30 degrees and tropical gardens don’t mix.

I am getting tired of writing about cold weather, but what else is there to talk about around here. Last night was the coldest night so far; the temperatures dropped bellow the freezing point, and this morning the garden is showing the effects.

Banana trees are not meant for cold weather, if it’s below 50 it will affect the plant.

The starburst tree is dropping all the leaves, that’s a shame because it was getting ready to bloom next month.

My collection of coleuses are mostly gone, these plants are very sensitive to cold weather and are very difficult to bring back after a freeze.

I covered the vegetable garden and it worked, I had some damage with the basil and eggplants but the tomatoes are ok.
We have one more night of sub freezing temperatures and then back to normal winter weather by the middle of next week.

The Siberian Express is coming to Miami

Is cold this morning and is getting colder by the minute. This morning we woke up with temperatures in the mid 40’s and the forecast is for the mid 30’s by the afternoon. Is going to be raining and windy all day, perfect for staying inside.

This is longest cold spell I can remember since I been in Florida for the past 30 years. It started after New Years and it has been going back and forth between the 40s and 50s during the day and some nights in the upper 30’s. I know that those you experiencing sub zero temperatures most be laughing at all of us wimpy Floridians, but we are nor prepare for long stretches of low temperatures. Usually our winter patterns are a couple days of mid 40’s and back to the 60’s and 70’s and we rarely get temperatures in the 30’s in South Florida.

The economic effect to the state agriculture is tremendous, there has been many reports of crop damage to the winter vegetable harvest in the south and the orange groves in the center part of the state, so get ready for higher prices at the grocery store this winter.

As far as my garden is concern, so far is coming through ok, except for rats as big as New Jersey moving into my compost bin looking for a warmer place. I know I need to deal with it, but I have no idea how to evict rats from a compost bin. Any ideas???
All my flowerpots are put away in the back porch

Salad anyone?

Yesterday I picked my first full salad from my winter garden, as you can see I got a couple of bush tomatoes, plenty of yellow cherry tomatoes (they are so sweet), arugula and lettuce.

The amount of work I am putting into the vegetable garden this year, does not compensate the production I am getting back, but I don’t care, everything is so tasty and is all organic.

This is the vegetable garden tonight, the temperature is supposed to go down in the mid 30’s. We are in the middle of a cold spell that is going to be around the entire week, definite not typical Florida winter weather.

Happy New Year

White angel’s trumpets hailing the New Year, I took this picture last night with a full blue moon, the aroma from the flowers was to die for.

Wishing the very best for you and your families for 2010 and may your gardens grow and bloom in the New Year.

Less is more

What to do on my week off from work? I’m the kind of person that can’t sit home with noting to do, so this week I went out into the garden looking for a project to keep me busy for the week.

I found the project in this corner of the garden. Much to the dismay of my dog Rosie I decided to take some of the grass out and expand the flowerbed. The grass in this area of the garden did not do well and most of the area was cover with weeds.

I recycled all the border stones from the old border; and went looking for annual plants at Home Depot. The selection was poor, this been Christmas week and gardening was not on the top of the agenda for most people around here. I purchased impatiens, begonias, pentas, dianthus, and marigolds; I also transplanted lantanas, blue daze and Bolivian sunset from other areas of the garden.

In this corner I planted milkweed (butterfly weed) they are the favorite host plant for Monarch caterpillars.

In this area I transplanted all my canna lily rhizomes and added rain lilies bulbs.

Here I planted black eye Susan, coneflowers and hollyhocks.

All in all it was a very productive week and to top it all off Santa left some goodies for the gardener.

I hope all of you in Blog land have a Happy and Healthy New Year and I’ll see you back in 2010

Merry Christmas from The DragonFly Garden

All gardeners with bad knees need a potting bench

This morning I decided that I needed a potting bench in my garden, my knees are not what they used to be, and I need to do as much gardening standing up as I can. I was inspired by Marlene at the “Why I need a garden” blog, she did a fantastic job with her potting area.

(Before)

This corner of the garden is where I keep my compost bin, and the only place I have room for a potting area; it gets plenty of shade and that’s good protection from our sunny summer days.

