Where have all the bees gone?

This morning I noticed that there were very few bees around the garden. This is the time of the year when the garden should be buzzing with bees. You can see that we are in trouble, when the Queen Palm blooms and there are no bees around it. Queen Palm flowers are magnets for bees. This was the lone bee flying around my Angels Trumpets this morning.
I read the other days that a group of gardeners in the Bay Area of California started keeping beehives as a mater of survival for their gardens. I blogged about it the other days about keeping bees in my garden, I'm currently looking into it. My wife is completely against it, because of a bad experience we had with a hive that settled in our roof. I believe that we all must do our part keeping the garden ecosystem healthy, and bees are a major contributors to that ecosystem. Waiting for somebody else to do it may never get done.

This weekend I worked on this corner of my garden pulling weeds, next week on to another area. I used to think that pulling weeds was therapeutic, now a days I find it boring work.

Another day in garden paradise

Last night father winter visited South Florida and this morning the temperature were in the low 40's. By mid day we were in the mid sixties and the day was picture perfect. I spend a few hours finishing the project I started yesterday.In this corner of the garden I want to add three large containers like the one I have the Keyline tree and grow other tropical fruits. The only tree that escaped my cutters was the Angel's Trumpet, as you can see is ready to bloom, I'll wait after the flowers drop, to trim the tree.
Next week I'll add mulch, plant a few perennials for color and add a few other touches, and after that on to another corner of the garden. A gardener's job is never done (That's why I love this hobby)
Today I harvested these Lady Finger bananas from one of my trees. In a week or so they will be ready for eating. The Lady Finger bananas are 4 to 5in long, with thin, light-yellow skin and sweet flesh; they are the bananas of my childhood. I remember eating several in one seating, once you taste these bananas there is no going back to the grocery store kind. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day.

Full day in the garden

Today I spent a full day working in the garden. I worked on this corner of the garden, that has gone a bit wild. I trimmed some of the plants, pulled lots of weeds and expanded the flower bed. Tomorrow I'll put the finishing touches and post pictures on this blog.

My key-lime tree is full of flowers, I changed the pot to a more sunny location.

It looks like I'll be getting mangos this year. The mango tree I purchased this past summer is full of flowers, the tree is no more than three feet tall. This is the time of year when mango trees bloom in South Florida is quite a site.

Some of the broccoli are ready for harvest

Torrential Rains last night

Last night we had torrential rains, and this morning I was a happy gardener. This area was in desperate need of rain, the last time we had any significant amount of precipitation was in mid December. The dry season was doing major damage to the local vegetation, early in the week we had a brush fire in nature preserve near my home, that threaten several homes and a school.
This morning I found all my starburst flowers on the ground, a small price to pay in exchange for a wet garden.

Below is a picture of the one and only rose bush in my garden. I have killed every other rose I planted, except for this one. This rose blooms all year long, there are no problems with deceases and the flowers have a sweet fragrance. The plant was a gift from my Dad, but it came with no name, until this weekend when an article in the local paper had a picture of the same rose, the "Blumenschmidt" rose (that's a mouth full)

Is Starburst time

Is that time of the year when these trees put on a great show in South Florida and I have two in my back yard (one is in my neighbor's side of the fence)

Sometimes this tree can be a pain because of all the suckers, but then it blooms like this.

This succulent is not much to look at, but is interesting to see where is going.

This is the first gerbera daisy of the season (one of my favorite flower)

Congratulation NY Giants, great game.