Pam – Page 39 – Hydrangeas Blue

End of Summer Florida Garden News

Here in Florida it does not feel like the end of summer transitioning into Fall. The September garden is overgrown and producing little. My garden looks like a mess. Temperatures are still in the 90’s and it’s too hot to stay outdoors for any length of time. I water the garden at least once a day, and usually twice, and it still wilts in the heat.

September garden in central Florida — September Garden

I now have two new bell pepper plants growing from seeds. One is tall and has given me a few green peppers. The other is still tiny. You can see the big (old) pepper plant in the raised bed, front left area. The peppers are small and thin walled, but I use them in cooking.

I’ve cut back the eggplant once more and haven’t had an edible eggplant from it in a long time.

The tomatoes are long and gangly and will probably just die before they produce edible tomatoes. I may try to grow them again in early spring.

And I have a couple of squash plants – one has a tiny squash growing. I honestly can’t remember what type of squash it is. Either a winter / butternut or spaghetti squash. I threw seeds in the dirt to see what would happen. I can’t grow summer squash or zucchini for some reason. (This little squash rotted and fell off the vine.)

Little yellow squash, not sure what type

The most beautiful plant in my vegetable garden right now is the fennel. I had two plants and one died, but the other has grown tall stalks of pretty yellow flowers which bring bees every day. This is why I let my plants continue to grow even if they don’t produce. Their flowers bring bugs searching for nectar and birds hop through the garden in search of bugs for dinner. Eventually seeds will form.

I was inspired to draw the fennel with flowers and turn it into a custom card at my Zazzle store.

Garden Herb Fennel Flowers Art Flat Note Card

by ClarasDesk

I’m not sure what will become of my vegetable garden. I’m considering giving up on growing my favorite vegetables. I seem to have more luck with herbs, so maybe I need a big herb garden. I love to pick fresh herbs from the yard.

The parsley that has been growing for over 2 years is finally dying. I let it go to seed and maybe it will produce new plants. I haven’t seen any parsley worms for a while.

My neighbors across the street told me they turned their vegetable garden into a citrus garden. They said that bugs ruined everything they tried to grow so they gave up. It seems that the smart thing to do is grow what works in this tropical climate.

My Little Citrus Trees

I am happy to see that my lemon tree is making a come back. Once it gave up trying to produce lemons, it could concentrate on new growth, and the greenery is beautiful. I have it planted in a fabric pot and it seems very happy.

lemon tree greenery — The lemon tree is making a come back

The new orange tree still has one orange growing. The tree is small, and I did have 2 oranges, but one fell off and was no good.

Orange growing on tree — A single green orange on the little Valencia tree.

The Persian lime tree is full of limes, which I will be able to start using soon, but the tree and fruit don’t look as good as last year. I think it needs a bigger pot. With all the spikes on the stems, that will be a chore!

I look forward to cooler air… please… !

My Favorite Black Cat Photos of Skittle and Fontana

I take a lot of photos of my two black cats, Skittle and Fontana. Fontana has been living with me since 2010 when she and Richie (a crazy male cat who is now deceased) were adopted from a shelter in New Hampshire. Richie met an untimely end when he was killed by a fisher cat one early morning. Fisher cats are stocky, muscular beasts that hunt mostly at night so I kept my cats inside overnight. Richie always wanted to go out very early in the morning to hunt and unfortunately a fisher cat was out hunting too.

You can see photos of Richie at my New England blog. He had unique blotches of white on his face.

Fontana the Beauty

Whereas Richie was a hunter extraordinaire, Fontana was always one to sit and watch wildlife with big eyes and not try to kill everything that moves. She spent one night in my old house playing with a mouse in the kitchen, which she let get away to bother us another day.

Fontana was, and is, a beautiful, medium long hair cat. Her fur was jet black, but now that she has spent lots of time outside in the Florida sun, she has turned chocolate brown. Yup, she’s fading.

Fontana’s fur has faded to brown in the Florida sun

Then, Along Came Skittle

Skittle became part of the family shortly after Richie had gone. My son and I went to the local shelter where a room held some free roaming kitties. The shelter manager told me to go in and visit with those cats and as I opened the door a little black cat bolted out into the main part of the shelter. We had to round her up and put her back. My son decided that was the cat he wanted. Of course, the troublemaker!

Her shelter name was “Love Bug” but before we left the parking lot my son said, “Lets call her Skittle”. The name is perfect and she still does the “skittle out the door” maneuver very well.

Skittle is the kind of cat that makes her needs known one way or another. She drinks out of cups, knocks things off counters and tables, and races through the house to get attention. As soon as I go into the bathroom she is up on the counter wanting to drink from the faucet. She stays outside almost all day long, even in the terrible Florida heat. I am home and can let her in, but she prefers outdoors. She seems to be happier in this climate away from the snowy New England winters.

