Coral honeysuckle (revisited)

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#1 in Southern Garden Books

Tuesday morning, this happened!

While the "Organic Methods..." book has been hovering in the top ten for Southern Garden Books on Amazon, this is the only time I caught it at the #1 spot.  Yay!  Thanks to everyone who is buying our book.

I'm having a great time talking to people about organic and sustainable gardening on my tour. This weekend, I'll be in St. Augustine and next weekend I'll be in St. Petersburg. Check out my public events calendar: it all ends in June.

Green Gardening Matters!
Ginny

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Coral honeysuckle

Our coral honeysuckles are in full bloom now -- they've been amazing as the plants have become larger (and gathered resources).  It's a wonderful marker of mid-spring, arriving along with the continuing ruby-throated hummingbird migration.

My past blog posts (about coral honeysuckle were more numerous than I'd expected), but reflect how lovely and significant the peak flowering of Lonicera sempervirens is for me.

Here's a photo of the kitchen door Lonicera a couple of years ago.

Lonicera sempervirens

 Hopefully, I'll be able to add a photo of our front gate plant tomorrow, if weather permits.  It's thriving.

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A book review from Tallahassee

A book review from Tallahassee Writers

Here's another excellent review of our book. Reviewer Jenny Crowley ends her review with this:

Stibolt and Contreras have constructed a book that appeals to all who wish to grow and produce organic foods in Florida. It is also a book that will interest those who care about our planet and our environment.

Florida Gardeners, the authors want you to “…have fun eating from your landscape.”

Read this book and rejoice!

Cool! I love it when someone appreciates not only the good information, but also the spirit of our book.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Trees with shadows

view of trees from Biltmore

Yesterday, the sun's angle in the late afternoon created crisp shadows -- in dark contrast to the green of newly-mown pasture. This view from the terrace at Biltmore is spectacular at any time of year, now with the soft greens of emerging leaves on the Blue Ridge mountains beyond.

We'd gone to the Biltmore gardens to see how the tulips were coming along in the Walled Garden. This week's warmth turned out to have been excellent encouragement!

I always love seeing the tulips, one of my first horticultural loves (even if they don't exactly "work for a living" -- my primary screen for plant selection -- meaning wildlife-supporting or edible, but they certainly have a good story (special dispensation for that!)

These trees and the view were even more spectacular.

 

Posted with Blogsy

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Bird songs and spring migrants

All of our "regular" garden and backyard residents (at least the males) are singing up a storm, establishing territories for their nesting sites and to attract mates.  Northern Cardinals and Northern Mockingbirds are some of the most frequent songs that I'm hearing now - along with Carolina Chickadees and Carolina Wrens. They're favorite familiar birds in our Carolina gardens and natural areas -- learning their calls is just like recognizing the voices of your friends is what I tell students on field trips (visiting the Garden where I work)!

I haven't had time to get out on birding excursions so far this year, but reports from our local birding group are reporting all sorts of good sightings.

And this report on Weather and Songbird Migration, at Journey North, my favorite real-time observation/citizen science site, predicts an exciting couple of weeks ahead for seeing the return of many of our spring migrants, either as they're passing through, or staying through the warm season here.

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Spring's in the Air

Our pinxter azalea finally is blooming.
It's late this year.

Normally, here in northeast Florida, our springs are too short and summer comes too soon.  This year has been different. When the hummingbirds arrived a couple of weeks ago, we thought they might freeze their patooties off in the chilly night temperatures that reached down into the 30s. But they have continued to visit the coral honeysuckle flowers (Lonicera sempervirens) each day, so I guess they are tougher than they look.

Azaleas

Our native azaleas (Rhododendron canescens) are blooming a little later than normal this year, but the Japanese azaleas bloomed early and their flowers were ruined by the late frosts. I'd like to start replacing the aliens with natives--maybe this is the year to start the process.

Mining the lawn

Because we have a "freedom lawn," which is free of pesticides, fertilizers, and over-watering, there are many types of plants other than St. Augustine grass that grow there. Some of these volunteers are desirable plants that I transplant to non-lawn areas of the landscape.

Blue-eyed grass in the lawn

Both the native blue-eyed grass (S. angustifolium)
& the yellow non-native (S. rosulatum) look the same
in the lawn.

Both the native blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) and the non-native (S. rosulatum) look pretty much the same when embedded in the lawn, so I'd transplanted some of the yellow ones to a mulched area, which became obvious after they bloomed. I removed them after I snapped the photo and replaced them with the blue natives. Now that they are blooming, I can tell the difference. :-)

Rainlily (Zephyranthes atamasca)

The other obvious lawn volunteer right now is this native rainlily (Zephyranthes atamasca).  This was growing in a wetter area of the lawn where I also find soft rushes. I transplanted this beauty to the mulched area that you can see at the top of the photo. It's near the blue-eyed grasses that I'd also removed from the lawn. They often grow together in the wild.

There are a few other lawn treasures, but I'll talk about those in a later post.

The end of the cool-weather crops

The extended cool weather has been good for the cool-weather crops. My second crop of broccoli has produced some beautiful, purple-tinged heads (curds), but if I'd known how prolific my first crop was going to be, I wouldn't have bothered to plant it. The handful of florets (in the left photo below) is probably the 30th harvest from the original 8 plants. As the plants try harder to bloom, they are producing the florets faster and faster, so these come-again broccolis are sweeter than the original curd. Eventually, I'll let them bloom when the second crop starts producing its own come-again florets. The pollinators will like those flowers.

The first crop of eight plants keeps on
giving!

The second broccoli crop.

The onions and the garlic will be ready to harvest soon. Then we'll get ready to plant some okra in those beds. This year, I will be planting a bunch of marigolds in with the okra to try to keep the root-knot nematodes in check, not that the okra cares, but to protect the crops that follow it. To be an effective deterrent, you have to turn the marigolds into the soil at the end of the season.

A green anole keeps watch for white flies and other
evil-doers on our broccoli.

Some of the sweet granex onions are beginning to bulb out.

Lupines growing in our neighborhood. I've tried planting seed over the years, but have not been able to
establish a population on our property. I guess we will just have to enjoy these wild populations from afar.

I have started my book tour so please make an effort to come out and see me at one of my upcoming events. See my event calendar to find one near you. Thanks to everyone for buying my books!

Green Gardening Matters, 
Ginny Stibolt

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