If it’s one thing I have plenty of, it’s coconuts. In my tiny yard, there are 12 coconut-producing palms — and because coconut palms are always producing coconuts, you could say that I have a lovely and large bunch of them.
But when is a coconut not a coconut?
My grandmother hated Florida — and she had no problem saying so. Just mention the Sunshine State and she’d routinely offer, without any coaxing, the following words.
“I hate Florida,” she’d say. “It rains on one side of the street, but not the other.”
My grandmother, by the way, never traveled to Florida. Never. Ever. All my she knew came courtesy of my grandfather, who did some basic training there before shipping off to Europe during World War II.
Simply put, I’m a fern fan.
I love the way their fiddleheads appear in spring, the graceful uncurling, and the slow, almost teasing reveal of the finely cut fronds. Let’s face it: ferns are the dancers of the garden, ballet and burlesque all at once.
A few words for Wordless Wednesday. . .
It always amazes me how wildlife finds a garden. It’s kind of like Field of Dreams — if you plant it, they will come.
This is one of those posts written at 3:00 am. I have a head cold and I’m awake. I couldn’t breathe — the congestion tide rolled back up into my sinuses and the only cure for me at the moment was gravity. So, I’m sitting up and thinking — and these are the middle-of-the-night ramblings of a stuffy, sleepy me.
I’m always stunned when something sneaks up on me in the garden. Not a snake or a bear, but a plant. I mean, I walk around the garden daily — as I’m sure all of you do — and I like to think that I notice most of what’s happening among the plants.
And then this happens — a bloom that wasn’t there yesterday is here today.
I went to the theater last night, a very small venue hosting a show of eight short vignettes. By the end of the fourth one, it was clear that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The air conditioner had stopped working — and in zone 10, that can be an issue.
At intermission, the small audience stepped outside into the 90-degree, steamy south Florida night air to cool off — and a sort of camaraderie blossomed among the theatergoers. We were all sweaty soldiers determined to see the end of the play, despite the sauna-like conditions inside.
That’s when I overheard one female audience member say to her friend, “It’s because it’s August. It’s like the worst month.”
For several nights, I kept my phone close by, waiting for a tonight’s-the-night text message from Neil, a neighbor who lives a few streets away. He was expecting, you see, and he hoped — as Joe and I hoped — that we could be there for the big moment when his night-blooming Cereus flowered.
This post has been a daunting task.
I was nominated for the Liebster Award, and the rules say I have to acknowledge my nominator and answer her 11 questions and nominate 5 to 11 blogs and provide my nominees with 11 questions.
When added together, that makes for a very lengthy post!
Recently, I’ve written about my love for my bros — my bromeliads. Among my reasons is the ease of propagation, usually via pups that sprout along the base.
Here, though, is another propagation technique, courtesy of the pineapple — the sweetest bro.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man 