers nesting in my yard. The baby is looking out at the world outside while mom and dad are busy looking for food.