Happy Halloween!

Meet the Eastern Spadefoot Toad (Scaphiopus holbrookii). This little guy worked his way out of the sandy soil from underneath a Yucca filamentosa in my tiny "dry garden" early one April morning.

Revival Style

My camera cooperated late this afternoon (and so did the clouds), and I was able to get this shot of the Thomas Center, a beautiful building in the Mediterranean Revival style located in the heart of Gainesville's downtown historic district and Duckpond Neighborhood.

The building makes a fine backdrop for our state tree, the Sabal Palm (Sabal palmetto). The red tile roof and stucco exterior of the building against the bright blue sky make a good case for regional architectural style, too.

Roadside Attractions

Last night before bed I was reading about the adventures of several 18th century botanists who sailed the globe in search of botanical treasures, and I was reminded of a trip of my own (one far less perilous and malaria-free, of course).

I had the great fortune to visit Costa Rica during December of 2006. I spent most of my time in the cool, moist, mountainous highlands, in the company of a great friend and scientist. Costa Rica is a beautiful place, and I took many photos of the breathtaking mountain views and the amazing scenery.

I consider myself a good driver - driving in Costa Rica was out of the question. The roads are narrow and often without adequate shoulder, and posted speed limits are largely ignored (one afternoon my vacation and our lives were nearly cut short by a speeding tour bus). My friend - who spends a great deal of time working in Costa Rica and Panama - did all the driving, which allowed me to admire the astonishing plant life as it whizzed past my open car window at 60 miles per hour. It was also a pleasant distraction from the oncoming traffic.

Huge "forests" of pink and white tree dahlias covered the rocky red sides of the highway, and giant Gunnera plants (with leaves often four and five feet across) were bursting from the streams which were rushing down the mountainsides. Vines dangling huge clusters of fuchsia-colored trumpets hung from the outcrops above the road, and orange reed-like Epidendrum orchids grew along the shoulder like weeds.

Our progress through a tight mountain pass was abruptly halted one afternoon by a cycling event. Along with dozens of other motorists, we were forced to spend nearly two hours waiting by the roadside for what seemed like hundreds of cyclists to pass. For the first hour we watched hummingbirds visit the giant thistles that grew along the road cuts, and we ate the half-dozen passion fruits that had been given to us by my friend's generous landlord.

The rocky hillsides were covered in plant life, and it wasn't long before I had crossed the road, camera in hand, to explore. I was quickly rewarded by finding three species of tropical Lobelia, as well as a curious little plant with the oddest yellow flowers I had ever seen. About the size of an almond, they resembled inflated wooden shoes; the canary yellow flowers were held away from the plant by brown, wiry stems. They appeared to be a species of Calceolaria (or pocketbook flower), but I have yet to correctly identify them.

As the last cyclist passed and we were signaled by a police car that we could resume our drive, I wondered about all the plants I would miss as we drove down the other side of the mountain. Had the roads not been so dangerous I might have been tempted to walk.

All Natural Ingredients!

It is the gardener who makes the garden, and who thereby gives access to his own private idea of the natural world - Joe Eck (gardener, writer, and author of Elements of Garden Design)

I spent last year working in a public garden to earn my living, and my own garden suffered. Weeds and vines grew unchecked, and my potted plants languished from neglect. I was often too tired to care for my own plants at the end of the day. My garden managed fairly well on its own because of the careful selection of drought-tolerant native and exotic plants.

Last week I attended the annual fall plant sale of the Florida Native Plant Society. I am a strong supporter of the use of native plants, but their inclusion in highly disturbed, urban settings has limits. There were hundreds of beautiful, native Florida plants for sale, but not all of them will thrive in the shady (and often dry) confines of my own garden. Some may do too well - southern wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera) tends to sucker and spread, as does the beautiful stiff dogwood (Cornus foemina). Both plants do well in my garden, but they are not maintenance-free. If left to their own devices they would spread far beyond their allotted spot in the landscape.

