I’m not there yet, but soon I will be learning to grow veggies in Florida. I’m quite aware of the central Florida climate, as I lived there for over twenty years. I didn’t have much time to grow my own vegetables but I plan to do a lot of that once I move back.
I’m wondering how well certain things will grow, and if there is no point in even trying to grow crops that prefer it cool. I have a good, informative gardening book, but it doesn’t say too much about choosing crops for Florida.
So I searched for Florida vegetable gardening blogs. A well-written blog can be better than a book. Personal experience with local gardening can be extremely helpful. I’m coming across a lot of blogs that prefer to show off their tropical shrubbery and well-manicured landscapes and fancy backyards, but have little in the way of helpful information about choosing and growing vegetables.
Before they even flower this year, I will have to say good-bye to my hydrangeas. I may be lucky enough to see the buds form, but I will be gone by July when the flowers open.
As is so predictable with my nomadic lifestyle, I am moving on after living in my house for five years. It’s a record really. Since I moved north in 2005, it’s the longest I’ve lived in of any of the places I’ve tentatively called “home”.
I’ve added a number of hydrangea plants to the small yard over the years, and they are all doing pretty well. Little green shoots are just beginning to appear, but once the weather warms up the plants will grow quickly. Not quickly enough for me to enjoy the big white-to-green flowers of the Limelight variety, or to see the Pinky Winky’s white blooms change to pink. And I wonder if the Endless Summer blue variety will have more flowers this year than last.
After the winter months of 2015, my perennials seemed to suffer. Some plants never came back, and the ones that did, seemed to be less wonderful than usual. But this winter was so mild, I am thinking that the hydrangeas will have lots of blooms. I especially hope that the blue flowers will be prolific. Last year I had a few small flowers at the base of the bush (see the photo). Of course, I will never know. I’ll be far away in the deep south, beginning a new garden in a new place.
I feel like Johnny Appleseed, except my name would be something else related to planting and moving on. I can’t think of a good name. Pam the traveling gardener, or maybe Root-less, is more appropriate.
So the yard I’ve worked to make into a beautiful place will now be passed on to new home-owners. I have no idea if they are gardeners, or if they will walk around enjoying the flowers that bloom in their new yard. I hope so.
I doubt they will realize the work it took to create the beauty they will see, but I do hope they will enjoy it. The peace and quiet I knew of sitting in the shade of the big oak out front, watching the clouds drift past the rooftop, while my cats explore in the grass nearby, is something I will miss greatly.
I’ve known some of the most peaceful times of my life just sitting alone in this yard, drinking a glass of wine, and appreciating what I have. I always knew it wouldn’t last, because that is how it is. Because I know that, I appreciate it all the more.
Soon this blog will be filled with the gardening adventures of my southern life. I never grew many vegetables when I lived in Florida before, but this time I plan to figure it out. And I am familiar with growing many tropical plants. I can’t wait to have camellias, hibiscus, crepe myrtle and jasmine growing in my new place. I may even try to grow hydrangeas!
So stay tuned. Once the move is done…… I’ll be back.
After the super mild winter (thank you God!) we are already seeing signs of Spring here in the northeastern US. That mean getting ready to grow our veggies. Many people will be starting their seedlings soon, if they haven’t already. I believe most people wait until April since our last frost date is June 1st. Of course after having temperatures of 60 and even 70 in early March, gardeners will be chomping at the bit to get the ground planted.
It’s going to be tough to wait if this fabulous weather sticks around for long. Already I see my tulips poking up from the ground. Last week I noticed that the Lenton Rose has lots pink buds down among the leaves!
Usually the ground is still covered in snow at this time of year. But the ground was barely ever totally covered in snow. That is very unusual. So the plants are most likely ahead of themselves with the soil soft and moist instead of frozen solid.
I will not be able to do much gardening this year because I am selling my house. I can’t move until at least June, so that will give me time to see most of the perennials bloom (Peonies!) before I have to say good-bye to the yard I have worked on for the past five years. And there are never guarantees that a house will sell quickly, but I am hoping the good price I am asking will mean a quick sale.
I’ll miss my northern yard, but I’ll have pictures to remind me of the fun I’ve had watching my hydrangeas bloom each year. And I will still blog about gardening, but it will be from the south, where gardening is a bit different.
But I will still be thinking of gardening, and creating garden related products for my DustyFarmPaper store at Zazzle. The garden peppers postage stamp up top is one of the new products. And have you heard that the price of postage will actually drop soon? I don’t’ know about you, but I still use snail mail quite a bit. I will be making more vegetable themed stamps and other products too. In fact I have begun a collection just for gardeners.
Once I get settled into a new place in Florida, I will be writing more, but until then I have the fun job of packing to keep me busy. Thanks for reading!
What better time to share my end-of-summer flower photography than in the freezing cold month of January? I began this post back in September but got side-tracked. So now I can post my photos of one of my favorite flowers.
I happen to love the bloom of the Pinky Winky shrub. The flower is so interesting with it’s combination of open and closed petals in colors that range from dark pink to white. The cone shape grows longer and longer as the coloring changes.
This perennial has consistently created the most blooms of all the types I grow. We’ve had a bit of a drought here in the northeastern US over the summer, but the plant never wilts. Bees love the flowers of the Pinky Winky too. For this reason it might be best planted away from sitting areas. I don’t mind bees, but some people like to avoid being near them. I feel good having such a lovely bee-feeder in my yard.
