One Summer Morning

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

July is nearly over. Hard to believe, but I’m glad. It’s not a fun month here in Central Florida. Not that what’s coming is any better. The Hurricane months are the worst. Soon we’ll be watching those storms that build off the African coast and wonder where they will go.

But, that fun is for the future. Today I discovered a big Swallowtail caterpillar on my celery plant! Swallowtails need dill, fennel, parsley and apparently celery for their caterpillars. The dill was gone back in May, and I can’t seem to grow parsley – especially not in summer. I have some fennel out front, and checked for caterpillars, and found none. I didn’t realize my celery would attract swallowtails.

This big guy was just there! I had not seen him while he chewed and grew, down in the center of the stalks. All day I went outside to check on him. I’m certain he will disappear.

The celery grew from a stalk that came from the grocery store. Today, I am starting another celery plant in a glass on my windowsill. It is very easy to grow.

Black swallowtail caterpillar on celery
black swallowtail caterpillar
Starting celery from cut bunch
celery started from store bought
First little watermelon
First little watermelon

Watermelon

I had to pick my watermelon because the stem area was beginning to rot, for some reason. But, I also discovered watermelon #2 hidden under the vines. I covered it with pine needles to try to keep the raccoons away. I like to kid myself that I can outsmart them.

Celery plant with Swallowtail caterpillar
Caterpillar
Seminole pumpkin vines
Seminole Pumpkin vines
watermelon growing
Watermelon #2

The pumpkin vines (first year) have nearly covered my walkway. I can’t easily move the hose so have to leave it in the middle.

The Holy basil is growing and I’m using it regularly. Firespike flowers are coming out and that will keep the hummingbird happy. The celosia plants are getting tall and should be flowering soon.

Holy basil with flowering stalks
Holy basil
Firespike plant is beginning to bloom
Firespike
Celosia stalks growing in barrel bed
Celosia

Oh The Zinnias!

My garden is full of beautiful Zinnias. I look at each one when I inspect things. I can’t stop photographing them. I only began growing zinnias a couple of years ago, but they have become a favorite. I’ve decided to make dividers for this blog using all my zinnia photos.

This year I have lots of reds, pinks, and gorgeous orange. I have only one yellow, so I’ll be sure to save it. Honestly, I am saving many Zinnia flower heads. Some have grown from saved seeds, but many I planted from newly purchased seeds.

yellow zinnia
Only one plant is yellow.

Skittle

Skittle the cat has always been my shadow in the garden. She very much enjoys it when I inspect things. I can’t spend much time out there with her now because of the horrendous heat. She seems to love it. As long as she can find an uncomfortable looking place to sleep, she is happy.

Skittle

I’m mostly quite happy as I look through the garden. Occasionally I get depressed at the lack of food, but there is always the grocery store. Good thing.

The Monarch butterflies are still fluttering each day. They usually show up around 9:00am. They land on the zinnias frequently. Their tropical milkweed is not flowering now, but soon the swamp milkweed will be.

zinnias divider

Thank you for reading.

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Good Morning, or Is It?

Garden troubles.

I am writing today to make you feel better. Yup, it’s a pretty depressing morning here, so I hope that will make you feel better about your bad start to the day. If you had a good start, yay for you. If you are having gardening troubles, you are not alone.

Here in the jungle, summer is the pits. It is too hot to be outside for long, and if I venture out, it’s either loaded with bug repellent, or covered in long sleeves and pants.

On top of that, there is very little in the way of food growing. All my Seminole pumpkins start to grow, then turn yellow and fall off the vine.

Finally, I have one that looks like it will continue to grow. And today I see that raccoons (my best guess) have scratched it all up!

The Dahlia is wilting. We just had a little tropical system swirling over our area of the state and it dropped 4 inches of rain. We had minor flooding, which went away quickly. But maybe the dahlia did not like all that water. Maybe it doesn’t like July in Florida. I can’t blame it.

Dahlia wilting

The weeds, or should I say, grass has gone nuts. This is all getting away from me because of all the vines that are sprawling all over the yard. The squash vine is done, and I should pull it up. But it’s too hot and buggy.