Cats are known to choose to sleep in some strange places. Usually they choose a place that will bother the owner the most. Right on a book that one is attempting to read, or on the desktop when one is trying to work. The fact that Skittle thought the indoor woodpile would be a comfy place for a nap really confused me. But she saw that I was using that wood to stoke the wood stove and probably decided she would be in the way. It’s how her little mind works.

Skittle

I have some great photos of skittle, but none as funny as when she plopped her head down onto the fruit in my fruit bowl and made herself comfortable. Did she think I would want some fruit and having her head in the way would annoy me? Probably.

Sleeping in the peas

Let me in!

In my New Hampshire home, Skittle had perfected the art of letting me know she was ready to come inside. She stood on the deck railing and pawed at the window in the kitchen making as much noise as possible. If the railing had snow or ice she would simply climb to the top of the screen on the sliding glass door and hang there hoping to annoy me enough to open the door.

When winter ended in NH and I began to go outside to do my gardening, Skittle was always somewhere close by. She loved to have my company in the yard. The photo below is one of my very favorites and was taken on one of those gardening days. It captures her typical look which seems to be saying, “Come on, what’s next? Lets get to it.” Skittle is always ready for an adventure.

If I didn’t get around to mowing the grass as much as I should, the cats didn’t mind. They both like to “hide” in the greenery.

One of their favorite things to do was to walk with me in the woods behind the house. I had a big backyard forest area with rocks, water and downed trees to climb. I miss being outside with them. In Florida, I don’t go out much and there are no fun places to explore in my yard.

Just like siblings, cats can have radically different personalities. Anyone who doesn’t like cats probably hasn’t met a cat with the “right” personality match for them. Fontana and Skittle are very different from each other.

Skittle will sleep on my bed at night, but Fontana doesn’t.

Fontana will jump into my lap, but not Skittle.

Skittle comes when I call her, like a dog. Fontana usually ignores my calls.

Skittle catches lizards and then meows, while the poor thing dangles from her mouth, until I come see. Fontana ignores the lizards.

The cats are weird, funny, sweet or annoying and they’ve wormed their way into our hearts, as all pets do.

Clusters of Purple Berries on The Beautyberry Bush

I’m all for learning something new each day, and today I learned that the clusters of purple berries on the stem in my backyard is part of the Beautyberry bush. This odd stem of berries in clumps caught my eye as I walked through my small backyard. I had to get photos, but the trouble I had was capturing the true purple color of these berries.

purple beauty berry — Beautyberry stem of purple berries

Using my iPhone, I took numerous photos of these striking purple clumps and none of the photos showed the actual dark purple color correctly. Below is the color my phone produced, but the other photos more closely match the actual darker purple. I had to replicate that in Pixelmator.

purple berries — iPhone photo is brighter purple color than reality

This stem is sticking out of my backyard hedge. The hedge is made up of a variety of plants which have grown very tall and create a border between the back of my house and the house next door. I did not plant the Beautyberry, but someone may have done so years ago. Or maybe it grew wild.

The Beautyberry is a southern bush with berry stems that show up in September. It’s berries feed birds and wildlife and the leaves and berries are good as mosquito repellent. Read more interesting info at the Garden.org site.

I found some other interesting flora to photograph that same day. The Elephant Ear was blooming and the banana trees had sent off a new shoot which would grow a long stem of bananas. A dead tree is full of clusters of dark purple berries and I don’t know yet what those are. There is always something new to learn when I step outside.

Pruning The Rubber Plant and Taking Cuttings to Propagate

Rubber Trees are something you see a lot of here in Florida. They are tropical plants and don’t like the cold. They work well as house plants, but I’ve seen them growing outdoors here and can become quite large. They are susceptible to scorching sun which damages the leaves, and don’t like extreme cold.

I love the uniqueness of this tree with it’s thick, rubbery leaves which are dark green to purple in color. A reddish spike appears when a new leaf grows. These plants are hardy, but keep them out of the hot sun or the leaves will burn.

To keep a nice shape, the rubber tree will need pruning. To give it a good “bath” I take it outside and spray dust off the leaves. I can also give the dirt lots of water and some fertilizer. It’s possible to do that year round here.

I noticed the plant had a lot of new growth making the stems quite long. I’ve never pruned a rubber plant, but decided to give it a try.

I ended up cutting back two stems to even up the shape a bit. If possible, I try to root cuttings (propagate) I take of large plants like this. When I searched online for info I got the general “use rooting compound” advice. I’ve never had luck using rooting compound. So I decided to do it my way.