Pinky Winky Flower
I had a tree fall and get stuck up in neighboring trees and I had to have it taken down for safety reasons. It was near my driveway, and when the guys cut it and pulled it down, it landed partially on my Pinky Winky! A branch broke off, and a few flowers, but otherwise the perennial survived. This poor plant always seems to be in the wrong place.
Now that summer is behind us and we’re in the midst of winter, it’s nice to be reminded of what waits for us in spring. Seeing the first green stems burst through the ground, and early flowering plants like the Lenton Rose, remind us of the big hydrangea blooms to come.
The huge blooms of the limelight hydrangea change from white to pale green to pink.
One hydrangea that has cone-shaped, panicled flowers is the limelight variety. I’m using my own photos on this post to show the stages of the limelight hydrangea flower, as it grows from spring through the fall season. All pictures on this page were taken from the same flowering shrubs in my front yard, but throughout their growth period.
Hydrangeas can produce some of the most spectacular light green flowers, and the limelight does not disappoint. Brides love this flower to accent any wedding theme, and it’s often chosen to create stunning centerpieces.
In spring, this perennial sends out tall stems. Eventually buds form, with many little clusters of flowers shooting out along the end of the branch. This is the panicle, which makes this a hydrangea paniculata. These tiny clusters will each grow and merge to form a resulting, huge single bloom.
Panicle Hydrangea Buds
The flowers are the greenest when they are first growing. The buds open from the bottom to the top, creating a flower that is a combination of soft white to light green.
Filling In, The Flower Expands
My limelight shrubs are fairly new to the yard. They were planted in 2012, and I am still learning about how to prune and grow them successfully. Fortunately hydrangeas are very hardy, and even if you do something ‘wrong’ they will continue to grow nicely.
White Hydrangea Flowers
Once the blooms fill out they are mostly white, and big and puffy looking. This hydrangea creates some of the most stunning blooms you’ll ever see.
As summer passes, the white flowers begin to turn pale pink and become darker during the autumn months. They can be cut to use in an inside arrangement, or left to dry on the bush (see my last photo on this page).
Big White Limelight Bouquet
My photos above and below show the pink-tinted hydrangea flowers as they appear in the fall season. The flowers are massive, and the petals that were once a creamy white are now turning partially pale green and mauve pink.
Fall Limelight Blooms
My plants are fairly young. As the plants age, the stems will fill in and become stronger. I’ve seen them staked to hold the flowers upright, as they are heavy and tend to flop downward.
The Limelight hydrangea can be pruned into a little tree, but that takes skill and patience. I have never tried to create a hydrangea tree, but they are stunning accents to any landscape. The flowers hold up well into fall and become dried garden decor.
October Limelight – Dried Flower With a Late, White Bloom
Hydrangeas are fun to grow. You just never know what they may do, like pop out a new bloom in October! When all the other flower heads were dried and brown, suddenly a new white flower emerged from my Limelight (photo above).
I hope you have enjoyed my photos, and maybe I have inspired you to grown one (or more) of these lovely hydrangea shrubs.
Now, would you like to see the stages of the Pinky Winky blooms?
Hydrangeas with cone-shaped flowers are of the paniculata variety. In my yard I grow the ‘Limelight’ and ‘Pinky Winky’ which are both paniculata grandiflora. This type of hydrangea can be grown as a bush or shaped into a tree over time.
The flowers are long and sometimes really huge in size. My limelight bushes have produced some amazing white to pale green blooms that are stunning. And they did this the first year after they were planted! Hydrangeas are very hardy and fast blooming. You won’t have to wait for years for them to produce showy blooms. The exception to that may be fewer and later blooms after a hard winter. I have that happening in my yard this year. (See Pictures of My Hydrangea Plants 2015)
The Limelight Hydrangea in Summer
Last year the blooms on the Limelight hydrangea were huge, and as the Fall season approached, the blooms began to turn light pink. They were just gorgeous.
Because this type of hydrangea flowers on long stems, many people trim them into trees, with one or a few main branches that grow tall with hanging branches.
Do a Google search for the paniculate grandiflora and you’ll see many lovely images. The picture below shows the same flowers shown in the picture above, just later in the season.
Late Summer Limelight Flowers Turning Pink
Possibly my favorite, the Pinky Winky is also a paniculata variety which produces white flowers that gradually turn dark pink.
Here is one of my photos of a little Pinky Winky bouquet made up of cut flowers before they turned pink. Please click this link to see the progression of the bloom growth and color change in the photos on a previous post.
Most flowers are pink by late summerWhite Hydrangea, Pinky Winky Bouquet
There are many other types of paniculatas, and the Pee Gee is very lovely with white flowers. I bought one, but it was crushed and never had the chance to grow. I can’t give you a personal account of it, but the Pee Gee is loved by many hydrangea fans. And there are many more. Search for what will grow well in the climate where you live, and be sure to plant the paniculata hydrangea in a space that can accommodate it’s growth.
So the yard I’ve worked to make into a beautiful place will now be passed on to new home-owners. I have no idea if they are gardeners, or if they will walk around enjoying the flowers that bloom in their new yard. I hope so.
Hydrangeas Blue 