An Update on the Landscape






 


Reflecting today on the progress I've made with this landscape.  As we look out over our work on a daily basis, it is sometimes difficult to truly see how far we've progressed.  When I moved into this rental home over 4 years ago, there was very little here in terms of vegetation and virtually no life within it. As I've written before, I could not even find a honeybee to pollinate my newly planted key lime and I had to do the work myself in order to get some fruit.  It was a staggeringly barren desert here and, I suspect, much like the landscapes around me.  

Today, things have changed markedly.  I no longer have to hand-pollinate the flowers here as they open and the woody plants are starting to provide some habitat.  I still do not have the cavalcade of spring and fall migrants that graced the landscape of my former home, but I'm noticing small changes. A few days ago, I saw a female summer tanager and a pair of white-eyed vireos here.  They didn't stay long, but the fact that they tarried here at all was a first.  Slowly but surely, the list of birds that have visited is growing - as do the individual trees and shrubs I added 4 years ago.  As should be expected, they go hand in hand.

Wildflowers and native grasses create habitat quickly.  These meadows change with the seasons, but this one also has changed its composition.  Some plants, like the native wild petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis) have almost done too good and I'm going to have to thin them out a bit later this year. Others, are slowly declining - possibly as they are getting crowded out by others. As in any community, plant or otherwise, there are those that are demure and those that are a bit more boisterous than we'd like.  It takes active management to keep everything in the balance we attain to and I have been a bit more lax than I should have been.

A good percentage of my woody plants are finally blooming as I anticipated.  It takes time for these kind of plants to mature enough to flower and set fruit.  Some of the haws are still too young, but a few bloomed this spring for the first time. The flatwoods plum (Prunus umbellata), the two-winged silverbells (Halesia diptera) and the serviceberries (Amelanchier arborea) were wonderful.  It would seem that my arrowwod and rusty viburnums (V. dentatum and V. rufidulum) also will flower heavily and for the first time. 

Gardening like this takes a great deal of faith in the future and some ability to envision what it will look like. 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 18, 2022 at 10:14 AM

    I learn so much from your blogs and often re-visit the older ones. I especially enjoy seeing what you have done in this very typical Florida suburban yard. While it's wonderful to see what can be done with acres of land, many of us are dealing with this. I've pretty much eliminated all the lawn I can. If there are two cars in the driveway, it may be impossible to get into one side without stepping on non- groundcover plants. But the presence of pollinators is overwhelming! I too would like to see more variety of birds. Not sure why no one comes to eat my beautyberry which are one of the most-tenured species in my front yard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MistiApril 18, 2022 at 2:03 PM

    Hopefully whenever you leave one day many of the plants will be able to stay as well. Love seeing how things change over time, thanks for sharing!

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  3. lamaJuly 27, 2022 at 7:28 AM

    I've tried to make what looks like a similar garden at the front of my house. It was planted about a year ago, and to me is looking promising. Some of the grasses have spread themselves around which is useful. I also need to edit the wild petunias, which I love. But my husband is 'disappointed', despite what's going on with pollinators, snakes, and even a toad, although he does understand why we're encouraging wildlife in what is a desert of lawns, pesticides, and clipped shrubs. (I think he would also appreciate it if I removed the Bidens alba, but we don't have any others nearby.) So, I'm currently working out which summer flowering perennials and annuals I can use to bring in more color, and hopefully they will be useful food plants. This isn't easy!

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    Replies
    1. Hawthorn HillJuly 29, 2022 at 5:04 AM

      First- thanks and congratulations on what you've done so far. It takes a lot of time and some trial and error to get a landscape planting to where you are truly comfortable. There are still a bunch of things in my own landscape here that I could improve on - but that's what keeps it interesting. If you are looking for ideas on wildflowers, I wrote a book for the U of FL Press on gardening with them, grasses and ferns that might give you some ideas. Good luck and, hopefully, your spouse will stay patient as well.

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