Rayless sunflowers, fall seedlings, & more

Rayless sunflower & native bee.

When I replaced a 10' x 14' section of lawn with a native garden, I planted several rayless sunflowers (Helianthus radula) as part of the mix. Months later, they are blooming much to the delight of the butterflies and native bees.

These flowers are not showy from a distance because they are missing the showy florets around the edge that look like petals. When we think of sunflowers, we expect to enjoy a big show, but the show here is more subtle and draws you in closer.

I wrote about this plant and reported on the progress on this native pollinator garden in my monthly post over on the Native Plants & Wildflife Gardens blog: "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder."*

*Just to satisfy my curiosity on this cliché, I looked up the origins of the saying. This particular phrase, "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder," is a paraphrase of Plato's writings and the theme has been repeated in various ways by different people, including by Shakespeare, over the centuries.  See this phrase finder website for more details.

Unexpected projects

Has this ever happened to you? You think one bed is fine the way it is, but then someone makes an offhand remark that forces you to see it differently or maybe you have some nice potted plants, but you suddenly realize that the plants are too large for their pots. The two realizations then merge into one or more unexpected and larger than anticipated projects.

Potbound! Two potbound yuccas are finally set free!

Untangling the yucca roots.

Two different yuccas were pot bound. One ended up in the cactus bed out front, the other in the butterfly mound. Here's a link to my post "Potbound!" on why it's so important to free the roots before planting.  

Before: The cactus in this hot corner bed were getting messy after more than six years.

After: A few cacti are left, but most were ripped out--very carefully! The new arrangement of all the larger lava rocks piled together makes a stronger landscape statement. I pulled out some of the ferns that had been growing into the cactus area and laid in some wood chips. You don't often have cacti & ferns mingling together,

The butterfly mound was a mess.

The coreopsis seedlings are planted in the lower
left corner and are mulched with pine needles..

In looking around the landscape for a good place to plant the second yucca, the butterfly mound jumped out as the right place.  Removing those messy non-native bulbs (The hidden gingers and the orange cannas) would be a big job, but it was time. And so this was the second unexpected project.

The yucca is happily planted and is already showing brighter green in its leaves, but this is not really a true "after" photo since there is more work to do here...

The mound started in 2005 after one of the four 2004 hurricanes had severely damaged a sweet gum tree in the middle of the back yard. Instead of grinding the stump out, we built the butterfly mound.  In recent years, I've moved to more natives and more natives have moved in by themselves.

Here's a link to my original post on the butterfly mound, "From Stump to Butterfly Haven" and I'll post more about its transformation when it's not so beat up.

Coreopsis

Coreopsis seedlings right out of the pot.

Some of the seedlings in the pot had spawned new plants that are attached via rhizome.

I'd brought a six-inch pot of tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata) back from my Sept. 21 appearance down at the opening of the Green Marketplace in Cocoa. It was time to get them into the ground. I was surprised to see how many of the seedlings had already put out rhizomes and had generated new plants. I planted half of them next to the yucca in the butterfly mound and the other half in the newly created butterfly garden where I'll be slowly removing yet another patch of turf. The tall tropical-looking leaves are more of the ginger lilies that were already in place.  Previously I'd transplanted a bunch of scarlet sage (Salvia coccinea) and a snow squarestem (Melanthera nivea) from other places in the yard.

I mulched the seedlings with pine needles and not the arborists' wood chips because it's easier to control and is less likely to react with the soil and decompose.

See a previous post on the beginnings of this bed.

I added half of the coreopsis seedlings to the front expanding butterfly garden.  

Sorting seedlings

I'd planted two cabbage seeds in each of 5 holes: 5 seedlings emerged, but two were from one hole. 

Now which ones are parsley seedlings?

Now is the time to transplant the seedlings while they are still small. Once you've grown some of these plants from seed, you'll figure out soon enough which are the wanted seedlings and which are the weeds. There are six visible parsley seedlings (two with a first leaf), two chamberbitters (Phyllanthus urinaria) with the oblong leaves of various sizes, and at the bottom are four weedy sedges. I pull more chamberbitters than any other weed.

Note the early morning evenly-spaced water drops along the edges of the cabbage seedling leaves--the result of guttation. During the day, water flows freely through the plants and evaporated into the air.  At night the pores (stomata) close up because there is no photosynthesis, but the water is still flowing, so the excess is excreted through special glands (called hydathodes) that are evenly situated along the leaf margin.

At the St. Johns County Home & Garden
Show, a special weekend appearance.

