florida

Repost: One Week In Two Zones

/ Kevin / 16 Comments

It was a gut-wrenching, heart-aching goodbye.  As we drove north on I-95, we watched spring disappear, its greens and blooms falling away with each passing mile.  And now, on a very cold spring day on Long Island, I am once again looking at a world of brown with only a few patches of green growth — a far cry from South Florida’s lush jungle.  So as I re-acclimate to my climate, I am thinking of a post from last year when I gardened in two zones in one week.  

Please, forgive me for this repost, but I am a sad gardener.  Just days ago, I tasted renewal — and this morning, I scraped ice from my windshield.  It hurts.  It really hurts.

Banana Leaf

One day, you’re on vacation in South Florida, gazing at the pattern of a banana leaf sunlit from behind (above) — and the next, you’re bundled up against the wind chill of Long Island.  After arriving home, I went through some random Florida photos and then walked around the yard on Long Island to make a comparison.  Can you guess which photos came from which zone?

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Field Trip: Color Crazy In Florida

/ Kevin / 18 Comments

Purple Queen

Purple Queen

When most people go on vacation, they take photos of family and friends on rollercoasters or at the beach or standing in front of some historical monument.  Not me, though.  I’d rather go for a walk and take photos of plants.  For starters, they really don’t fidget or get caught in mid-blink.  They also inspire and teach me, captivate and fascinate me.

Here are a few stolen moments with some beauties on a recent stroll around Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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Bloomin’ Update 36: Wish You Were Here

/ Kevin / 30 Comments

Joe, also known as “Joey Coconuts,” and I are spending Christmas week in South Florida.  When I tell that to people, their reactions usually fall into one of two categories.  First, there are those who would like to jump into my luggage.  Sure!  Then, there are those who wonder if a South Florida Christmas can even feel like Christmas.  It does, only it’s warmer.

The only moment when both groups are in agreement is when they stare, speechless, after I explain that Joe and I are going to Florida to do yard work.  Yes, that’s the perfect vacation — and since there isn’t too much time to write, I thought I would share some photos.

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Bloomin’ Update 31: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

/ Kevin / 28 Comments

Before I get into this post, I wanted to send out a special thanks to those of you who took the time to add a caption to the previous post.  Your creativity and humor were  wonderful treats after I arrived home and logged in to catch up on blog duty.  I’m still smiling and LOL-ing!

I’m not a fan of the Western.  I have always found the film genre too gritty, too violent, and too filled with underhanded, unsavory characters.  I like comedy, drama, melodrama, a soundtrack, and always a happy ending.

But when Joe and I arrived home at 3:00 a.m. after a marathon drive from Fort Lauderdale, we entered the house as if we were a couple of sun-baked cattle rustlers in our own Western.  Unshaven.  Sweaty.  Delirious.  Exhausted.  Even our mouths were tired as we spoke to on another with jaws that were just shy of clenched.  Ironically, our newly repaired covered wagon — I mean the car — was in better shape than we were!  Any thoughts or worries about my garden would have to wait until daylight — or at least until I was prepared to see daylight.

The forecasters, however, had other ideas about daylight.  It seems that the next few days would be filled with heavy thunderstorms, strong winds, and possible hail.  What’s a gardener in search of a happy ending to do? 

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Repost: The Sounds of Summer

/ Kevin / 12 Comments

 I’m still in South Florida, waiting for my car to be fixed.  The mechanic informs me that the transfer casing needs to be replaced and there is only one brand new part in the entire country and GMC cannot locate it.  There is, fortunately, a used part in Orlando that has arrived and just needs to be installed.

My mind is worried about my New York garden and the clean-up that is waiting for me there.  Three weeks is an awfully long time to be away, and I’m sure that there is mowing and weeding and staking to be done.

And my heart and prayers are in Colorado.  It seems silly, doesn’t it?  To be worried about car repairs and gardening when there is so much pain and absolute sadness surrounding the tragedy in Aurora.  With each news update, I long for simpler times.  Innocent times.  Times  when evil didn’t walk into a movie theater — or a school or a mall or a military base . . . and the only sounds to be heard came from life.