Notably lacking from the currently available palette of native Florida plants are many broadleaved, bold shrubs. There is Florida Anise (Illicium floridanum), which I use to good effect at the back of a shady border, but it has limited drought tolerance and resents sunny, dry siting. For more open areas I turn to Japan, and the Camellia sasanqua hybrids - their bold, dark green leaves contrast nicely with their delicate flowers. They pair up well with the bold, dramatic foliage of our native saw palmetto (Serenoa repens). A silver form of this palm grows along Florida's east coast, and is available in nurseries. In my garden it makes a nice foil for the delicate pink Camellia, and the fern-like fronds of our only native cycad, Zamia pumila (or Z. floridana).

My wide but shallow backyard garden, bordered on one side by a high fence and on the other by a neighbor's dirt side yard, is not a replica of a natural Florida habitat. It is filled with native and non-native shrubs and plants that can tolerate extended periods of rainy weather, and extended periods of drought. It allows me to garden with minimal interference, irrigation, or fertilization, and that's natural enough for me. The birds seem to like it, too.

Harbinger of Fall

October - one of Florida's driest months - is a just a few weeks away. The daily thunderstorms of summer have already diminished, and it seems as if my garden needs a respite from the exuberance created by so much available moisture.

Fall officially begins next Tuesday, September 22, but there have been hints of her arrival for several weeks already. Acorns are falling on my roof (they make a pleasant sound as they roll into the gutters), and the Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum) in my garden is beginning to turn red.

It is my habit to walk through my small garden in the afternoons when I get home from work. I look for new flowers, pick up fallen branches and twigs, and fill the birdbath. Yesterday I was quite surprised to find a very early Camellia flower.

The fall-blooming Japanese Camellia sasanqua is one of my favorite shrubs. The single pink variety pictured was the first shrub I planted in my garden nearly 12 years ago, and it has rewarded me every autumn with dozens of delicate, five-petaled pink flowers. It blooms over a period of several weeks, and usually reaches its peak around Halloween.

Fall is Florida's most subtle (and I think most pleasant) season. It's more of a pause then a season, a welcome relief from summer's oppressive heat and humidity, and a period of quiet inactivity before the winter cold fronts begin to arrive. Yesterday's early flower tells me that the Camellia is as eager for Fall to
begin as I am.

The Elephant Foot

As gardeners go, I would consider myself fairly typical. I try to grow too many plants in too small a space, and I am always eager to experiment with new or novel plants. Those that make the cut and end up in my garden are not always perennial favorites - a very good friend sometimes refers to my garden as a "weed patch."

Flowers such as roses are appreciated by most people - in addition to their beauty they possess an unmistakable signature scent. Their inclusion in gardens is rarely questioned. Many less showy plants (including some that are just plain ugly) often have a quiet charm, or one or more unusual attributes that make them garden-worthy.

I will try to make my case for an odd little plant with a very odd name. It lacks colorful flowers or foliage, and no society exists to praise it or favor it.

Elephantopus elatus (or Florida Elephant Foot) is a member of the large plant family Asteraceae, which also claims the cheerful sunflower and the daisy as members. Common in dry, upland forests in Florida, it seems to have an affinity for thin, sandy soils. Usually about six to ten inches across, the plant forms a small ground-hugging rosette of large and hairy flat leaves that resemble lettuce or salad greens. In the late summer and early fall it sends up a tall, wiry spike that branches multiple times at the top, and terminates in flattened, three-leaved bracts that enclose multiple tiny purple flowers. The tiny flowers open in succession over a period of several weeks and attract even tinier pollinating insects.

My original two plants were purchased about six years ago, and planted next to a small Sparkleberry tree (Vaccinium arboreum). They have been marching slowly eastward ever since, and now number around three dozen. The tall, wiry spikes of flowers and seed capsules tend to lean, dropping small gray seeds as they bend. The Florida Elephant Foot has found my garden much to its liking. The plants grow to the size of paving stones, and the flower spikes are nearly hip high. I have done nothing to tempt them to stay, but I am pleased they have found my garden refuge to their liking.