Roadside flowers in Clay County.
Swamp sunflower (Helianthus angustifolia)

Last weekend I took a break from gardening and writing to participate in the St. Johns County Home and Garden Show. Renee Stambaugh of Native Plant Consulting invited me to share her booth. It was fun to talk to people about native plants, sustainable gardening, and edible gardening.  I sold a few books, too. On the way over I took some photos of amazing roadside flowers in the sunlight.

I hope you're finding time to enjoy the beautiful fall weather in your gardens or out and about.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Salvia x 'Anthony Parker' and other Salvias

Flowers of Salvia x 'Anthony Parker'

Pathway to HCC

Salvia elegans & Salvia x 'Anthony Parker'

Salvia elegans (Pineapple Sage)

It's time for wonderful fall-flowering sages, and all the rain over the summer has resulted in dramatic growth.  Pineapple sage (S. elegans) and a wonderful sage that was new to me (Salvia x 'Anthony Parker') - a hybrid between S. elegans and S. leucantha (Mexican Bush Sage) were in full flower yesterday along the path to the Hayden Conference Center.

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An early fall compost pile

Some of the new chips had been sitting in the truck for a few days so they'd
already started composting. They were steaming hot and had turned gray.

Normally I do my major compost building later in the fall when we have lots of dead leaves on hand, but several events occurred this year to speed up the process.

1) I'd depleted my compost supply in building the new edible beds and I had saved a pile of sod that we'd removed, which was waiting to be composted.

2) Some of chips we received last week had been on the truck for several days and had already heated up and turned gray with fungal spores.

As we moved the chips from the county right-of-way, we used the gray chips for a couple of fill jobs and I saved one cart load for compost. Since it had already started to decompose, it would serve as a good starter for a new pile. This part of the load was filled with pine needles, leaves, and small twigs.

Most of the load consisted of excellent fresh wood chips with very few leaves, which we carted off to use for mulching. It took a couple of days but now the fence in back in place and we still have a good-sized pile out there behind the fence to use in a more leisurely manner.

We had plenty of grass clippings, but I used them sparingly.

3) My husband experimented with the timing of the lawn mowing to see if he could wait three weeks at this time of year. He waited, but it generated a lot of extra grass clippings and then it rained.

The clippings are a good "green" material for the compost pile, but since these were so wet and clumped together, I'd need to spread them out thinly in the layering of the pile.

Building a compost pile

As I described in the compost chapter in Sustainable Gardening for Florida, building a pile with alternating layers of "green" and "brown" materials within a week or two ensures the proper ratio and speeds the composting process.  I call this a medium maintenance pile because after I get it built high enough I'll let it sit for a month or so and then I'll turn it once. Three or four months later, depending upon the original materials, I'll have good compost. Meanwhile, I'll throw newly collected compostable materials in a holding pile until I start the next pile.

I use the garden fork to even out the pile and make sure
there are connecting pathways between the layers.

I emptied one watering can of rain barrel water over the whole pile.

And so the first phase of the pile will sit for a few days
before I add the next set of layers on top.

I start a pile by scraping the ground so that it's even and weed free. The size of this footprint is about five feet by two and a half feet.  The piles are supposed to be no narrower than three feet, but my potting bench is behind where I'm standing and I wanted maneuvering room.

The first layer was pine needles and small sticks. Then I alternated layers of the removed sod, spoiled wood chips, grass clippings, and dead leaves. Since leaves haven't started falling here in great quantities, I raked leaves from under wooded area next to the driveway.  Normally, I would not bother raking here, but I needed them to provide a completely dry layer.

By the end of this stage, the pile is about sixteen inches high ending with a layer of the chips. I have grass clipping and sod left over, but I used the whole load of chips.  Now I wish I'd dumped one more of those loads of spoiled chips here. I'll work on adding more to the pile next week after I complete some other tasks. By the time it's done, the pile will be at least waist high.  The pile needs enough mass to heat up.

The veggies are growing

Most of the seeds have sprouted, but not the spinach or parsley. At this point the seedlings are vulnerable so it's crucial that they receive extra irrigation unless there is a good rain and that the weeds are pulled.

It's possible that all of the sugar snap peas have sprouted even though they were packed for the 2009 season. They are growing tendrils now so sometime this week, I'll train them to climb the tomato cages. We are looking forward to eating this sweet and crunchy crop.

The sugar snap peas are up!

A tiny green tree frog sat on the porch rail in its streamlined mode all day. This may be the one that visits my office window at night to dine on the bugs attracted to my light. We're a team--he gets free bugs and I am entertained.