It’s positively steamy outside. I’m watching the sprinkler water the zinnias on the far side of the pool, and completely drowning out the sound of running water is the non-stop, rapid-fire droning chirps of the Cicadas. Some might consider the sound a nuisance or torture, but I find the chirping can trigger memories and it sparks my imagination.

As a kid, we always incorrectly referred to these buzzers as locusts — but no matter what we called them, no sound reminds me more of the dog days of summer than the Cicada’s song. It’s like a sizzling sound effect, perfectly accentuating the sun’s rays scorching the garden. A never-ending sizzle, that forces me to stand as still as the hot, humid air. As one chorus whines to an end, another starts up, and so on and so on.

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Bloomin’ Update 30: Night Fever

/ Kevin / 23 Comments

I know.  I know.  This was supposed to be the on-the-road post, the one where I post a picture and you write the caption and Joe and I drive back to New York.  The car, though, had other plans and is now sitting in a repair shop — which means the you-do-the-writing post will have to wait.

As will we — waiting for our car and for the arrival of Saharan dust.  Yes, you read that correctly.  A cloud of Saharan dust is making its way to South Florida.  Forecasters say the most noticeable effect will be a milky, hazy sky — nothing blue about it.  All I know is that it’s a little something extra to make the heat feel hotter.  I guess you could say it’s a dry heat, and how often can that be said in Fort Lauderdale?

So what should a couple of disheartened travelers do on a clear, dust-free night?  Take a walk, of course. 

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Repost: Lily’s Grand Opening

/ Kevin / 16 Comments

I’m still in South Florida and while here, I’m thinking of there — my Long Island garden.  Before Joe and I left, the bud of my Stargazer Lily was setting itself up to bloom.  I just know that by now, nearly two weeks since we left, I missed Lily’s grand opening — and divas hate that.  So in an effort to make amends with Lily, I offer you this repost.

The stars are ageless, aren’t they?

Let me first begin by saying that this is not the post that I had planned — but some plants tend to be divas. My initial idea was to give you a “Bloomin’ Update,” with a series of photos documenting the opening of a lily. My one and only lily that hasn’t been seen in years. To use a film reference, this lily is my very own Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard fame.

This post actually began long ago, well before there was a blog. I had planted three lilies in what I will call the perennial garden. In fact, the perennial garden was really my first attempt at gardening, and I felt the need to fill it with as many flowers as I could order, purchase, find, borrow, root. There was really no rhyme or reason. Regardless, the lilies bloomed beautifully, but their perfume was overpowering. At times, I wasn’t sure if I was smelling my yard or the funeral home that backs against the woods behind my property.

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Bloomin’ Update 29: How To Read A Palm

/ Kevin / 17 Comments

Based on readers’ comments from the previous post, I thought I would delve deeper into the wonders of Cocos nucifera, or the coconut palm.  Many northern gardeners had commented that either they had never really considered the seed-quality of a coconut or had never seen one sprout. 

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I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts

/ Kevin / 32 Comments

Florida?  In summer?  Are you nuts?

If you’ve read any previous posts, you already know the answer to that question.  But in this case, there is a reason to the madness.  In a nutshell — a coconut shell, that is — South Florida will someday be our new home.  About one month before Hurricane Andrew arrived in 1992, Joe and I purchased a house.  Each year since, we have traveled to Fort Lauderdale several times a year to do the most relaxing of vacation activities: yard work.  And as we go about our palm tree trimming and bundling and bagging of debris, we do a lot of planning and dreaming.

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Flora Fan Finds Flora Fun In Florida

/ Kevin / 18 Comments

We should have known that when we signed the papers for the house, that cluster of thunderstorms would have grown into a monster.

For twenty years now, I’ve been making a list.  One month before Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida, Joe and I purchased our retirement home – and ever since, I have worked on my list, editing it, adding to it, rethinking it. 

The list has to do with landscaping our retirement yard, which is pretty much a blank slate.  Over the years, we’ve planted palm trees – thereby giving us the basic garden structure.  But how do I fill in all of the open areas?   How do I adapt my very basic Long Island gardening knowledge to a subtropical zone? 

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