The Paynes Prairie Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society will be holding their annual Fall Plant Sale on September 25-26, at Morningside Nature Center in Gainesville.

Milk and Wine

This particular Crinum, Crinum scabrum, is commonly called the Milk and Wine Lily. It's a tough plant, with unruly, rubbery foliage and underground bulbs the size of softballs. It is a semi-tropical species, and will grow quite nicely in USDA Zones 8b and southward.

It hails from Africa. Its history and provenance is lost - mired within the colonial histories of Great Britain, the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean.

My bulbs came from a neglected curbside planting in a Gainesville, Florida neighborhood that was established in the 1950's. The bulbs arrived here more than 100 years before that (the city was founded in 1853). I admire them for their longevity and tenacity.

They bloom under the most adverse conditions, and require little care. I would not trade one Crinum bulb for 1oo of the finest Dutch tulips (which won't grow here anyway).

Peace, and quiet

Today, a break from words.

Enlightenment

This tiny Buddha is tucked into a large chunk of limerock that sits at the edge of a path leading to my garden. On occasion his peace is disturbed by some nocturnal creature that dislodges him in search of insects or snails. Some mornings I will find him overturned, or sitting a few inches away from his limerock perch. I simply tuck him back into the natural cavity in the rock, which is almost a perfect fit for the small clay statue (because of his size I suspect he was intended to sit at the base of a bonsai tree).

Gardening is not without disappointment or heartbreak. Large trees hang over three sides of my house and garden, and I have come to expect tree branches will fall in exactly the spots where they can do the most harm. I have a beautiful Swamp Dogwood tree (Cornus foemina) that once had two trunks that arched gracefully in opposite directions. During a particularly violent thunderstorm a huge branch from an overhanging oak came crashing down onto the little tree. One of the trunks was badly damaged and had to be removed. The tree survived and has since sent up several new shoots, but it lost the symmetry that made it so special.

The little Buddha reminds me of the impermanence of all things - gardens are certainly no exception.

Underfoot, in Lilliput

Our search for alien life forms has most of us gazing towards the heavens and the night sky. Often overlooked are the myriad of unusual plants and animals right here on our own planet - most people are too busy or too disinterested to notice most of them.

These bizarre little structures are actually tiny fungi (or mushrooms); several small colonies appeared this week in the decaying pine straw I used to mulch my driveway (the largest of the trio is no bigger than a dime).

Commonly referred to as Earth Stars, these unusual organisms belong to a group of fungi known as Gasteromycetes. The ray-like structures open when the air is damp - if a raindrop strikes the round sac in the center, the fungus will release its spores. During dry weather the rays close, protecting the delicate structure and its contents.

A plant that most Floridians are familiar with is the ubiquitous Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides). This native bromeliad is an epiphyte; it uses tree branches for support, and to gain access to light and air (it dies soon after falling to the ground). It derives no nourishment from the tree and causes no harm (except for an occasional broken branch when the plant gets too heavy). What most people have never seen are its tiny spring flowers -three green petals no bigger than an eyelash.

Who-ville may be closer than you think.

Sunshine, on a cloudy day...

It either rains too little or too much - never, or so it seems, just enough. At the moment canary-yellow mushrooms are sprouting out of my bromeliad pots, but I know in a month or so the afternoon thunderstorms will cease. Florida's dry season will begin, and long periods of sunny, cloudless skies will be punctuated by overcast, windy cold fronts that bring either extended deluges, or just a sprinkle of rain.

Although the summer thunderstorms mean mosquitoes and often unbearable humidity, they also signal a charming group of plants into bloom - the Zephyranthes, or Rain Lilies.

Florida has one native species, the white Zephyranthes atamasco. It is common in seasonally wet areas, and has found a happy home along highway medians. Mexico, as well as Central and South America, are home to many species of these diminutive little bulbs (well adapted to wet and dry extremes). They come in a wide range of colors, including deep bubble-gum pinks, pale apricot, and deep yellows.