The watermelon vines have 1 watermelon. The pumpkin vines – well, I mentioned that above. Those vines have nearly made it from the back of the house to the front. They’ve dropped about 10 pumpkins at this point.

pumpkin vines along the pathway

Speaking of vines. That mound in the distance in my photo above is an Elm tree next to a Beautyberry bush. Below is a photo of the two trees with most of the vines pulled off. I used to work at this, even though this is not part of my yard. I’d love to see both grow and do well. As you can see it’s a losing battle.

These are trying to grow under that mound of vines in the photo above.

Vines covering tree

A banana pepper plant has died, and the other peppers don’t look so good. So it’s a depressing start to the day for me. I think I’ll stay inside.

The Maypop Plants Have Caterpillars

Caterpillars seen on the Maypop plants. These are from the orange, Gulf Fritillary.

This morning, while making my rounds in the garden, I noticed three caterpillars on the Maypop (Passionvine, or Passionflower).

I started these plants from seeds purchased from Johnny Butterfly Seed. The plants are still small and have been growing for only a few months. It’s the first time I’ve seen caterpillars on them.

Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on Maypop / Passionflower vine

The orange caterpillars with black hairs are from the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. The caterpillars of the Variegated Fritillary look very similar. I’m guessing they are from the Gulf variety. I’ve recently seen the orange butterflies in my yard.

Below is an excellent photo of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. Image source is linked beneath the photo. I rarely get a good photo of butterflies, but this is exactly what they look like.

Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay

Whenever I see a butterfly in my yard, I run to grab my Butterflies of Central Florida pamphlet to identify it. I already know the Monarch, Gulf Fritillary, Zebra wing, Black Swallowtail, and Giant Swallowtail. All the others send me searching for their names.

Butterfly pamphlet
Butterflies of Central Florida pamphlet
Inside the pamphlet

The Butterflies of Central Florida pamphlet (paid link to Amazon) has 11 pages of photos with information. I bought mine at the local nursery.

This little waterproof, laminated pamphlet contains photos of the butterfly and its caterpillar or larvae, with its name. It also has their size (wingspan), time of year when they fly, and their preferred host plant / plants. I had thought that some of the images were moths, but I think they are all butterflies.

I like that the host plant is listed. That way, if you want more butterflies, simply plant the host plant they need.

As far as these caterpillars go, I’m wondering if they will disappear like all the Monarchs seem to. If not, I wonder how much of these plants they will consume!

End of Summer Garden Clean Up

It is the beginning of September and my end of summer garden clean up is underway. I happily pulled up all the Seminole pumpkin vines. I managed to haul in my huge harvest (not) of three little pumpkins. Two of them have holes from something trying to bore in. I’m so over the vines that…

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My First Moringa Tree Drumstick Bean

Two Moringa trees are growing in my backyard. I’m in Central Florida and the trees grow great all summer, but slow down the remainder of the year. Hurricanes, or strong wind, will knock these trees over. I had to cut mine last year because it fell over the garden. New stalks have grown and I…

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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 on one of the networks, and focused on a young couple who began a huge flower farm in Washington state.

Their farm is impressive, and they have turned it into a thriving flower business. From what I can tell, the husband is behind the scenes doing all the heavy lifting, while his wife, Erin, does the social stuff, writing of books, and poses for photos. Photography of her holding humongous bouquets appears to be their trademark.

pale yellow dahlia flower like a star
My Dahlia has pale yellow flowers

Growing From Dahlia Seeds, Year One

I put the dahlia seeds into a shallow clay pot. I’d never grown dahlias, and had no idea how to do it. I’d always heard that dahlias were tough to grow. Between that and the fact that the seeds came from Washington, I honestly did not think anything would happen.

When I lived in New Hampshire a local farm sold them out of the greenhouse. Greenhouse plants generally mean they like it warm. But I bought a dahlia plant and put it in my yard. It died. This added to my doubts.

The Floret seeds came with a little booklet full of information about growing Dahlias, Zinnias, and Celosia. These three were the seed types my daughter sent. Floret also has a whole page online about How to Grow Dahlias From Seed.

So the first year my seeds became small, scraggly dahlia plants. They grew about 4-5 inches tall in the shallow pot. When the season was over I pulled them up. They had some tubers at the bottom. Surprise, surprise!

