Another Saturday in the garden

Today was the hottest day of the year, the temperature and humidity was like if we were in mid summer. Whatever happened to Spring mild weather?

I worked on the front garden pulling a couple months of weeds and replacing the dead impatiens with Mexican heather(a good summer plant).
This is what's blooming around the garden. My favorite bromeliad.

The plumeria is beginning to bloom

Last week I attended an orchid show and come home with this beautiful begonia

Daylight Savings Time means more gardening

Now that we have longer, I can get a couple of extra hours of gardening after work. I'm turning my attention to the front garden, as you can see I let the weeds take over and the bromeliads grow out of control.

First on the agenda was this flower bed under my powder puff tree. I always have difficulties in this area because of the amount of direct sunlight it gets. This time I'm going for a butterfly/bee friendly flowerbed. The vincas were the only flowers that survived last summer's heat, today I planted a mixture of blue dase, pentas, Mexican heather, coleus and yellow latanas. The blooms of the week, are the Mexican flame vine, it started to blooming on the side garden.

Road trip to the Florida Keys

Today we took a drive to the Florida Keys for a late lunch at one of the many great seafood restaurants along US1 down in the Keys. We drove all the way to Marathon, half way between Miami and Key West. You can't find scenery like this anywhere else in the US.

One of my favorite sites in the keys are the old Henry Flagler railroad bridges, that were built between 1905 and 1913. Today there not many sections left, some are use as fishing piers and bike ways. Other sections are in complete disrepair and not in use.

The old seven mile railroad bridge at Marathon has this sign asking for donation to save the bridge. Why isn't the state government financing the restoration of this historic bridge???

New seven mile bridge is next to the old bridge, that was converted to auto traffic after the hurricane of 1935 destroyed the Flagler railroad.

The Keys are not know for their beaches, but there many places along US1 where you stop and soak up the sun. This small beach near Islamorada was a favorite of my family, my wife and I used to bring our girls here when they were little for a day out on the beach.

It wouldn't be the Keys without Pelicans

See more pictures of the Florida Keys in my Flickr account.

Visit to Everglades National Park

Every year, I take my camera and go visit the Everglades National Park. Yesterday my wife and I packed our cooler for a picnic, put our walking shoes on and went exploring. No matter how many times I visited, there is always something new to see. This national park is such a treasure, and we are so lucky to have it in our backyard.
Did you know that the Everglades is the only place in the world where you can find fresh water alligators coexisting with salt water crocodiles. It is the only U.S national park that holds three world designations: International Biosphere Reserve, World Heritage Site and Wetlands of International Importance.
There is no secret that this national park is in trouble and so are all the creatures living in it. If you have visited the park, like I have for the past ten years is plain to see that the bird population has been decreasing at a rapid rate. One of the main culprit is the free flow of water (or lack of it) from the north. There are solutions to this problem, but like every worthwhile project it takes money lots of it, and I'm not sure our federal and state governments are up to the task.

See more pictures in my Flickr account.

Fairchild's 10th annual international orchid festival

Today I attended the 10th annual International Orchid Festival at Fairchild gardens. It was a nice day for a orchid festival and many people attended.

The new art at the garden

The orchids were outstanding

The garden was decorated with orchids all around

There were sellers from around the world

The rain forest area is my favorite at the garden

I managed to control myself and only came home with three plants

Spring Haircut

Today I finished my yearly Spring time haircut in the garden. For the last couple of weeks I been pruning trees in my backyard, always stopping when the garbage container was full. This week I hired a professional to trim the starburst tree, and cut most of the white bird of paradise. As you can see in this picture, now I have a sunny garden all day long. I'm not worry, plants grow back fast in the tropics.

Tomorrow I'm off to an orchid show at Fairchild Gardens.

Pictures from the Garden

Is hay fever season here in the tip of the Florida Peninsula, and I can't be outside too long. The high pollen count does a number on my eyes, and at times like this is better to stay in side for a couple of weeks and wait it out.
Today I took advantage of the early morning light and took these pictures in the garden.

Broccoli and the early morning dew

Eggplant flowers

White begonias White orchid Kings Mantle

Tree pruning time

Today I left work early, trying to get home before dark to do some pruning in the backyard. Unfortunate the traffic gods were not with me, by the time I got home the sun was gone but I was determine to prune my brunfelsia tree. Friday is one of two garbage pickup days in my neighborhood, and is going to take a couple of pick-ups to get rid of this tree. By the time I finished, I was working in total darkness (I need more lighting in the backyard)

This big boy (the starburst tree) will be done by professionals, I'm getting to old for this.

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