Choice Morsels

Today's outside task was spraying down the exterior vinyl siding with bleach/soap. Years ago I saved a Green Sweep bottle, which is a type of liquid weed & feed, because the empty bottle has a long, strong spray that's fantastic for this job. It's not quite power-spraying. I rely on the bleach and strong Florida sun to do most of the work.   Yesterday, I worked on mowing and edging beds. I edged the bed along the retaining wall, then moved to the back rear bed where I pulled up the black vinyl edging. A friend helped us put that in and did so, arranging it into a tight "S" curve, which sounds like a good idea until you try to mow . The curves are just too short for the mower to fit and finally, after years of putting up with it, I've decided to pulling up all that black edging. It's much easier to just keep the beds well mulched and edged periodically with a spade. There's Canna's in that bed that are supposed to be along the neighbors ...

  Welcome back! Finally got the guest room all cleaned and put in order. I planted my tomatoes I took so much trouble to raise indoors outside, but they promptly keeled over and didn't take. :( So I planted seeds in those spots and, at my Mother's suggestion, covered them with milk cartons cut for the purpose. You leave the cap off and it creates something of a terrerium enviroment. The seed is new, so maybe I'll come back to some baby tomatoes growing under there. Today's Garden Picture of the Day is of a type of lily called a "Hot Poker." It gets that name for it's coloration. The tiny unopened blossoms are orange and the open are yellow. As they open, the yellow color progresses upward.   (That bit of blue in the foreground is Sea Holly.)   I bought a bag of Hot Poker roots from Walmart last spring and this one is the first of them to bloom. I have another Hot Poker plant that I ordered from a catalog many years ago that i...