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.