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.