Choice Morsels

It's getting to be sweltering in the early afternoon, so I headed out  by 10 a.m. to get when it was still below 80 to mow the back yard.  I did a little clean-up on spent day lily stems and my Cannas with diluted Neem to give them a little protection and being further devoured by Leaf-rollers. (The lavre of Long-tailed Skippers!)  But it's been long enough; they should be done now. I saw my first butterfly today, a Gulf Fritillary!  lenty of Pondhawke dragonflies about, though I haven't caught one on camera this year--yet! (These are one of the few dragonflies that will perch and rest long enough for a picture!) I've got a pair of Thrashers, which is type of large brown bird, eager to pick up any popcorn or chips I throw out on the ground! Plus, I was delighted recently to see the courtship ritual of not just one pair of Cardinals, but two! He offers her a seed. She accepts and that seals the deal for one nesting season! Today's featured pic is a collage I p...

I continue to work on adding things to my various rain gardens. Yesterday I was moving some young native orange lilies into place down the length of the outside of flag stones edging the back yard rain garden.  I'm excited to see the grassy shoots of the rain lilies I planted in there starting to popped up and look forward to taking pictures of them in bloom.  I've decided to move some of my Chocolate Elephant Ears into the gravel portion of that rain garden to pick up the color of the Giant Red Leaf Tropical Lily.  Today's feature Garden Pic is the first blooms of my Blue Stokes Aster: I bought it at Lowe's last fall, splitting it into 3 sections when I planted it. It's a full sun perennial that spreads , so I was deliberate on where I planted it. Though classed as 'blue' you can tell this blue leans to the lavender, but that is ver y common in flower color classifcation. After all, purple has an element of blue in it! That's why you...

Greetings! Today I was working on a set of wooden shelves that I had stained some years ago, but had never finished the project. So, I decided to finish them.They needed a second going over with walnut stain  and I sanded down their edges to give them a slightly worn look. Tomorrow I'll but the Tung Oil on to give them a nice polish. While I was out in the garage with door open working on that, the garage company guy showed up to look over our garage door opening, which is the first step to getting a new one. Our existing garage door is in desperately needs replacing! But things have changed a lot about installing garage doors since we replaced ours 12 years ago. Insurance requirements have changed considerably. Since I live in Florida, garage doors have to be wind resilient. The interior frame for mounting it will be re-done.  Every piece of hardware, including the spring coil has to be replaced. And the price includes a costly little permit t...

Today's Garden photo is one of my garden favorites: agapanthus or Lilly of the Nile. I like it's because it's a blue flower, considering true blue flowers are a minority in the flower world. Mine are light blue. They do come darker to nearly purple blue and also come in white. It has a circular head full of these small flowers that open a few at time over several days. No, they don't bloom all at once. I grow mine in a pot, but they are fine in the ground. They're a common landscaping feature here in Florida. They bloom once, but their grassy greenery remains as nice texture in the garden till frost, which is why they're so popular in landscaping. They're a fine cutting flower for vases,  though you will need to clean up dead blossoms at they fall off. When I change the vase water, I snip off expired blossoms, which gives the head a interesting pin-cushion look that's nice texture in a vase. That's a little flower-arranging secret: it's not...

"Can I get blue roses?" was probably the most often asked question at the flower shop where I worked for 17 years as a floral designer. And the answer is, "No."  Fresh, real roses do not come in blue. Even those with names like, "Bluebird," are lavenderish and not blue. If you want roses in blue you're going to have to pay a visit to your local silk flower retailer. Below are two photos of real roses classed as "Lavender" colored from a florist shop web page. You can see "lavender" in roses varies from more pinkish to more lavenderish. Roses classed as "purple," generally run to the maroon side as a natural color. (If you see roses that actually look purple the color has probably been artificially applied someway---and I don't recommend painting---it's stinky and only effects the outer surface.) The pinker rose to the left called "Ocean Song Lavender" and the one on the right was unnamed, but h...