There Were No Fences

Me and my pine lily   Pine lily in it's wetland pot When I first moved here, October 2018, one of the first things I did was to create the two wetland areas that I now have. I wrote about their installation in the earliest days of this blog so I will not describe it again. Suffice to say, the pine lily ( Lilium catesbaei ) pictured above and which is now blooming was part of that pot when I moved it from my home in Seminole. This lily has bloomed each year since I placed it in this pot and it is purely because I've met its site requirements. It has nothing to do with the zone I live in. Pine lilies are notoriously difficult to keep alive in the ground. I have tried several times and failed. This plant actually started out that way too. For 2-3 years, it would emerge in the spring with 1-2 leaves and then do nothing. It seemed destined to perish if I didn't do something else. I seized upon the idea of this pot. Pine lilies occur statewide in Florida, but they are listed as a...

  Early Days A Few Weeks Ago I write a lot about the progress of my pollinator landscape. It's easy to do as wildflowers and native grasses mature quickly and have an almost-immediate impact on a landscape. That's not so true of woody plants. Most of us (and certainly not me) cannot afford to purchase trees and shrubs that are in sizes near maturity, so we add plants that are often in 3- or even 1-gallon sizes. In my landscape, I have splurged a couple of times and added a 7-gallon, but nothing larger (or more expensive) than this. For a few others, I have grown them from seed. It takes a real optimist to plant trees. It is said that the best time to plant one is 20 years ago and that the next best time is today. As I am renting here, it seems even more foolish to be adding plants that I may never sit in the shade beneath.  Foolish or not, I have received great joy from my plantings and as they gain a bit more size and maturity each year, the birds and other wildlife use them ...

Giant swallowtail caterpillar Gardeners are the world's greatest optimists. In my life, I have been called a great many things, but rarely an optimist. I beg to differ. With so much negativity swirling around us these days, it takes a real optimist to purposely plant a landscape and to do so to foster the rest of the living world. The cynics would mock such efforts as being a waste of time and energy. After all, what is the point when the world is only going to crash and burn regardless? The optimist in me tells me to ignore them and plant. We can choose to be impotent or not. If the world is really going to crash and burn, I am going down fighting it - not sitting on my couch cowering. I rent this home and its concomitant property. Some question (nicely, for the most part) my sanity for investing so much time and passion into a landscape that I do not own. As I tell them, the energy I have put into this has more than paid for itself by what it has given back. Creating a living lan...

When I began my new landscape, I recognized that everything that currently existed was either non-native or a plant I very likely did not want. After all, my yard had been part of this suburban desert for decades and nothing in the original flora of this site had remained intact. My turf grass was infested with common lawn weeds and their seed was lying thick in the subsurface soil, waiting for a disturbance of some kind to release them.  I had a single shade tree - an invasive camphor ( Cinnamomum camphora ) and a couple of foundation hedges - also comprised of invasive and lifeless non-natives. There were no bees or butterflies here and very few songbirds. It is totally unrealistic in a setting such as mine to believe that benign neglect will produce anything other than a patch of weeds. The term "weed" is so often misused in the public lexicon as something derogatory, but it shouldn't be used that way. A weed is a weed, however - native or not. They are plants waiting ...

Resindot sunflower with gulf fritillary In 1976, I was given a rooted piece of a rice cactus from a fellow graduate student and even though it is not an exceptionally beautiful plant, I have kept it since that time. I've moved it with me everywhere I have lived. I almost lost it one year from severe neglect and managed to bring it back to health much to my relief. Plants are a major part of my life and I find that a significant reason for this is that most have stories attached to them. While the wildlife that visit my yard are not "mine" in any real way, my plants are. I have purposely planted them. For many, I have propagated them from seed collected in my various wanderings. Others have been given to me by friends or have been purchased from nurseries - also with memories of road trips and the anticipation of their purchase. Plants to me are much more than plants; they are memories and those are always extra memorable. When I lose a plant, I always feel that I have los...

Front yard wildflower planting - 9/5/20 I've just signed a new lease to stay in this home for another year. It seems like just months since I moved here, not years, and a lot has changed. What began as a turf-grass  desert with clipped hedges of "plastic" non-native shrubs has morphed into what these photographs are documenting. The wildflower planting in the front yard is very different today than when I planted it, but is is vibrant. Some of what I planted has not thrived and I suspect a few have become overwhelmed by the species that have excelled.  Two of the goldenrods, for example ( Solidago odora var. chapmanii and S. stricta ) have both suckered a bit and reseeded. To keep the balance I want, I am going to have to weed out the new ones next season.  In a natural area, however, plants will find their location over time and landscape plans that contain a sense of order are not realistic. The laws of entropy make sure of that. I have planted a few small trees alon...

  The media, social and otherwise, have done a heroic job lately about alerting people to the plight of the monarch and the need to plant milkweed. As I watch this relationship play out in my landscape, I am reminded of how intricate it is. Both of them need each other while at the same time suffer from each other's presence. Like so many relationships..., it's complicated. Nature is like that. We're often reminded to plant milkweeds to feed the monarch (and queen and soldier) caterpillars like it is the role of a milkweed plant to be consumed and subservient to the needs of the butterfly. It's a role too often promulgated by the vast number of us that are blind to the nature of plants. Plants are essentially inanimate objects that fill up space and serve the wishes of the animal kingdom. It's played out far too often in the accounts I read, whether directly or indirectly stated, and it's false.  In the case of monarchs and milkweeds, it could be said that the p...