I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. For me, they create too much pressure — and within a week, they’ll be in the trash heap and I’ll be spending the rest of the year beating myself up because I didn’t go to the gym or lose weight or learn a new craft. Besides, in my world, each day gives us a chance to get a fresh start — hence, the sunrise photo at the top of this post.
This year, though, is different.
I long for hydrangea days.
As much as I love living and gardening in South Florida, I can’t help but deeply miss the hydrangeas in my New York garden. I loved photographing them from their first green buds in spring to the fullness of color during their bloom time to the their faded glory in fall to winter’s dried-brown clusters.
I’m not sure when my gardening mind turned to — for want of a better term — composted manure, but I’m pretty positive I know the exact moment I realized it. I was mowing the lawn, daydreaming while I worked, and an idea — one that was already well known to me, you, and everyone else, but seemed like a fresh discovery — popped into my head.
Trees can be grown from seeds.
This isn’t the post I had planned to write. That original post has to wait for another day because of Hurricane Dorian — and before I get into the meat of this post, please, understand that I am in no way making light of the situation in the Bahamas. That is tragic. That is devastating — and I’m not even sure those words are strong enough to fully capture what the people there have experienced and are continuing to face each day.
A long time ago— May, actually — in a galaxy far, far away— just outside of the front door — an alien-looking seed mustache from space appeared on the tip of a desert rose branch. That was the general gist of an earlier post — but after a couple of months, my sci-fi fantasy that is South Florida gardening has become, “Captain, the pod doors have opened.”
The only way I can really explain summer in Florida is that it’s a lot like winter up north. There, the cold weather means the garden slows down. Here, the hot weather means I slow down. There are some days, many days when it’s just too hot to move.
When it comes to fabulous flower faces, orchids are always the scene stealers. They’re the ones that get passersby to stop and stare. They’re the ones that get the awards and command top dollar at flower sales.
Not too long ago, Joe and I stopped into a local antique store. It was a Sunday and the store was supposed to be closed, but the owner had some paperwork to do. When she saw us peering in the window, she invited us in.
Now that we’ve just turned back our clocks, it seems like a perfect reason to turn back time on my garden — because if I could, the bed pictured above would have looked like this years ago.
For decades, Joe and I — first, as tourists; now, as residents — have looked around South Florida and said, “Florida, my Eden.” We’ve said it as we’ve marveled at the lush tree canopy of botanical gardens, as we’ve gazed at tables of flowers and fields of shrubs and trees in local nurseries, as we’ve walked about and worked in our own garden, and as I took photos for this post.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man 