Listening to your landscape

To have a more sustainable landscape, you need to listen...As a long-time gardener with a masters degree in botany, I was certain that I could garden in north Florida when my husband and I moved here in 2004. I've told this story before, but I was shocked and surprised at how wrong I was. Some Florida...

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Integrated pest management in the edible garden

Squash borers: Take action before they do damage.I ended up with some volunteer butternut squash vines from kitchen scraps buried in the garden. Normally, I would not be growing them during mid-summer, but we'll see how they do in our hot summer weather.One action item is to bury the base of the...

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Summertime, summertime...

Is it spring or fall?Several years ago, I purchased this native fall-blooming aster, but each year it has bloomed in both the late spring and early fall.  Its breaking of bud dormancy may be caused by the same length of day as its correct blooming time. Whatever its problem, we do enjoy its surprise...

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New book, book tour, and more

The Art of Maintaining a Florida Native LandscapeThe Art of Maintaining a Florida Native Landscape Yay! My new book is now available for preorder from Amazon. I've covered a wide array of topics, which I think have not been covered sufficiently in other books and online resources.List of Chapters1....

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Kohlrabi: a versatile cole crop

The weird stem enlargement is about the size of an apple...Kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea var. gongylodes) is one of the many cole crops (cabbage, kale, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and more), which have all been bred from just one plant species. Kohl is the German word for...

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Remarkable resurrection ferns

Resurrection ferns dried and hydrated.Resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides)While I'd seen spare populations of resurrection ferns when I lived in Maryland, I really became aware of them when I read "Light a Distant Fire," an historic novel about Osceola and the Seminoles by Lucia St. Clair Robson....

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Winter: a good time to remove invasive plants

Wedelia or creeping oxeye daisy (Sphagneticola trilobata): a beautiful invader. Less lawn...When we moved into our house here in North Florida, we let several areas of lawn grow out. I've written about this several times. See From lawn to woods: a retrospective, for what has happened out front.Here's...

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A wish for a greener 2015

I wish you and yours a wonderful and bountiful New Year!!A frosty reddish leaf lettuce.Winter vegetablesHere in Florida, even here in North Florida where we receive several killing frosts each winter, we can grow most cool weather crops right through the winter. In most of the country, gardeners spend...

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