Zephyranthes sp. 'Labuffarosa' (pictured) is native to eastern Mexico, and may be a naturally occurring hybrid. It is one of the few Rain Lilies that grow well in light shade. It can be highly variable. My bulbs produce white flowers washed with an almost crystalline pink. Like most Rain Lilies the flowers emerge within a day or two of rain, and are nearly invisible among the grass-like foliage. The flowers seem to appear out of nowhere, which only adds to their charm.

Juxtaposed

I like to grow herbs in big pots that I can move around my garden throughout the year, since the sunniest spots seem to shift with the seasons, too. I grow three antique roses the same way (since my garden is not irrigated this method also allows me to water just the roses as needed). Last May a pot of Fairy Rose (Rosa 'The Fairy') ended up next to another container filled with Sage (Salvia officinalis 'variegata') and Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis). I thought the combination was great, and took this photo.

Flowers I once knew...

A spider lily (Hymenocallis latifolia) grew happily on my backyard patio for about five years. One night, and many nights thereafter, the raccoons began their raids.


The spider lily loves water, and I had immersed its pot inside a larger plastic pot filled with water (a water garden in miniature). Mosquitoes soon followed, so I dropped in a couple of goldfish to keep their numbers down. (Raccoons, I would learn, love goldfish.) The spider lily was uprooted many times, gnawed and tossed about the patio like a dog's chew toy. I suppose the raccoons were only seeking goldfish, because the lily remained largely intact.


I also maintained (and still do) a birdbath at ground level, just a few feet away. Sandy footprints and goldfish remnants left behind in the blue basin hinted at the nocturnal escapades of the masked rascals. Goldfish are cheap, yet I had no desire to keep feeding these bandits. And I wanted them to leave the lily in peace.


One morning I found the lily, in pieces, all over the patio. Thankfully it had been a prolific bloomer those five years, usually producing 10-12 almond-sized, avocado-green seeds every summer. There wasn't much left to salvage, and I tossed what was left on the compost heap. I still have several seedlings I kept for myself. Hopefully they'll bloom as prolifically as the original.


I photographed them just once. Each bloom lasts one evening - the marshmallow-scented white flowers open at dusk, and are pollinated by nocturnal moths.

The International Garden

Just a few feet from my front door are treasures from Mexico, China, Japan, Africa, and South America. Although most of my garden is planted with species native to Florida, our subtropical climate allows for the use of hardy tropicals from all over the globe.

This beautiful plant is a Star begonia (Begonia heracleifolia). It grows quite well in light to deep shade, and its foliage has an iridescent sparkle. I grow it beneath a tall clump of graceful Bamboo palm (Chamaedorea microspadix). Both plants hail from Mexico. The grass-like plant is Monkey grass (Ophiopogon japonicus), a terrific ground cover for shade - all three plants are shade lovers with low water requirements.

The begonia is deciduous most years, but makes a nice ground cover for the evergreen palms during the summer and fall. It's not an easy plant to come by, so if you stumble across one during your travels, be sure to bring it back home to your garden.

Intent on Gardening

This is how my garden looked four years ago. The salvia in the foreground is long gone (it grew in a large clay pot at the edge of the path), and the saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) have grown quite large. To the left (outside the view in the picture) is a short hedge of Sweet Viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum) that wraps around the path as it circles an enormous pine tree.

I do own pruners - several pairs and a lopper - but I use them with a light hand. The viburnum hedge is no longer a hedge, really. It looks more like a close grove of miniature trees. Most of the lower branches are gone, and it no longer serves its original purpose - to hide the view of the neighbor's trash pile. The trash pile and the neighbor are long gone, and the bare ground beneath the viburnums has become a good place to plant low-growing shade lovers (like bromeliads, ferns, and selaginellas). The garden has changed, and along with it my intent.