Hydrangeas Blue

Caladiums and Impatiens Flower Garden Under the Trees

When I bought my house nearly 2 years ago, there was a little flower garden under the trees out front. I neglected it and it became overgrown very quickly. I’m not inclined to work outside in the heat, but the other day I decided a quick fix was in order. The garden is small, so the work would be minimal. We had brick pavers leftover from the building of the patio, so I used them to create a new border to hold the additional dirt needed.

I’m not yet very good with my Florida plant names, but the ones with the colorful, pointed leaves are Caladium. The link to Eden Brothers calls them “bulbs”. Mine came out of a pot so didn’t look like bulbs to me.

The white leaves are called “Florida Moonlight”. I don’t know the name of the pink-leafed one, but they add lots of interest in the yard. They love heat and humidity, which explains why they do so well here.

Also in the background around the tree are the thin leaves of the Variegated Flax Lily. I spent a lot of time removing lots of dead leaves from them. Even without attention they continued to grow, so I would say they are very hardy plants. Now that I have given them some attention, the lily is blooming. Each plant has tiny white flowers on stalks among the leaves.

little white flowers — Little stalks of white flowers on the Varigated Lily

When I first moved in here I bought a bunch of New Guinea Impatiens and put them in the garden by the front door. The brightly colored flowers add continuous color to the landscape. It turned out those annuals lasted nearly a year. The very cold nights in January finally froze most of them. Because they did so well, I bought a few more to put under the tree.

University of Florida plants list for the shade.

The purple flowering plant which is now under the tree is still in the short fabric pot. It is a Mona Lavender Plectranthus. I bought it because it was pretty, and I especially love the deep green of the leaves.

Now that I am researching this plant, I have discovered it needs some shade and is a perennial in warm climates. It seems that I have chosen a good spot for it to grow under the tree. I moved the fabric pot and did not dig up this plant. The potted Mona Lavender is now part of the shade garden and no one can tell it’s in a pot!

short grow bag — Plectranthus, Mona Lavender

Because planting around the base of a tree can be difficult because of roots, fabric gardening pots can be super helpful.

shade garden — The purple flowering plant is in a fabric pot.

All my new plants were purchased at the Home Depot. I also bought more organic garden dirt, and added blood meal and black mulch.

In my part of central Florida, plants can be killed in winter. When freezing temperatures are coming overnight I will have to cover all these plants to keep them from dying.

Cut Worms, Pill Bugs and Squash Vine Borers Invade My Space

My little garden has been growing like mad, but now the cut worms and other creatures are making a mess of it.

Cut Worms

I’ve seen black worms eating leaves, and they are not picky which plant they attack. These are the cutworms – pictures below. Cutworms can also nip a new seedling at the base and kill the entire plant, but these are concentrating on the leaves.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.39 PM — Black spots are tiny worms

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.23 PM — Small worms huddled together

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.30.32 PM — Tiny cutworms living underneath a cucumber leaf

It turns out getting rid of the cutworm is easier than getting rid of the other pest, the pill bug. I can pick the worms off the plants. The large ones are fairly easy to spot, and my garden is small. I plopped them into my tray bird feeder and the cardinals came and had a meal!

Pill Bugs

My other problem is all the tiny bugs, which I believe are Pill Bugs. They are everywhere from huddled along the wooden sides of the raised bed, to deep down under the soil. And I’ve found them munching on my cucumbers too.

At first I thought these were a form of the cutworm. These bugs range from tiny to fingernail size. I thought they were harmless, but have found them eating the vegetables, so they need to go.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.51.52 PM — Along the inside edge of the raised bed

As I was inspecting the garden, I found colonies of the pill bug along the edges of the garden. Too many to pick off. And as I dig, I find more underground!

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.37 PM — Single pill bug

I’m always looking for organic, natural ways to deter destructive bugs because I don’t use harmful sprays in my yard.

I read that the cutworm will eat corn meal and that will kill it. I’m hesitant to use cornmeal because of the raccoons that visit my yard each night. I don’t want them digging through my garden because they smell corn!

