Pollinator’s favorite flowers

The Cuban yellow buttercup flowers are one the pollinators favorite flowers in my garden.  These beautiful yellow flowers are consider invasive weeds by many gardeners.  They are not native to Florida, but come from the West Indies.  Some botanists believe that their seeds were carried to Florida by hurricane winds.  In my garden they arrived by way of birds or the wind and now I have volunteers everywhere. 

Bees, moths and butterflies love these flowers; they open in the morning and are done by early evening.  The sharp green leaves make it an attractive plant for the garden.  In some Caribbean countries the leaves are used for medicinal purposes, I also read that the buttercup plant is use as a companion plant by papaya farmers to avoid the sting of the fruit flies on the fruits.

This week at the DragonFly garden:

I mail ordered several packs of seeds for the vegetable garden this week and planted tomatoes, kale and Swiss chard seedlings.  The nursery where I get my seedlings is having issues with their distributor; apparently the weather is not cooperating.   

Blooms from the garden this week.

Day moon over Miami 

Time for planting

 This week I finished clearing the vegetable garden and adding compost to the soil.  Now comes the time to decide what to grow this season.  Last year was a bust overall and some of my choices did poorly like eggplant, broccoli and peppers. This year I’m giving these plants a break.

On the list of possible plants, I have spinach, kale, Swiss chard, green onions, lettuce, arugula and tomatoes.  Not all will end up in the garden; it’ll depend on what my local nursery will have for sale.  I also will try my luck with seeds, but my past success rate with seeds is not promising.  I will also plant herbs like basil, chives, dill, oregano and parsley.

This week at the DragonFly Garden.

Not much happened   in the garden this week, we had a wet week and much of the rain fell in the late afternoon, usually around the time when I was home after work.  The first hummingbird of the season visited the garden this week; I’m looking forward to take pictures of these little guys around the firebush tree.

This is a Long-tailed Skipper butterfly. These butterflies are not easy to photograph, they are fast and move around a lot, this one was in the mood yesterday and stay long enough for me to take some pictures.

New flower from the Elephant ears plant.

Pollinator habitat

Over the years I have added many plants in my garden that are pollinator friendly. I believe that we gardeners have a role to play in saving these very important contributors to our planet.  We all know the stories, bees are in trouble because of diseases and butterflies are on the decline because of the loss of habitat.  It is time for all us, no matter have small our gardens are, to take this very important cause on behalf of these defenseless creatures.

Today I am declaring that from now on, my garden will be a pollinator habitat.  This will mean no chemicals (I don’t use any), all new plants will be pollinator friendly, more native plants and less grass.  I will also be talking about pollinator friendly plants on all my blog postings.

This week at the DragonFly Garden.

There is always a plant in need of a haircut in my garden.  This week it was the Fire Dragon bush, it had taken over my side garden and it didn’t look good from inside the house.  In keeping with my new pollinator friendly policy, noticed the new purple salvia container next to the bench.

For more information on how to turn your garden into a pollinator habitat, check The Xerces Society website. 

Night Bloomers

I counted 9 night bloomer flowers tonight from my Dragonfruit tree

Welcome, first day of fall

 The calendar tells us that today is the first day of fall, but the weather outside has not changed much. I prefer to be positive and hope that cooler days are coming.  Today I decorated my front door with the colors of the season.

This week my gardener came to cut the grass and trimmed the trees in the front of the house.  Not long ago that would have been my job, but Father Time keeps telling me that there is no shame in hiring someone else to do it. 

Before

After

Looking for fall in humid and wet South Florida

Here we are in the middle of September, and our weather continues to be like if it was the middle of July.  It has rained in Miami every day for the last two weeks; it feels like we are living in Seattle.  My garden has been wet all the time and the ground is so saturated that gardening is not an option.  All this rain makes the jungle grow and the dragon fruit flowers are not complaining.   

This week at the DragonFly Garden:

I don’t have too many flowers in the garden this week.  Some of the orchid plants have flowers, the lady of the night is full of flowers (the aroma at night is magnificent) and I have several Blue Tango bromeliads around the garden.

I purchased a new water fountain for the garden.  I have two water fountains, one in the back garden and the other on the side garden.   These fountains last an average of two to three years, last week the big fountain in the back broke, I was lucky that Lowes had all fountains on clearance (end of the season sale ha – ha).  The old broken fountain will become a new planter in the vegetable garden.

Time to make the winter vegetable garden!!!

Today I cleared out all the weeds from the vegetable garden and turned the soil over.  Later this month, I will add compost to the soil.  The garden should be ready for planting in early October. Last year was not a very productive year, so this year I will be making some changes to the choices of vegetables, herbs plants and the mixtures.

Before

While clearing the vegetable beds, I found this family of opossums living in one the block squares.  I did not disturbed the little guys, hopefully they will move on in a couple of days.  I was reading that opossums are very misunderstood creatures, they are not harmful and will not disturb the garden.  

Free bromeliads for anyone to take.

The summer rains continue and so are the rain lilies.

Erika is here

Erika dissipated over the mountains of the Dominican Republic and this is what was left after it arrived in Miami, some wind and rain.  Once again lady luck was on our side,

Keeping an eye on Erica

Looks like gardening this weekend is not going to happen.  I hope we don't have to get into hurricane mode on Sunday.  We'll have a better picture tomorrow.  Wish us luck.

Blooming Bromeliads

This summer has been a good season for bromeliads.  I am enjoying an explosion of blooms with most of my bromeliad plants.  Some of these flowers have been MIA in the garden for the last couple of years, but this summer they are back.

Bromeliad blooms are unique, colorful and last longer than must flowers.  My garden is about 40% bromeliads and that percentage is growing.  The fact that they are easy to take care and they reproduce like rabbits, make them my favorite plant in the garden.