All the materials that I used for this project were recycled from other areas of the garden. The total cost to my pocket was zero.

Yesterday was a very strange December day for us; the winter storm that is hitting the northeast today passed by here yesterday, and gave us torrential rains that caused floods and even a tornado. Definite not typical Miami winter weather. Today is a different story, the weather is magnificent sunny, breezy and temperatures in the upper sixties perfect for gardening. The heavy rain yesterday dropped a lot of flowers from my Brunfelsia shrub.

This coming week I will be off from work and I am planning for plenty of time in the garden, so stay tune for more projects to come.

GBBD from South Florida

I have not done a GBBD post for a few months, I decided to start again as public service to my gardening friends in the northern hemisphere.
Here are some blooms from my garden on this December 15.

This white begonia is blooming again; it survived the heat of the summer in very good shape.

My other two bougainvilleas that are planted in pots are also blooming.

This white with a touch of pink is my favorite.

Brunfelsia or yesterday today and tomorrow is beginning to put on it’s annual winter show, by Christmas it should be totally cover with flowers.

Italian basil

Coleus, I usually don’t let them go to flower but the bees love them.

Flowers of the Tricolor Ti

Crown of thorns, I have two colors red and pink. These are excellent plants for our hot South Florida weather.

The last flowers of the plumeria tree for this year

WDW for the Holidays

It has become a tradition in my family to go to Walt Disney World one weekend in December to kickoff the Holiday season.

This weekend we drove the four hours north to Orlando, for the experience of the sights and sounds of the season. We were hoping for cooler weather but no luck. The Miami weather fallowed us to central Florida.

This year for the first time, we attended the Candlelight Processional at EPCOT. This event retells the story of Christmas with a special celebrity narrator, accompany by a live orchestra and a mass choir. Last year we tried to go but the lines were impossible, this year we purchased a package with dinner at an EPCOT restaurant and tickets to the show, it was worth every penny. The celebrity narrator for the weekend was fellow Cuban American actor Andy Garcia; he is my wife’s favorite actor.

If you are going to be in Disney during the holidays, I strongly recommend this show, if it doesn’t get you into the Christmas spirit, nothing will. (Sorry no pictures, I left the camera in the hotel)

Another reason we go this time of the year is for the decorations, specially the flowers. This year I was a little disappointed, it looked like Disney skimped on decorations and especially real flowers, it must be the economy.
All in all we had a great time, but most important we had quality family time together.

Color for the winter garden

This week I purchased petunias and impatiens at the local Home Depot, to give the winter garden a colorful look. These plants do well in our cooler winter months, and are so easy to take care.

Update on my vegetable garden. The eggplant and squash have many flowers; the tomatoes are growing fast and have lots of fruits (I think, I planted too many plants, too close to each other).

The peppers are not doing well, every year I have the same problem the leaves shrivel the flowers fall off and eventually the plant dies. May be the problem is with the soil.

We already are eating the lettuce and the arugula. This is my first time growing arugula, it has been a success.

This weekend I am heading for Disney World to enjoy the Christmas decorations and hopefully cooler weather, I’ll be back in the garden next week.

Not much gardening this week.

For the last two weeks there has not been much time for blogs or gardening at the DragonFly, my employer kept me busy at the office. My company is getting a new president and he came to NY this week to meet all the US based employees, needless to say we were all trying to put on a good show. My week culminated with a last minute trip to NY for three days of work and more work, I didn’t get to see much of the city. I was there during the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center but didn’t see it.

One of my bougainvillea plants in a pot, this is their time to bloom.


I am glad to be back in hot Florida, the weather in Miami has not changed much, we get up in the morning with temperatures in the mid seventies and by the time lunch comes around is up to the mid eighties, typical Miami. For the last two days we had some needed rain, enough to fill my empty rain barrels.

Ornamental grasses doing what they do best bend with the wind. The yellow flowers in the picture are thryallis.

This jug was part of a broken water feature I had in the garden, now is part of the garden decoration.

This four by six feet space is my miniature jungle, where many creepy things live, and not even my dog Rosie dares to go.