Cold Weather in Florida

Florida does get cold weather and since plants are usually in the midst of growing, they must be covered or brought indoors to survive.

One of the things I dislike about living in Florida is the freezing temperatures in winter. If plants are growing outside in your yard, and in pots, they may need to be covered to survive the cold night.

I had tomatoes, squash and peppers growing. Also one large eggplant plant and some small ones. I was not as worried about the peas and parsley as those things like cool weather.

My vegetables are in raised beds.

this plant was very unhappy with the cold
Little squash
Tomatoes don’t like the cold
Cold weather makes the banana trees freeze back

My basil is pretty dead, even though I covered it along with everything else.

The good news is that I still have some basil seeds and have planted those for this new growing season.

Christmas was the long stretch of cold weather. Since then we’ve had heat and some coolness, but nothing too bad. As I am posting this, it is March and there should not be any more freezing temps.

Native Milkweed That Survived the Freeze

I’m still trying to fill my yard with native milkweed. After the cold spell over winter froze most things back, and killed many things, I have fewer milkweed plants. All the tropical milkweed is gone. Tropical milkweed is not native, and therefore not a great loss. Three of the four swamp milkweed seedlings I purchased…

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Hydrangea Art and Photography For the Home

The beautiful hydrangea flower is featured on these items for the home.

When I lived in New Hampshire and grew hydrangeas in my yard, I took a lot of photos with my camera. Throughout the growing season I enjoyed seeing the changes that took place in the hydrangea gardens.

The Limelight Hydrangea Acrylic Print

I planted two Limelight hydrangea bushes right by my front door. They had the most beautiful, big blooms! As the seasons changed and Fall approached, the white flowers, that were tinted with green, began to turn pink.

I have found a few good photos of that Limelight shrub and this is one of the photos. This one is printed on acrylic. I bought an acrylic poster from Zazzle for my daughter this Christmas and was very impressed by the quality. It also arrived VERY well wrapped for safe shipping.

This acrylic hydrangea art is 24 x 36 inches. More sizes are available – choose 20×30 or 10×14. The image represented below is approximate to give an idea of the large size offered.

This image can also be purchased on a foam core board, which is much cheaper.

Limelight hydrangea photography print for the wall. Shown on durable acrylic, with cream and pale pink petals on fluffy heads.

Click on the images to see more about options and pricing.

Blue Hydrangeas

Blue hydrangea flowers are so popular that I began an entire online store dedicated to them. See BlueHyd at Zazzle for the full collection of stationery, gifts, and home decor.

Here are a few blue hydrangea photography images placed on art for the wall. Most have size selections and can be purchased on various materials, including poster paper, metal, wood, and acrylic. Most images can be transferred to your choice of medium.

Hydrangea flowers in a vase poster. Size 24 inches square, white, pink and blue hydrangea blooms overflow in a ceramic vase.

Wooden trays come in two sizes and can be customized with text along the bottom.

Blue hydrangea flowers wooden tray
Custom tray

Pillows are good sellers in my store, with square or round options. Fabric selections include polyester or cotton. Choose to have a zipper for easy cleaning, or not. They also come with an outdoor option where the fabric is treated to resist mildew and UV rays.

The blue hydrangea pillow below features end of season colors, when the blue petals begin to turn pretty shades of green. The back has a different hydrangea image that includes pink flowers.

Blue hydrangea flowers throw pillow
Square throw pillow with blue hydrangea flowers

Stories From the Blog

Fresh Dinosaur Kale Chips

Kale grew in the garden over our very short Florida winter. Now the heat is already here, so I am using the leaves and hoping for seed pods.

Last fall I planted organic kale seeds. Kale is a vegetable that does well in cold weather.

kale seeds organic

Now that “winter” is here, I am picking kale leaves to make chips. My leaves are not very big, but hot weather is already here, so I need to make use of the kale.

Kale
Dinosaur Kale

I eat kale because it is healthy and not necessarily because I love it. The two ways I use kale are either blended up for a smoothie, or baked in the oven to make chips.

On this day, I made chips.

garden kale
Kale for chips

Kale chips are very easy to make. Cut the leaves, wash, pat to dry a little, drizzle olive oil over the leaves. Use your hands to rub the oil all over the leaves and then place them on a sheet for baking.