My favorite way to create new plants from cuttings is to simply put the cuttings in water and wait for roots to develop. The water must be changed often – I do it every day. I’ve had good luck propagating crotons this way, but it doesn’t work for every plant. I’ve never tried to root rubber plant cuttings, so this was an experiment.

The rubber plant has white sap in the stems which is sticky, which is similar to what you see in hydrangea stems. The hydrangea stems can close up due to this white sap and make the cuttings wilt. (Read more about cutting hydrangeas.)

I kept an eye on the rubber plant cuttings and saw no drooping or signs of distress in the vase.

After a while – probably close to 2 weeks – I saw roots developing on one of the stems.

rooted cutting rubber tree — After a few weeks in water – roots!

I will be potting this soon. The other stem has not begun to send off roots, and I’m not sure it will. But I’ll wait a bit longer to see. (It never did and I gave up.)

The main plant is sending off little shoots near the site of the cutting. I only see one shoot, so whoever the cut is made is where the new growth will take place – at the next leaf on the stem. Keep that in mind when making the cut.

new growth rubber tree — New growth from the stem that was cut.

A new leaf unfurls in a pretty green color. It will eventually turn dark like the older leaves. My next chore will be to re-pot into something bigger. First, I may take a few more cuttings to further shape the tree.

new leaf rubber tree — Pretty new leaf emerging.

If the plant is too large to take outside and wash, use a damp cloth and clean the leaves every now and then. Be sure to fertilize it occasionally as well. I like to use organic fish emulsion diluted in water.

Planting the Rooted Rubber Tree Cutting

I planted the rooted cutting in my front yard under an Oak tree (see photo below). So far it is doing well without much attention from me.

Having plants beneath a tree help give it shade (obviously) but also keep it protected from wind and cold. Plants that grow near other plants can survive cold overnight temperatures better, and being in the shade means less watering.

When the temperature will be close to, or below, freezing I will cover this little plant with a towel overnight. It’s was 38 degrees the other night, and the rubber tree baby looks fine and I did not cover it.

For those who don’t know, when you cover plants over night be sure to remove the cover in the morning! Leaving them covered is not good.

Rubber plant cutting still doing well outside

The Tiny Yellow Land Snail and Shell

If you need more reasons than the obvious to grow vegetables organically, take a close look at the dirt in the garden bed. As I was out taking photos of the numerous mushrooms growing all over the garden, I saw an interesting, elongated shell. It looked like a mini version of the auger seashells I’ve found. I picked it up and got a photo, of what I thought was a shell only.

tiny shell found in the garden — Shell found in the garden

I took the photo and put the shell back into the dirt. As I was photographing the mushrooms, I noticed that a bright yellow – chartreuse really – snail had come out of the shell and was moving around. He was so cute and unique that I tried to get some good pictures to show how tiny he / she was. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a land snail with a shell like this one.

Although I searched the internet for a similar snail, I found none. He is a mystery. I keep thinking of my neighbors who cover their garden with black plastic in summer to kill all the nematodes. I wonder if they think about all the other little critters they may be killing.

If you just love snails, and want to know more about them, read this page full of info at the Welcome Wildlife site called, “All About Land Snails“.

And if you love seashells, please visit my blog where I photograph and write about the seashells I collect in my part of Florida. I am much more familiar with sea snails!

seashell blog — Shells I found while beach-combing from our boat on the ICW in Florida

The Bird’s Nest Mushroom

I kept seeing these interesting little growths in the dirt in my vegetable garden. As I searched for info about the orange mushrooms that keep popping up, I came across the bird’s nest mushroom (fungi), and I said…”Ah ha… that’s it!”

The Cyathus striatus is tiny and very unusual looking. To me it looks like a little bowl full of seeds. It begins as a little bumpy round ball- I’m not sure if it begins as white or brown, and then top “disintegrates” leaving the bowl shape and serving of beans inside.

Someone named it the “bird’s nest”. That works, but the bits look more like beans or seeds than eggs. These things are really small and easy to overlook unless you get down close to the earth. (The red post in my photos is one leg of a tomato cage.)

birds nest mushroom — Bird’s Nest Mushroom (Cyathus stratus)

This is only one type of bird’s nest fungi. The “eggs” do not come out. I tried tipping a bowl over but the contents remained intact.

I’ve been seeing other mushrooms in my raised bed garden. The bright orange mushrooms continue to grow beneath the eggplant and pepper plant.

My Little Citrus Trees

Thank you for sharing!

Fontana the Beauty

Then, Along Came Skittle

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Planting the Rooted Rubber Tree Cutting

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!