August peak pruning and hurricane season

August is the month to prepare our gardens for whatever mother nature will throw at us.  Every year from mid-July to the end of August I become one mean pruning machine.  Two reasons, one the wet and hot summer makes the garden grow like if it was on steroids and the second is that August and September is the peak season for hurricanes.  I am writing this post while it rains outside, and something is forming over the Bahamas.  The weather people are telling us that it will be a wet weekend but that there is no chance of tropical formation as of now, (they been wrong before) but those in the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic states need to keep an eye on this no-name storm for next week.

Back to pruning, I am done with my fruit trees and some of my flowering bushes except for my Powerpuff tree in the front garden.  This tree flowers several times each year and this month is full of flowers.  The Powerpuff flowers are very popular with bees and butterflies, so I will wait. 

These white orchids are in full bloom, the plant is getting bigger every year and looking better. 

Bromeliads are the only plants I have that love our hot and wet summer.

Garden throwback Thursday

Today I was reading one of my earliest blog post written back on November 2006 (What a yard sale find!! ).  The post was about my wife’s and I obsession with garage sale bargains and collecting of odd things.  Much has changed in the last thirteen years, we no longer go out to garage sales.  If we see one that looks interesting, we will stop and check it out, but we no longer are in the collecting business, so unless is something that is needed and is a bargain, we pass.  (FYI, I do have a soft spot garden container)

One thing that remains the same is the bougainvillea plant pictured on the post, here we are thirteen years later, and it is in the same pot, going strong.  This plant was the best one-dollar investment I ever made.

Avocado season at the DragonFly Garden

Our summer season revolves around peak times for different tropical fruits.  Late summer is when our avocados are at their best.   This is my first-year harvesting avocados from my tree, my family and neighbors are all excited about the prospect of eating fresh avocados from my garden.  Avocados are native of Mexico and Central America, but they love the sub-tropical South Florida climate.  My tree is about eight years old, it was planted from a seed, that is the reason it took so long to have fruits.  So far, the testimonials are in, everyone agrees my avocados are of excellent qualities. 

Avocados are not the only fruits in season this time of the year, dragon-fruits are also making an appearance.   Today I picked two dragon-fruits growing in my plumeria tree.  I get many flowers every year, but not many fruits.  The conditions must be perfect for the one-night flower to be pollinated by a moth.

Adult Julia butterflies are common in South Florida gardens all year around but are most abundant from August through October.

Memories from Sanibel Island

Today my family and I returned from our yearly summer vacation to Sanibel Island in Florida.  We have visited this gem of an island every summer for over 30 years.  My daughters grew up visiting this magical place and now our grandson is enjoying our family tradition.  

One of my favorite pastimes in Sanibel is taking pictures of seabirds.  I spend a lot of time at the JN Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge photographing birds and wildlife.  This year the birds were back, so far there is no sign of the red tide on the water.  The red tide blooms last year killed the fish and crustaceans that seabirds depended on for food.

Large numbers of Brown Pelicans was a good sign that the sea water was back to normal.

The end of mango season

This week I picked the last mangos from my two trees and started the yearly task of trimming the trees.  I am no expert at trimming trees, is hard to know if you are cutting too little or too much.  This year I watched a YouTube video from the Fruit and Spice park here in Miami, on the best way to trim a mango a tree.  I will know next year by the number of mangos I get if I did a good job.

This week at the DragonFly Garden 

This orchid has multiple blooms every year.

This year my collection of hibiscus are doing well, several of my plants have been attacked by bugs 

These ground orchids in the front garden have been around for about ten years.  I almost took them out last year for lack of flowers, this year the early rains in May brought them back. 

This baby Mockingbird is finally on his own.  For the last two weeks, the mother bird has been divebombing anyone that walked near to nest.

WANTED, Iguanas on the run

This past week the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission issued a statement encouraging homeowners in South Florida to kill any green Iguana they find in their property.  I find this statement from a state agency responsible for wildlife conservation and law enforcement a bit disturbing.  We all agree that iguanas do not belong in Florida, the reason we have a problem with these exotics reptiles is because of the negligence of pet owners releasing them into the wild when they get too big to handle.  Iguanas are thriving in our sub-tropical climate; they have no natural enemies and plenty of food to eat, to the detriment of our gardens.

I never have seen an Iguana in my garden, but I know someone who has been dealing with this problem for years, my friend tells me that they are worse than even deer and he has experienced with both.  I have no problem with the proper removal of these animals from our state by licensed trappers, as they do with Python in the Everglades, but giving homeowners carte blanche to kill iguanas in their yards opens the question, how do we humanly kill these animals.  Florida has laws against cruelty to animals, the same laws that are supposed to be enforced by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.   

This large iguana was camouflage in the mangroves of the Florida Keys, it almost dropped on my head while I was taking nature pictures.  

We have a serious problem with invasive species in South Florida, whether they are Iguanas, Python in the Everglades or Kingfish in Biscayne National Park, they all can be trace to one source, the legal importation of exotic animals.  Why don’t we have laws against the importation of any non-native species.  We have experienced the devastating consequences of this animal trade; it is time to put an end to it.

My small urban nature preserve

 I started seriously gardening in 1990 when my wife and I purchased this house we currently live in.  The house was new, in new development and it came with lots of grass and five young Alexander Palms (three of which are still here) Over the past 29 plus years, the garden and my gardening philosophy has evolved from a decorative flower garden to a control chaotic mix of plants and trees.  One of the things I am most proud about is the way this mixture of plants and trees has attracted so much wildlife to this small urban plot of land.  The garden is home to three different types of lizards, several kinds of frogs and toads.  I have garden snakes, rats, squirrels, visiting raccoons, several types of butterflies and an endless number of insects (some beneficial to the plants and some not so much) During the winter months many migratory birds stop by or make the garden their home.

Is amazing how Mother Nature if giving a chance will come back and flourish.  My garden is 100% chemical free; I try to provide food and shelter to all the creatures occupying this small plot of land.  This year the squirrels and birds have eaten more of the mangos that I have, but that’s ok there is plenty for everyone.  Rats are part of the urban landscape, but so are feral cats that seem to keep their population under control.  This garden ecosystem is my small contribution to our planet, if we put a little effort, Mother Nature will do the rest.      

This week at the DragonFly Garden

I expanded my work area, the trunk from an old coconut tree finally collapsed, a good place to add more storage. 

Hard cut to the Fire Dragon bush

Lately, all my Hibiscuses are producing one flower at a time

It was clean up time for this corner of the garden

One of the three types of lizards residing in the garden

This Monarch caterpillar got lost on the way to a plant and ended up in corner of my front door.