The DragonFly garden is at war against a nasty invader.

I am at war with this nasty climbing weed.  My neighbor on the right side of the house has let this weed go wild on his property and now it has jump to my side.  This nasty plant is impossible to stop.  Every week I pull branches jumping on to my garden.  Today I noticed that it was covering the top of my Firebush tree, it only took a few days and it already was covering the top of the tree and moving on to the mango tree.  I don’t know the name of this weed, but I am going to have a talk with my neighbor and see if he let me try to fight it from his side of the yard.

This week at the DragonFly Garden

The summer heat has arrived and is time to pull out all my winter flowers, and plant summer hardy plants like Moss Rose and Purslane.

Periwinkles are another strong summer flower for us; the good news is that they grow wild everywhere.  I let them grow to give color to the summer garden.

Mango season is in full swing; this is my neighbor’s tree.  I did not get a single mango this year from my two trees. I made the mistake last year of over pruning both trees after the last mango was picked.

This Cardinal couple has taken residence in my garden; they like to come to the feeder and the water fountain in the late afternoon after all the other birds are gone.  

The summer pollinators are back

May has arrived with a bang; our summer feather friends have flown north looking for cooler weather.  Now is time for the summer pollinators to take over the garden.  The Firebush and the Blue Porterweed plants are buzzing with bees.  The butterflies are also back specially the Zebras and Julias.   

The Blue Jays have the garden back to themselves, they are the year around owners and control who gets to eat at the feeder.  During winter there is more activity with many snowbirds visiting the garden, the only birds that challenge the Jays for control are the Cardinals (sounds like a baseball game) but at the end there are more Jays that there are Cardinals.

The week at the DragonFly garden.

The bananas will soon be ready for harvesting.

 It is also time for the Gardenia flowers to spread their aroma all over the garden.

 All my Hibiscus plants are in containers, this year has been a record year with the amount flowers that I'm getting.  I love taking pictures of theses flowers, soon I will be adding more to my collection.

 I transplanted this Kings Mantle bush to a new location last summer, I didn't think the plant was going to make it, but here it is a year later full of flowers.

 Perfect timing for this picture of this Heliconia.