I love to photograph flowers. They make an excellent subject. Who doesn’t like viewing the delicate intricacies, fantastic shapes, and stunning colors of flowers. They don’t move so photography is simple! LOVE.
So…. from all the flowers above, I see bees visiting most often the Spiderwort. I’ve let some clumps of Spiderwort grow randomly around the garden. Each morning when I water, I hear and see bumblebees visiting the purple flowers.
Another favorite is the purple Holy Basil, also called Tatsoi. Those flowers come out on tall spikes and the flowers are very tiny. But the bumblebees love them!
Butterflies usually visit the beautiful zinnias, but I have not had many butterflies. The occasional Gulf Fritillary has been spotted, and a few Zebra longwings, but honestly not many at all.
The Cosmos are not like the cosmos I grew in New Hampshire. These are small plants and not leggy like the northern plants. All of the cosmos growing in my yard came from saved seeds. I bought one plant and saved the seeds that I continue to plant in the yard. I like not knowing if the flowers will be yellow or orange, or a combination.
From the Front Yard
I rarely pay much attention to what is growing in my front yard. My focus is on the vegetable garden and flowers planted there. But, my hydrangea plant is blooming with big pink flowers.
Hydrangeas are the reason I began this blog. Many years ago, I lived in New England and grew many types of hydrangeas. I photographed the blue ones especially, and created this blog to share hydrangea info.
A few years ago, I decided to see what a hydrangea bush would do in my Florida yard. And here it is, still growing and flowering. I pay almost no attention to it. The bush is still small, but I believe it is surviving because it is constantly in the shade of a very large shrub.
I bought the hydrangea in May one year. That’s when you might be able to find the plants. Big box stores get them out on display for Mother’s Day. When I bought this one, it was blue, or purple-blue. The gorgeous blues I had on my New Hampshire hydrangea bushes can’t really be replicated by making the soil acidic. I believe that the pretty light blue is just natural, and comes from the earth.
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Hydrangeas Blue 
I had heard we can’t grow hydrangeas here in Florida, so that is very good news! Your purply-blue one is gorgeous, in my opinion. My understanding was that acidic soil gives them the blue color. Up north (in Maryland) I used to feed them with an acidic plant food. Have you ever grown the native hydrangea (not sure if it can live here either)? How about lilacs, can we grow them here?
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I believe only pink flowering hydrangeas will happen here, unless you add acid. In NH I didn’t have to do anything, and got gorgeous shades of blue. I grew all types and loved them so much. Apparently the Oak Leaf hydrangea will grow in shade in Florida, but only to zone 9a. As for lilacs, I’ve never seen them and I doubt they will survive here. Just checked, and they grow in zones 3-7, which of course leaves us out.
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