One site suggested using Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. I just happened to have some of that! It’s made of crushed fossils which cut open bug that crawl across it which causes them to die. I sprinkled it over the dirt in my garden paying attention to the edges.

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.28 PM — Pill bugs roll into a ball when disturbed

Screen Shot 2018-06-01 at 2.52.53 PM — Bug on the cuke – hard to see, but he’s there a little left of center.

Besides these two destructive pests, I’ve got worms boring into my cucumbers and summer squash. While I was outside dealing with these bugs, an orange wasp (it’s really a moth, but looks like a big bee) was buzzing around my garden. Come to find out it is a squash vine borer moth looking to lay it’s eggs in my garden! The link has a photo of what those eggs look like.

The link above will give you lots of info about how to prevent the borer moth from laying it’s eggs all over the vegetables.

One idea is to use a Floating row cover. If the moth can’t get to the crops, it can’t lay the eggs.

Another suggestion which I found to be a simple try is to place a yellow bowl of water in the garden to attract the moth and drown it.

Troubles With Worms in the May Vegetable Garden

I would ordinarily consider May to be the beginning of vegetable growing season, but already I am giving up on one of my tomato plants and the summer squash. Worms are doing a number on everything else, and I am not sure it’s worth having a garden at this point.

Almost as soon as I planted the squash I had trouble with blossom end rot. I began watering less, and added a fertilizer with calcium.

I managed to pick two very small squash, but that is it. Other than those two, every squash that has grown, on both plants, has wizzled up and rotted. One squash plant has no flowers and no squash. The other has flowers and little squash, but all the squash are doing the same thing.

summer squash plant with yellow flowers — The summer squash began fine, then went downhill

I will be pulling up the plants and putting something else in the fabric bags. I do have zucchini seeds which I may try. Summer means fresh squash to me, and I hate that I can’t seem to grow it here.

Tomatoes should be easy to grow here in Florida. Tomatoes like sun and lots of water. Of the two plants I bought, one is a “celebrity” which is still doing okay. Currently it has around 8 tomatoes growing.

The other plant didn’t even have a name, and that one has bit the dust. The leaves began to turn brown and then the green tomatoes are rotting and falling off the vine.

I’ve grown tomatoes for many years, and very successfully, in New Hampshire. Just one year I had a problem with late blight. I don’t have blight this time, but I don’t know what the issue is. Honestly, I think the plant may have simply been bad stock. I hate having to buy my vegetables from a big box store.

Also I have been overrun with cutworms. They are eating the leaves of nearly every plant I have in the garden. I started picking them off by hand, but many of the leaves are already chewed. Being more vigilant will help, I hope. It’s been very rainy, which keeps me inside. Garden pests can get out of control if they are not caught quickly.

These worms are eating everything from the cucumber leaves to the tomatoes, basil and pepper plants. Cutworms can also cut off the new stems of seedlings. I don’t have that problem.

The squash and cucumbers have another kind of worm which bores into the vegetable and makes it mushy. They also eat through the stems which makes the rest of the vine droop and die, like in my photo. For more info on growing cucumbers and dealing with the pickleworm, read the post at the Central Florida Garden blog. It seems there haven’t been too many newer posts, but I intend to search it for useful information.

All in all, I am disappointed in my May garden. The orange ruffle hibiscus still has fuzzy mites on the leaves even though I have sprayed and trimmed it way back. I’ve seen this same circular white ring on the backs of some of my pepper plants. That is all I need! I didn’t have half these problems in the North. No wonder I don’t see farms around here!

Why I Remove the Peat Pot When Planting Seedlings

From the time I first began buying plants from Pell’s Nursery in Osteen, Florida I was told to “rough up” the roots when the plant was removed from the pot.

I’m talking plastic pots here, which are the way big plants usually come. Often the plant is a bit root bound from growing in a container. In order for the plant to do well when it’s in the ground, the roots need to know they can now grow outwards.

