Choice Morsels

  In the Garden, I finally got some broccoli planted. Took some effort to find, too. Walmart garden shop didn't have any, but I found Ace Hardware did.  I have lettuce coming up---though it seems to be doing so on it's own schedule. Likes cool weather, though and that might be part of it. Today's photo is Echeveria (Hen & Chicks) in Bloom : My Echeveria is blue-green and though I have quite a few, this is the only one blooming. The declining sun rays were just touching on these flowers, giving their inner throats an brighter orange glow. 

Today's Garden Pic: White Vinca & Alyssum just in front of my mailbox post, catching end of day sun rays. This patch of Alyssum is the only survivor of the intense summer heat. Perhaps the Vinca shaded it? Even so, the Alyssum seed sprouted easily and it looked nice in spring, so I will look for seeds next spring to plant it again.  

 It's that time of year when the setting sun rays hit the flowers on my patio very nicely, highlighting them, like this Red Salvia:                                                      Or the pine tree above my patio:

Today's Garden Pic is:  My Plumbago: This shot is just part of my rather sprawling Plumbago I liked because of how the sun was highlighting it! I learned in my Garden Club recently that the proper time to cut it back is in early spring. (Here in Florida that is early March)  It's a common Southern landscape shrub, but I particularly like it because the flowers are baby blue and I try to collect "blue" flowers in my garden. Here's a closer shot of one of the flower heads. Blooms form at the tip of the stems, so to get more blooms, a couple months ago I did a quick snipping of just of tips of branches to encourage it into putting out a quantity of blooms and now, that is starting to happen! These blooms along the bottom are just the beginning!  

 Two Garden Pics today: Nice Shot of Female Ruby Throat Hummingbird: There's a feeder hanging on this line and she's guarding it from other hummers. They're usually around until around mid-October when they migrate further South.  And Nice Shot of this Yellow Spider Lily: The end of day sunlight was hitting it.

Garden Pic today is Red Lantana. I have 3 colors of Lantana presently: this red, a pink and yellow. It likes full sun. Bees and butterflies love it. It's extremely draught hardy and doesn't need a lot of watering. Plus it roots very easily, if you want more of your favorite color, just by snipping stems and sticking them in small pots of soil, allowing them to root, then transplanting as desired.  

Today's Garden Pic is this unusual Fern: I bought a 2-root pack of Cinnamon Fern many years ago, but apparently one of the roots was not Cinnamon Fern, but...this instead. There are zillions of types of fern and this seems to have a fern-like structure. Regardless, it comes up faithfully every year and I like it. I might be Holly Fern. Some of the older leaf stems at the back look similar to photos of Holly Fern. Whatever it is, it's lovely.