In the booklet that came with the seeds, Erin (the writer) said that she stores her tubers in a cool place in ziplock bags. I was not going to bother with that. All I had was possibly the fridge for storage. So I yanked out the little plants with their tubers and tossed them into the compost barrel. I know, I am awful.

Unexpected Dahlia Plants, Year Two

After months went by and I grew my “winter” crops here in Florida, it was time to ready the gardens for Spring growing. As I dug through the dirt in my compost bin, I found the dahlia tubers just laying at the side! They still looked okay, and I figured I’d just put them into the ground for the heck of it. And they grew. I never even marked where they were planted and now I am only guessing about some of them. Like the photo in the center below. I’m pretty sure it’s a Dahlia.

yellow flowering dahlia in florida garden
Yellow flowering dahlia
dahlia growing in pot
Dahlia, I think
dahlia seedlings from tubers
Seedlings from tubers

I now have some pretty nice dahlia plants growing! One is tall, and flowering with pale yellow flowers. I had expected the fluffy type bloom, but got this star shaped flower.

Year two, growing the tubers, is working out much better. I plan to leave the plants growing in the ground and see what happens over winter. If they go dormant and need temperatures that are not freezing, the plants should be okay. The ones in pots might just need transplanting to larger pots until next year. It is very hot to be gardening in July.

Flower Books From Floret

Amazon sells books all about the Floret flower farm (paid link). If nothing else, they are full of beautiful photos. Her books will show you how to grow, harvest, save seeds, and make arrangements from the flowers you grow. I do not have any of her books, and personally, I am not interested. I do not cut my measly little selection of flowers to make floral arrangements. I leave the flowers for the bees and butterflies.

Remember that the books are written by a woman who has a huge area of space, with greenhouses, and lots of help. Also, she lives in Washington, which is about as far (in the US) from Florida as it gets.

My Other Floret Flower Seeds

Along with the Dahlia seeds, I also received Zinnia and Celosia seeds. I grew the Zinnias and they were unimpressive. The colors were a pale blush pink. Zinnias, in my opinion, should be bold in color. I love my deep reds, bright oranges, and stunning pinks. I did not save any Floret zinnia seeds. This year I planted from my own saved seeds, and bought a few others.

four zinnia flowers border divider image
Zinnias in my 2025 garden

However, the Celosia were another story! Holy cow, these things are prolific. Celosia is another plant I was totally unfamiliar with, and let me tell you, they are beasts! Apparently they love the Florida climate and the bees LOVE the fluffy flowers. I will be writing a page about them soon.

Celosia flowers
Celosia – new to the garden, 2024

In Conclusion

The secret to successfully growing things is this: Toss seeds somewhere, ignore them, treat them badly, expect nothing, and see spectacular results. (I am only partly kidding.)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a story about your growing adventures in the comments.

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Monitoring Native Milkweed Growth For Florida’s Monarchs

I began filling my yard with various types of native milkweed this year. Here is an update on how they are doing, and which I prefer so far.

After I watched a new Monarch butterfly adapt to his new wings and fly away, I made the decision to get myself more Milkweed. So, I planted seeds, bought a few plants, and mail-ordered others. Now we are into the hot month of July. I’ve been monitoring the growth of all varieties. Here is my update.

Monarch butterfly
Monarch butterfly

This is the butterfly that emerged from the chrysalis on my Rosemary plant. Most photos were of the closed wings and I only got these two of the bright orange side.

Update: The Milkweed Plants

Milkweed plants can be found locally. At the Farmer’s Market I found lots of the tropical variety. This is not native to Florida, but it grows great here. A few years ago I didn’t know any better and bought two of these plants. They were tall and healthy looking. Then, I read that tropical milkweed is bad for Monarchs!

Even though I paid good money for those plants, I never planted them and they went into the compost pile. Somehow some of the seeds took root and I have two tropical milkweed plants in the yard. One is very large. Ever since it began to grow last year, it has been host to butterflies, caterpillars, the milkweed bug, aphids, and ladybugs. I’ve also read that maybe this type of milkweed is not so bad after all. It needs to be cut back in Fall, if you grow it.

