florida – Page 7 – Hydrangeas Blue

Finally, Growing Tomatoes Advice For the Florida Climate

As I was searching for some other gardening advice altogether, I came across a Florida gardening blogger who seems to have very useful information to share. Unfortunately it looks as if his blogging stopped a few years ago in 2015. Maybe he moved away to a better place.

I found a post with growing tomatoes advice which would explain why I have such a difficult time with tomatoes.

First of all he starts with seeds (Plant Your Tomato Seeds). I’ve been wondering if the fact that I buy seedlings from Home Depot (there is nowhere else I’ve found) is my biggest problem. He says store bought plants “are never very good”. I already suspected this.

Start planting seeds early enough to have seedlings ready for the garden by March first. He says to buy a combination of sizes, but tomatoes won’t grow very large in this climate. I’ve found that to be true as well. I don’t have the space for a lot of plants, but I can use my fabric bags.

Which Tomato Seeds to Buy?

The blogger I am referencing plants Hybrid Tomatoes only. I am not sure why, except that they are probably tougher than heirlooms. A hybrid is a cross-pollinated plant. The characteristics are better yield and disease resistance, among others.

In case you are interested in buying tomato seeds online: Organic Heirloom tomato seeds can be purchased at the Tomato Fest site. These are NOT hybrids. Heirloom tomatoes give the grower the option to save seeds to plant the following year. You can’t do that with hybrids.

Buy the most disease and pest resistant varieties. Look at package labeling for letters that follow the name of the tomato. See the key list of what that lettering means on this page at Gurneys. My packet above contains the letters VF which protects from wilt disease.

Indeterminates only – this means the tomatoes will continue to grow shooting out stems and growing tall all during the growing season. Indeterminates continue to set fruit while you pick ripe tomatoes. In other words, they just keep growing until something stops them. They need staking, whereas determinate varieties are more compact and can grow in pots.
**Note here: Indeterminates can grow to be 12 feet tall! I will need to re-think my staking. I suspect that in Florida they could easily grow to astounding heights. I can see the raccoons climbing my stakes and destroying my crops.

Pick Tomatoes Early

Letting tomatoes ripen on the vine is my preference, but the raccoons tend to pick them before I get to. My reference blogger picks his early and says they taste better when he lets them ripen indoors. His blog is helpful, but not easy to navigate, so use the “search” area.

He mentions planting some tomatoes later in the season, in the shade, in a new area, and they did well. Read about that at the bottom of this page where he “answers a question“.

I’m grateful for this info.

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.

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.

Air Plants Need Only a Branch to Grow

No dirt needed. Air plants seem to be just that – plants that grow in air. This is one of the coolest plants that grow in Florida. It is a type of bromeliad.

You may see air plants in the wild way up on the branches of oak trees. Or sometimes they grow off the side of the tree or closer to the ground.

Yesterday I happened to spot a small clump of air plants down inside my Schefflera. I thought it may have attached itself to the branch and wanted to get a photo. As I began picking the dead leaves off the plant, I realized it was not attached. It had fallen out of the nearby oak and lodged itself in the Schefflera.

I’m not sure which type of bromeliad this is. Could be the leatherleaf or broad needleleaf type. Below is a picture of the dried flower attached to the plant.

air plant flower — Air plant dried flower

The roots are used to attach itself to the host tree, which in this case would have been one of the tall oaks in my yard. The shape of the leaves funnel water, insects and other things down into a “tank” where minerals are absorbed to feed the plant. There is no need for dirt and this is why they can attach to a limb and exist happily there.

There is still a small oak branch which runs through this air plant. It must have broken off the tree in high winds and sent this air plant to the ground.

After Hurricane Irma I found a large air plant in the yard. I picked it up and put it in the low branches of a shrub. I hoped it would be okay, but the leaves began to fall off and eventually the whole thing fell apart. It was too damaged to survive, or didn’t have the right stuff to live. Maybe I should have set it some place else. It was beautiful.

I believe this one is called the “Giant Air Plant” according to the UF site (link below). It is now endangered thanks to the infiltration of the Mexican bromeliad weevil (and possibly hurricanes.)

