Nitty Gritty Dirt Man

Repost: To All The Christmas Trees I’ve Loved Before

/ Kevin / 24 Comments

Adonidia Palm -- also known as the Christmas Palm.

Adonidia Palm — also known as the Christmas Palm.

If there’s snow falling on this WordPress blog, it must mean that it’s December — and since I’m in south Florida at the moment, I have a feeling these digital dots may be the closest I come to the white stuff this holiday season.

Take, for example, my recent trip to purchase a Christmas tree.

In recent weeks, large tents have popped up all over. It’s as if lots and lots of circuses have come to town. But under these big tops — necessary to protect the fresh trees from the heat of the sun — freshly bundled Christmas trees are lined up like soldiers, the smell of pine is everywhere, and Christmas carols play from the speakers.

It’s also 75 degrees — and I’m wearing shorts and sandals, which are a far cry from my typical bundled-up Christmas tree shopping gear, although I did add a sweatshirt to at least create the illusion that it’s chilly.

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Wordless Wednesday: Warm Thoughts

/ Kevin / 32 Comments

Potting Bench

It wouldn’t be a Wordless Wednesday without a few words.

For months now, Joe and I have been in south Florida so I can better manage some heart issues. Being a garden blogger without a garden has been a recurring theme in many of my recent posts.

While I’ve tried to keep myself busy with rooting some clippings and edging out beds, I just haven’t felt settled. My thoughts continually return to my potting shed, which has been dormant for too long.

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A Hat’s A Hat And That’s That

/ Kevin / 17 Comments

Hat

One of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make recently has had nothing to do with how my beds will look or what sort of mulch to use or which plants to purchase. No, my decision was much more complicated and personal than those trivial gardening matters.

I needed a hat.

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Making My Bed & Crying In It

/ Kevin / 33 Comments

Garden Bed

This is the start of the gardening season in South Florida, where the forecasters have proclaimed the end of the rainy season and the temperatures and humidity have dropped to more humane levels. For me, it’s a chance to make my bed, a garden bed in a yard that is absolutely bedless.

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For Canada. . .

/ Kevin / 6 Comments

Canada

Like much of the world, I am deeply saddened by the recent events in Canada.  My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who were lost, as well as for the spirit and strength of the Canadian people — some of whom are followers and readers of this blog.  As your national anthem proclaims:

“With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!”

My First Spring Day In Autumn

/ Kevin / 16 Comments

Leaves from my northern autumn.

Leaves from my northern autumn.

Part of my education process as a northern gardener living in southern Florida is trying to understand the subtle changes of the seasons. In a subtropical world, where seasons are marked as warm and hot, wet and dry, that is no easy task. Seasonal changes are much — MUCH — more subtle.

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Field Trip: Key West Garden Club

/ Kevin / 34 Comments

 

A toast to all gardeners.

A toast to all gardeners.

Someone once said, “Good things come in small packages.” I may not be positive about who should get credit for the phrase, but I’m pretty sure he or she must have been referring to Key West.

Measuring just 7.4 square miles, there’s a lot crammed onto this legendary Florida paradise — from Ernest Hemingway’s house to Fantasy Fest to the Audubon House & Tropical Gardens to the daily sunsets, often met with a liquid toast.

Tucked away among the touristy attractions is one of the last free admissions on the island: the Key West Garden Club at West Martello Tower. Since 1955, the garden club, through strokes of luck and vision, dedication and hardwork in the tropical sun, transformed a Civil War-era fort into a walled garden filled with native and exotic trees and plants.

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Field Trip: Audubon House & Tropical Gardens

/ Kevin / 19 Comments

Key West

Something strange happens to Florida as you drive toward the Keys. It begins to break apart.

At some point along US 1, the southern tip of the peninsula becomes a mosaic of land and water until it eventually becomes the Keys, a stretch of islands that geologists say are the visible portions of an ancient coral reef. A handful of these islands are linked together by a single highway — and the road leads to Key West.

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Repost: Lessons Learned From A 9/11 Survivor

/ Kevin / 20 Comments

IMG_2364

I think it’s safe to say that we all feel the world is falling apart.  By now, we’ve been bombarded with news stories of crime and climate change, disrespect and disillusionment, violence and epidemics, extremism and fanaticism, terrorism and war.  And now we have to come to grips with beheadings and crucifixions.  Our 21st-century life has been turned back hundreds and hundreds of years.

At moments like this, I want to retreat into my garden.  I feel safe there.

The sad truth, though, is that the world has always been a crazy place.  Just look at the history that isn’t too far in the past.  The Holocaust.  JFK’s assassination.  And MLK.  And RFK.  Son of Sam.  AIDS.  Oklahoma City.  9-11.

Yet, it is during these times of evil that so many people rise to the challenge to remind us that there is goodness in the world.  

As we approach another September 11 anniversary, I would like to revisit a post that I wrote several years ago.  It speaks of tremendous sadness, inspiration, and, most importantly, hope.  Hang in there, everyone.

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A Farm Grows In Fort Lauderdale

/ Kevin / 17 Comments

Flagler Village Farm

In the previous post, I mentioned that summer in South Florida was like living in a green desert: day after day of heat made hotter by oppressive humidity and afternoon downpours. It’s for these reasons that many gardeners retreat indoors, contenting themselves to look at their green world from behind glass.

Imagine my surprise — and delight — when I came across an oasis in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, a green space that was not only green but was still producing even in the blistering summer heat.

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