And so October begins--it's the last of our five wet months for the year. Enjoy the fall.  It's a wonderful season for gardening here in north Florida.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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The Eagle has Landed, Fall Gardening, and more...

Fall is the beginning of our best growing season--the cool-weather vegetables. Here in north Florida we normally experience our first frost sometime in late December, but the soil never freezes and we can grow many crops right through the winter. This is why we set up the three planting calendars (for north, central, and south Florida) to begin in September, not January, in "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida." 

After more than a month of in-the-ground composting, freshly uncovered soil in the middle bed.

Kitchen scraps used in the trench between the rows.

The Middle Bed

We have three beds next to the western-facing back of the house: the herb garden next to the porch door, the middle bed, and the north bed.

I'd grown marigolds across most of the north and middle beds over the summer and had also grown tomatoes and peppers in the middle bed. When I finally pulled the tomatoes in August, I turn marigolds under in both beds except for the peppers row--they are still producing to some extent. I also had composted kitchen scraps under all of the north bed.

Early last week, I raked back the grass clippings and pine needle mulch and planted some cool-weather crops. I created a wide row across the back of the bed and planted broccoli. With wide row planting I plant seeds (or seedlings) at just the right spacing like square-foot gardening, but include a trench of variable width between the rows to accommodate the size of the plants and to divert the heavy rainfall that we get here in Florida.

The I planted short rows of white icicle radishes and kohlrabi. Next to the kohlrabi row I dug the trench a little deeper to compost some kitchen scraps. Now we wait, but not too long--the radishes will be mature in 35 days.  Also, see my article: Wide-row planting and Trench Composting.

Three wide rows are planted with broccoli, kohlrabi, and white icicle radish. The square on the left is unplanted at this time and now is mulched with pine needles.

The north bed next to the house is ready for planting.

3 foot-wide swales are planted with sugar snap peas.

The North Bed

This bed is a foot wider than the middle bed because of the configuration of the house. First I worked some compost in the bed and then created three foot-wide swales on the north end of the bed for the sugar snap peas. I planted more than normal since this was the last of my pea seeds that had been packed for 2009!  I planted three seeds together in four groups around each swale, then I placed the tomato cages offset from the swales.  I'll urge the peas over to crawl up the cages. I've had good luck with peas even through the winter here.  If there is a frost, the flowers may die, but the vines themselves are more cold-tolerant and they put out more flowers when it warms up.

In the back row of the bed I planted two cabbage seeds in each of five holes that are a foot apart on alternating sides of the row.  Later I'll thin the seedlings to five total, because how many cabbages do we need at one time? I planted lettuce in the rest of the cabbage row. In the short rows I planted a red-stemmed spinach (Burpee's reddy hybrid) that seems to work well here, I planted half and half cosmic purple carrots and Nante half carrots (I've decided that I won't buy the short carrots again because I'd rather have whole carrots.) and then a row of curly parsley. I'd soaked the parsley seeds over night to encourage faster germination.

This bed next to the house is planted with sugar snap peas, red-stemmed spinach, orange & purple carrots, curly parsley, cabbage, and lettuce.

Ten days later...

As expected, the radishes are up in just a few days and before most of the other crops.

The beginnings of the butterfly garden: I transplanted some scarlet sage plants and one snow squarestem. The tall tropical-looking plants are hidden ginger lilies.

As mentioned in a recent post, I'll be replacing a weird lawn space with butterfly plants. I'll remove lawn a little at a time as I acquire the butterfly plants because the lawn does hold the soil in place, but it won't be mowed. The first installment is in place--a bunch of scarlet sage plant (Salvia coccinea) that had volunteered in an inconvenient place and a snow squarestem (Melanthera nivea) that had grown right where I'll be building the next compost pile.

The truck ready to dump its load.

More chips. Yay!

I'd used the last of my chips a couple of months ago, so I was feeling naked, gardenwise, without a supply of arborist's wood chips to use for mulching.

This is a very large load and the truck didn't back far enough into the chip space, so half of the chips are on the county right-of-way. It will take some extra effort to move the chips to their final destinations or at least behind the fence. Who needs to work out in a gym when you have gardening to do? I feel skinnier already!

See my previous posts on chips: A Requiem for a Hickory Tree and Follow the Yellow Mulch Road.

A really large load means a couple of days of extra effort to remove chips from the county right-of-way.

Dean smooths out new chips in the garden path. The chips are as deep as the raised gardens, but they'll settle in time.

A turkey vulture finishes off the turtle.

The eagle has landed!