Some plants with thick roots can actually be sliced, or cut to train them to spread. You do this at a few intervals around the root and dirt ball before it’s set into the ground. The Pell family gave me good advice and I always had excellent luck when adding their trees and bushes to my Florida landscape. Their planting suggestion was a good one.

Screen Shot 2018-05-13 at 8.17.22 AM — Hot pepper plant from store

These days little seedlings are often sold in biodegradable, plantable pots, which will disintegrate in the dirt. We are told to plop the whole thing (minus the bottom, says the label) into the ground. Easy-peasy, no muss, no fuss.

I don’t like it. Why would I want a pot in my garden? And what is it really made of? I also believe it inhibits plant growth. “Peel off bottom of pot for optimum root growth” – it says this on the plastic. So imagine if you let the roots around the sides have that optimum growth chance as well!

In short, it’s not necessary. Treat it like a regular pot and remove it.

Screen Shot 2018-05-13 at 8.17.15 AM — Everything removed and ready to plant

I always remove the peat pot when I plant something purchased at the store (in my case the Home Depot). I do this because it releases the roots so they can instantly grow into the garden dirt in a natural way. I see no reason to add a pot to the garden soil. It’s just as easy to remove the plastic wrap and the pot.

This type of pot is often used for starting seeds. When I tried this when growing things for my northern garden, the pots began to turn moldy! So they aren’t necessarily a good choice for that either.

Screen Shot 2018-05-13 at 8.17.05 AM — New little pepper plant

By the way, I’ve found that hot pepper plants are one of the easiest types of vegetable to grow.

Pepper Plant Beasts Among the Greenery

One of my favorite garden plants is the bell pepper I planted over a year ago. Apparently here in Florida vegetable plants just go on and on. The pepper survived some pretty cold nights (below freezing temps) over the winter, and has come back stronger than ever.

Besides giving me some nice juicy peppers to eat, it is home to some special “beasts” that are common to this area.

I see lizards all the time scampering around my garden. Skittle the cat catches them, but seldom kills them. She simply likes to play with them. Often I see them without tails (which grow back) and figure they lost it when Skittle pounced.

This one is a brown anole, and I see them much more often than the green anole. After reading the Wikipedia article, I guess I know why. The brown one is an invasive species and eats the green one!! This thing really is a beast. It used to be that all I ever saw were the green lizards, but come to think of it, I don’t see them any more. I don’t see many green tree frogs either, so what has happened to those?

Florida is always changing, and usually NOT for the better.

There is a tree frog that seems to change sleeping spots from the garden to the umbrella to the hose holder. Is it the same frog? I only ever seem to see one at a time. Usually he sits on the bars beneath my table umbrella. The other day he spent the whole day tucked between the hose rolls on the garden hose holder. Each time I watered I was careful not to squish him.

As I was checking out my peppers the other day, there he was. Tucked in under a leaf and sitting on top of a big pepper. I think he is a Pine Woods Tree Frog. But it could be the Cuban Tree Frog… hope not. I’ll have to get a better look at him.

tree frog pepper plant — Tree frog napping on my pepper

Skittle the Cat is not hanging out on the pepper plant, but she has always loved snooping through the greenery of a garden. Her happy place these days is sleeping beneath the big leaves of the eggplant. It’s where she takes her cat naps between hunting lizards and getting into other mischief.

Potato Comparison – Why We Love to Eat Home Grown Vegetables.

Short and sweet, this photo compares a fresh dug red potato to one from the grocery store.

garden potato — Which red potato is fresh from the garden?

For some reason I am having a lot of trouble growing summer (yellow) squash here in Florida. Maybe it’s too hot, too humid, or something else. But I have had 2 small squash, and they were the sweetest, most delicious squash I ever ate.

Everything fresh from the backyard garden tastes a hundred times better than the bland, old stuff from the grocery store. I just had to take that potato photo when I saw the beautiful bright red color of my fresh-dug potatoes. Unfortunately most of them were really small because worms ate the potato leaves, so I dug them up early.

Potatoes are easy to grow if you have the space to grow them. Unfortunately I do not.

Thank you for sharing!

Cut Worms

Pill Bugs

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!