Unfortunately people seem to think they should collect them as souvenirs. Also, with all the land clearing and building that goes on here, their natural habitats (trees) are being destroyed. Between that and the Mexican bromeliad weevil, which kills the plants, 10 of Florida’s 16 native bromeliad species is threatened or endangered. This is according to the University of Florida which has a page about Florida’s Native Bromeliads. Visit the page to see photos of the many different types found in the state.
The photo below shows a unique way to display a bromeliad and tropical plant collection in the yard.

old car used as plant stand — Photo credit: Pixabay

Brazilian Pepper Invasive Florida Plant

At the edge of my property a stand of trees, with winding branches and dark green leaves makes the perfect hideout for wildlife. I did think they were Dahoon Holly trees, but I was mistaken. They are invasive Brazilian pepper trees and have become a problem for Floridians.

This thick area of trees and shrubs is where the raccoons come from each night. It’s also where the zillions of stray cats walk as they pass through the yard.
I don’t know if the birds knew I wanted photos today, but they showed up in droves. Unfortunately I am not such a good wildlife photographer! I saw a bunch of grosbeaks gathered on a berry laden branch, and got this photo of a robin (center of picture) – not a good photo, I know. In fact, the many birds have nearly eaten all the berries!

Even as the berries give the birds food, it is also what helps to spread the growth of these trees. The birds spread the seeds.

So how to tell the difference between trees that have clumps of red berries? The Brazilian Pepper has 9 leaves and the leaves are dark green. The Dahoon Holly’s leaves are more true green and are fewer. At least, from photos I’ve seen, that looks like the difference. Also the pepper has that tangled mass of trunks, whereas the holly grows more like a regular tree.

The trunk can actually be split into many trunks, like in my photo below.

red berries of Brazilian pepper — Brazilian Pepper

branches, thicket underbrush — The thick growth prevents other plants from growing.

Screen Shot 2018-02-21 at 6.22.02 PM — Indian River at Edgewater, Florida

Lots of Brown Plants After Florida Freeze

A week or go ago here in central Florida we had about three nights in a row where temperatures got into the twenties. Tropical plants do not like a Florida freeze.
They can handle a short stretch of cold, but not the constant, ongoing cold. One day I went out to dump out the ice in the bird bath and filled it with new water – which froze over again. That is unusual. Daytime brings warmer temperatures, but not that day. It was too much for plants which love sun and heat.
The saddest example of death in the yard is my beautiful croton. I have a few “baby plants” started from it and they have survived the cold. If I have to I can replant.

dead croton in a barrel — This **was** a beautiful croton and hibiscus

These banana trees sprung up at the edge of my yard and I’ve watched them grow for the past year. I think the house behind me threw some old banana trees over into the woods and they simply grew. They were getting tall and looking good and then the hurricane hit. The wind shredded the long leaves on the banana tree. Now we’ve had cold which has turned all the shredded leaves brown. Poor thing doesn’t look too good now.

dying banana trees after freeze — Banana Trees

The New Guinea impatiens that have been growing in the front garden – and survived throughout last winter – are brown and wilted.

My hibiscus is planted right next to the house, which usually helps when cold temps set in. I also covered it on two of the really cold nights. That didn’t keep the entire front part of it from turning brown.

Hibiscus front part dead — Front part of hibiscus is brown and dead

The bougainvillea which had just recently begun to grow larger is now a spindly brown vine.

First my eggplant died along the top. I covered it, and that didn’t seem to do much good. After the second night of low temps the rest of the plant turned brown. I’m not too sad because it has given me only one eggplant. That’s it in the background of the picture below.

dead eggplant leaves after freeze — Eggplant is dead, but pepper lives on for now

I always believed that pepper plants loved heat, but this bell pepper plant is still nice and green when everything else has mostly died. I don’t know if it will continue to grow, but I hope so. I had been getting small green peppers from it fairly regularly.

I took a walk around my neighborhood the other morning and got this photo of an oak tree with a huge vine crawling up through the branches. I’d seen it before, but noticed this time that many of the big tropical leaves were brown.

big leaves in oak tree turned brown — Vine of big leaves growing up an oak tree

It is possible that these plants will come back. If the roots have not been killed, green will show up once again. The eggplant already has some little green leaves sprouting at the base of the plant.

I found a “Cold Hardy Plant List” for central Florida on the Central Florida Gardener site. I’ll have to look into it further when I decide to upgrade my landscape.

Which Tomato Seeds to Buy?

Pick Tomatoes Early

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for sharing!