Bake for a short time, checking often, and moving them / turning over as needed. Oven not too hot – I think around 325? Once they crisp up, they are done. Add salt and eat!

kale chips
In the process of making kale chips

I’m waiting for my kale plants to give me some seeds to use for next year. I’m not sure how that happens, so I am watching for a flower to form. Apparently then there should be seed pods.

My dill from seeds also did quite well. I ended up with more dill than I have room for in the garden. The black swallowtail butterfly loved it to and deposited her eggs everywhere. I had loads of caterpillars, but they all ended up being food for the cardinals! Such is life.

What’s Happening in the February Garden?

Butterflies are dropping their eggs, and some of my vegetable plants are looking much better, now that February in Florida has arrived.

Spring comes early in Florida. February is a good time to check the garden for signs of butterfly eggs and newly hatched caterpillars.

Swallowtails Laying Eggs

I noticed the black swallowtail butterfly laying her eggs all over my little dill plants. Now the black caterpillars are crawling around, eating and growing.

egg of black swallowtail butterfly
A tiny egg on dill
swallowtail caterpillar
The swallowtail caterpillar
black swallowtail butterfly
black swallowtail butterfly
butterfly in the garden

Every day I looked to make sure I could see all three.

Monarch Caterpillars

I’ve recently discovered how bad it is to have the wrong type of milkweed growing in the yard. I have removed all of my tropical milkweed. It looks like the photo below – with red and yellow-orange flowers – and please plant native milkweed instead.

no to tropical milkweed

Read About the Monarch Story, and the Reasons to Plant Correctly

lost caterpillar

Pests

That’s about it for the creatures, except for the unwanted white bugs. I hand-picked / squashed a bunch of these that were hiding in the tiny new growth on my eggplant. I’m not sure what they are, but probably some kind of aphid.

white aphids

Vegetables That Love February

Many of these vegetables were planted late last Fall. They survived the winter and are now beginning to love the warmer nights and not-too-hot days. I like February temperatures also. The humidity is lower and the days are sometimes hot, but bearable. A bit like a summer days in the north.

The pineapple had a lot of brown leaves. I had to cover some of these gardens when the temps dropped to near, or below, freezing.

Kale
Kale
potato plant
Potato plant
green pepper plant blossom
Pepper Plant
pineapple
pineapple
Lettuce
Lettuce
eggplant plant growing
Eggplant
Cherry tomato plant in raised bed
Cherry Tomato
dill flowers in garden
Dill flowers

The plants themselves are looking much better, but I’m not getting to eat from them. I have picked a few cherry tomatoes, a hot pepper here and there, and had some kale chips, which I made from my kale. I use the parsley and dill to cook, but all my basil died.

It won’t be long before the weather is too hot for the gardens to do well. I’m letting my lettuce to go seed so I can plant more next Fall. I do expect to continue to get peppers and also some eggplant soon.

One Summer Morning

July is nearing an end and the garden is teeming with living things.

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Pink Hydrangeas Are Blooming in June

The hydrangea shrub in my Florida yard is doing well and blooming with pink flowers.

The hydrangea I planted in my Florida garden a few years ago is now blooming once again. Soil in Florida tends to be alkaline so the flowers are pink. When I first bought the plant the flowers were blue, no doubt due to amendments to the soil. Everyone wants blue flowering hydrangeas.

But when this hydrangea plant was left to grow in the sandy soil in my southern yard, the flowers became pink. I don’t care. Pink is pretty too.

pink hydrangeas in Florida garden
pink hydrangeas in Florida garden
pink hydrangeas in Florida garden
pink hydrangeas in Florida garden
pink hydrangeas in Florida garden

The key to success when growing hydrangeas in the hot and humid Florida climate is to give the plant shade. All the leaves fall off for winter but the greenery comes back along the stems in Spring. Don’t cut the plant back! The first year I did cut it, but it’s not necessary.

2017 Potted and blue

Here is the hydrangea plant when I first bought it. It was probably grown in a greenhouse and given something acidic for the flowers to bloom blue.

Blue hydrangea
2017

The blue flowers faded to green, just like my New Hampshire blue flowers!

hydrangea
My blue hydrangea flowers have faded to green

Each year the leaves fall off

For the winter months in Florida, the plant is nothing but stems. Once the weather gets permanently warm again – around February – the stems will begin to show green growth.

hydrangea February garden Florida stems
February – hydrangea is stems only!

2022 June – Pink flowers

The flowers will only be blue if the soil is acidic. In Florida, azaleas, camellias, gardenias, and crepe myrtle all like acidic soil. So planting hydrangeas near these plants means they can all be amended with bone meal, or something to naturally turn the soil acidic. Read about more ways to turn soil acidic.