Monarchs on the milkweed!
Big milkweed plant
Tropical variety

My local plant nursery also carries milkweed. I bought a white swamp variety (see photos below) and it’s now in the ground. At the nursery, many of the plants didn’t look too great. They were covered in aphids, but aphids love milkweed, so I can’t really blame the nursery.

Be sure to buy the milkweed early in the year to establish a good root system before winter when the native types go dormant.

white swamp milkweed
White swamp milkweed
white flowering swamp milkweed
Aphids
seed pods on white swamp milkweed plant
Late June – seed pods

Update: Milkweed Grown From Seed

Most of the milkweed that I grew from seeds this year are still pretty small. I’ve had caterpillars on a few, which ate down the leaves. So, that didn’t help.

The varieties I grew from seed are; orange tuberosa (orange butterfly weed), sandhill, and whorled. They are all growing well, but slowly. I particularly love the thin leaves of the Whorled variety and look forward to seeing how it turns out.

Whorled milkweed
Whorled milkweed
Another Monarch caterpillar
Chow time
Milkweed varieties in pots
Milkweed
Native milkweed seedlings
Seedlings

The Sandhill milkweed is growing very slowly. I only have two pots, and decided to put one into the ground.

Sandhill milkweed – July 2025
Begun from seeds

Update: The Mail Order Milkweed

The four mail order swamp milkweed plants are quite large. I planted two in my hibiscus garden, one near the house downspout, and one in the back garden. None have flowers yet. I’ve seen the occasional caterpillar on them. One is now showing signs of blooming!

swamp milkweed
Pink swamp milkweed
Pink swamp milkweed
Monarch caterpillar on swamp milkweed
pink swamp milkweed buds
July flower buds
swamp milkweed in the garden
swamp milkweed
Florida native milkweed growing alongside zinnias and celosia

Milkweed Warnings

Milkweed tends to be poisonous. Anyone who has animals that might eat it, should consider this. It is toxic to livestock.

Milkweed is a magnet for aphids. This means that milkweed will also draw in the ladybugs. That’s a good thing! Whenever you see lots of aphids on the plants, don’t get too upset. Wait and see if they are taken care of by nature.

Advice on Buying

Now that I have grown native, Florida milkweed from seeds, mail-order and nursery plants, here are my thoughts on buying. If I had the space and wanted more milkweed, this is what I would do.

  • Buy from a local nursery, if they have native plants that look pretty good.
  • Order from The Grower’s Exchange. These are by far the best looking plants of all my native milkweed. The tropical milkweed plant is huge, but it is not native.
  • Order seeds for new varieties. The Sandhill and Whorled are pretty cool.
  • I wouldn’t bother again with the Orange Tuberosa. I’m not thrilled with these plants. They are leggy and saggy. Some have leaves that have turned brown, and that could be due to too much water. They like it dry. They are not fast growers (from seed), and not very good-looking. They might look a lot better by next year, if they survive. Maybe buying plants, and not starting from seed, would be the way to go with this one. I’m going to see what they do.
  • Won’s be buying any Tropical milkweed variety. I’ll manage the ones I have by cutting back in Fall. The milkweed bugs have taken care of removing the seed pods! I think they suck the juices out of the pods because every pod is gone.
Tropical milkweed flowering with monarch butterfly
Volunteer Tropical milkweed with Monarch butterfly

Don’t worry if you have some tropical milkweed in the yard. Recognize it by the two-colored flowers. Right now, it’s the only milkweed flowering in my yard. And the Monarchs are using it for food.

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Pretty Flowers in the June Garden

Lots of flowers are beginning to bloom in June. Here in central Florida we have a jump on growing, but look forward to growth just the same.

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.

pale yellow dahlia flower
Dahlia
red zinnia flower
Zinnia
red zinnia flower
Zinnia
orange zinnia flower
Zinnia
tow pink zinnia flowers
Zinnia
false dandelion
False Dandelion
Seminole pumpkin flower
Seminole pumpkin flower
Spiderwort purple flowers
Spiderwort
purple holy basil flowers
Holy basil flowers
yellow cosmos
Cosmos
yellow cosmos wit dark edges on petals
Cosmos
orange cosmos
cosmos

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.

bromeliad flower
Bromeliad
pink flowering hydrangea plant
Hydrangea shrub
pink hydrangea flower
Hydrangea flower

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.

More to read on this blog:

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