A few days ago, I was quite excited to see a huge bald eagle land just outside of our fence.

First I noticed several vultures (both black and turkey) swoop in to the trees and down to the ground. Then the eagle came in and the vultures took off.

The eagle was there for only three or four minutes before a screeching red-shouldered hawk chased him off. This whole drama happened so quickly that I did not have enough time to circle around the back to take some pictures. The dense shrubbery next to the fence blocked my view from the house.

By the time I could catch a shot, only one turkey vulture was working on the carcass of a Florida cooter, a common turtle in the neighborhood. Since the shell was not crushed, it's possible that the eagle had lifted it out of the lake and dropped it there when harrassed by the hawks. It's wonderful to see the eagles in the neighborhood.

A cormorant has trouble downing its catch at sunrise in the St. Johns River.
Photo taken on 9/21 from Spring Park in Green Cove Springs.

Sunrise over the St. Johns River as seen from Spring Park in Green Cove Springs.

Yes, there is a famous hot spring in historic Green Cove Springs that flows into a concrete pool and then a hundred yards or so through Spring Park into the St. Johns River.  The pool used to be a destination for many so they could bathe in the spring water for its health benefits. I have to say, I've not been tempted because of the high sulfur content--I'd smell like rotten eggs!

I hope you have started your fall garden and have been enjoying many sunrises.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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Amaranth, celosia, and musings about greens

Winter break in the Caribbean last year introduced me to leafy amaranth, a totally delicious cooked green. 

Red amaranth (from Evergreen Seeds)

The woman I bought it from (she had a small garden near our cottage in Dominica) called it spinach, but it's actually Amaranthus viridis, a leafy vegetable that's grown throughout the Caribbean and called callalo. It's a popular Asian vegetable, too.

I posted about it after returning -- it was such a remarkably tasty warm season spinach-like vegetable, I couldn't believe it wasn't more popular here in the Southeastern U.S.  I tried to grow it this summer, but was thwarted by hungry critters, who yummed up the young seedlings. Presumably woodchucks or squirrels.

Celosia argentea

But I was noticing the volunteer plants in the Children's Garden that looked remarkably similar.  They're Celosia, a large-plumed variety that's self-seeded abundantly for the last couple of years.

And sure enough, they're a relative of amaranth (in the same family), and have been used in a similar way in parts of Africa, and elsewhere, too. 

Interesting!  I'll have to harvest some young plants tomorrow for a second trial. 

The older larger leaves that I cooked as a trial for lunch today were good, but it was hard to evaluate their taste, as I'd stir-fried them in sesame oil!  They were quite tender, though, so promising.

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Garden views

I'm so fortunate to enjoy wonderful views from both of our gardens.  It's a blessing for now, until we decamp to the mountains in the future.

Coming home to the Piedmont, we've got exuberance, to be sure, but a lovely view, too. 

Here's a view from a couple of years ago -- it's similar now.

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Invasive vs. Aggressive: plants and animals

Spanish needles (B. alba) is native to Florida,
and so is not invasive

Native plants are NOT invasive. 

They belong here and work well within the natural ecosystems. A pioneer plant like beggars' ticks (Bidens alba) is certainly aggressive and efficient at completely covering a disturbed site, but after a couple of years, it will give way to other plants in Mother Nature's succession parade, which  depends upon where it's found. The plants that take over could include broom sedge (Andropogon spp.), goldenrod (Solidago spp.), dog fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium), which then my be replaced by pines and oaks after a few years.

Definition:
- An invasive exotic plant is a naturalized exotic plant that is expanding its range into natural areas and disrupting naturally occurring native plant communities.     
                         via Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council  (www.fleppc.org)

Invasive plants may not be aggressive

On the other hand, as a gardener just looking at your landscape, you might not be able to determine which plants are invasive and which are not. Some relatively tame landscape plants like heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica) and Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittoniana) are on the FLEPPC Category I list of invasives, while others like wedelia (Sphagneticola trilobata) are aggressive in the landscape, but are only on the Category II list.

For more details, read the rest of this post over on the Florida Native Plant Society blog...

And speaking of invasive...

My husband caught this brown anole (Anolis sagrei) in the act of molting out on the sego next to the front porch.  It ate its old skin, which provides some extra nutrients--the ultimate in recycling.

This is a lizard native to Cuba and the Bahamas and it has become invasive in Florida. These lizards catch a lot of bugs around our yard.

We've continued work on our expanded edible gardens and will catch you up with that activity soon.

I hope you can catch some amazing wildlife moments in your own yard.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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