It seems that each year this plant has more, and larger, flowers. I try to give it plenty of water and it is never in direct sunlight thanks to the fact that a large shrub covers it.

Growing hydrangeas in Florida
June 2022

July and the Blooms Are Fading

faded hydrangea flowers
July’s faded blooms
faded hydrangea flowers

I was sick with Covid for nearly a month and only recently have been back out in my Florida yard. Now my pink hydrangea flowers are a very light greenish color. One little pink bloom hangs on.

faded hydrangea flowers in Florida
Hydrangeas drying on the stem

Please Keep Reading the Blog

Surprising Success: Growing Dahlias from Seeds in Florida

When my daughter gifted me a packet of Dahlia seeds, I had little hope that the plants would grow. I often feel that way about “normal” things trying to grow in this jungle. I live in zone 9b. My daughter was a little bit obsessed with the Floret flower farm. It was (is?) a show…

Keep reading

Starting Vegetable and Flower Seeds in Big Pots

With attention and lots of watering, the seeds I started in larger pots are doing well.

After caring for my seedlings in eggshell pots for weeks, I decided to start some seeds in big pots. They won’t dry out as quickly and are able to stay outside overnight.

I gathered up pots of all sizes that had been lying around and cleaned them out. for drainage I used yard debris, which was a mix of oak leaves, catkins (those long brown things) and Spanish moss. That mixture was pushed into the bottom of each pot before adding dirt.

Gathering empty clay pots for planting
Oak leaves and catkins with Spanish moss

I’ve planted basil, dill, cherry tomatoes, marigolds and cosmos. I used freezer tape to label the pots with the date they were planted.

basil and other seedlings in pots

Growing Basil

Basil can be difficult to grow in Florida, or so I’ve heard. I had some basil plants in the garden that lasted a couple of years, but then they died. Basil does self-sow if you let seeds form. I now have two pots of basil.

The basil seedlings became so crowded that I removed some of the plants by cutting them off. You should cut and not pull when thinning so as not to disturb the roots.

I kept the cuttings to use when cooking! So far, everything looks good and I hope to have nice big basil plants to pull from year round.

Crowded basil growing in a pot
Before thinning
basil seedlings potted
Basil after thinning
basil grown from seeds
Basil one month later – end of May

Cosmos and Marigolds

I chose two types of flower packets to grow from seeds. Marigolds are so wonderful for gardens, because they repel certain bugs that could be destructive. They should be dead-headed (pull off the old flowers) and I rip the flower head apart and scatter it among the vegetables. Every gardener probably includes marigolds when planting. I think certain varieties are better than others, but I didn’t have a lot to choose from at the store.

I bought two flowering marigold plants – see the orange one below – and will see what happens with the seeds.

Marigold seedlings
Marigold
orange marigold
Marigold plant
Clay pots with cosmos and marigold seeds
Cosmos and Marigolds
Cosmos
Cosmos seedlings
Cosmos
little cosmos flower blooming
Flowering cosmos in a grow box

The cosmos seedlings are looking pretty good. A little purple cosmos flower has bloomed in my grow box. That plant was begun in an eggshell pot.

This is certainly a different looking cosmos from what I am used to growing in New Hampshire. Or maybe the plant needs to mature to grow larger.

Actually, the secret is to plant seeds in real good dirt.

The cosmos in the larger pot is looking nice and blooming regularly

Growing Dill

I always grew dill in my northern garden, but have not had luck growing it here in Florida. I do have a few small seedlings in the grow boxes, and now have dill sprouting in this terra cotta pot.

Because I don’t have much luck growing dill, I have chosen to grow fennel. It is similar in that it also grows tall and feathery and has flowers that attract beneficial bugs. Also the Swallowtail butterfly will leave her eggs on fennel, just like parsley and dill.

Dill seeds sprouting in a pot
Dill seedlings

I needed up putting the dill into the potato garden and planted more dill seeds in a large pot.

Dill plant

Cherry Tomatoes

My cherry tomato seedlings were not doing much at first, but now in May they are large plants. I’ve transplanted them a few times and they have little tomatoes on the vine.

re-potting a tomato plant
tomato plants and raised bed gardens
Both tomato plants in their new pots
cherry tomato flowers
small tomato plants
cherry tomato plant in pot
Plants by the end of May