I have been doing a bit of this, and a bit of that in the yard this past month. Our new butterfly area on the side is really filling in, even if it is mostly milkweed. This is a spot that is almost always in direct afternoon sun, so not a lot we can put in there. We have been getting a bit of rain which helps everything grow. My son spotted a hummingbird a few weeks ago and we have been getting some painted buntings. I have a picture of the female bunting, but no luck getting one of the male.


I was getting some visitors to the bird bath that I set up, but a certain little dog in her quest for lizards managed to dig underneath the cement base and knocked the whole thing over, cracking the water basin. I seriously considered using her for vulture bait, but decided to forgive her. I will be getting a new basin when I can afford it. We now have a feeder in our front yard, and we have seen a few birds there. That area looks really nice with the double hanging hook, some bright flowers and some native plants.

We have been rooting a lot of stuff and it looks like we are going to have some gumbo limbo trees soon. For those of you in northern climates, we call these tourist trees also, since they often have red peeling skin. We have lots of porterweed showing up in places and we have been moving that to areas where they will attract more bees.

In addition to wildlife gardening, I have been doing some vegetable and herb gardening and we have so far been able to eat some fresh tomatoes and add herbs to our salad.

January Blahs

Okay, even here in Florida, it seems the native plants may be taking a rest. I have some color in my yard, but a lot of things just aren't blooming like they were a few months ago. I could run out, spend 50 dollars and put tons of impatiens all over my yard, that is what most people do here in the cooler months. I am not doing that because they are water hogs. I spent yesterday,trimming, pruning and I am waiting for the next rainy day to throw down some fertilizer. The only things really blooming right now are the scarlet milkweeds. I am still getting butterflies, but not seeing quite as many. I know I had two huge caterpillars yesterday on my passion vines, and I have two so far unidentified ones on my dutchman's pipe. We are pretty sure they are some sort of swallowtail, because we read that the dutchman's pipe is a host plant for one species. We aren't getting huge numbers of birds, but we do seem to be getting more of the native doves and not the huge collared doves that were eating tons of bird food. Our native garden that is planted with the beach sunflower is attracting small birds to eat the seeds, and to catch any bugs that they can find. Today we did have a visiting ibis, but even he is blah looking right now, changing from brown to white according to my son. He did get a picture of him. We also think he was checking out the fish in the pond. I think our coolest visitor lately have been a painted bunting, but we haven't managed to get his picture.

Reflections

It is almost the new year, and time to think back on my garden, and some of my plans for the next year. Last year at this time, I had no idea how things would progress. I never imagined I would have so many different butterflies in my yard, we even saw a new swallowtail yesterday, probably checking out our dutchman's vine as a host plant. My husband is a bit proud of the fact that our yard is certified and that we are seeing so many things in our backyard. I have plans for more flowers this year and also to try to sell some native plants. I also want to sell some heirloom vegetables and herbs. This is going to be a challenge with the water restrictions, but I will use buckets of water from the shower and I am also going to be collecting rain water. Have a great New Year, and hope everyone enjoys my blog next year, sure there will be a lot happening.

What you don't see

There are a lot of things coming to our yard that I haven't managed to get a picture of, honestly, I don't even always see them. My son is the one that spots most of the stuff first, and if it hangs around, then he points it out to me. He has spotted egrets by the pond, at night we have a opossum coming to get a drink, the opossum also eats the star fruit from the tree behind our yard. I have been trying to get a picture of an adult giant swallowtail, but so far no luck, though we have several of the caterpillars. We also get sulphur butterflies but they are so quick, no pictures yet. Hopefully we will see more of them and some caterpillars since we have planted a few host plants for them

This morning, a grey catbird and a painted bunting were in our yard, the catbird was getting a drink from one of the bird baths, and the bunting was hiding in a shrub and eating some beach sunflower seeds. These sunflowers really are a a great plant for our native garden, they are spreading wonderfully, they don't need any additional water once established and we have spotted several small birds enjoying the tiny seeds. We are getting dragonflies in our small pond, they eat a few of our smaller guppies, but the way they breed, that isn't a problem. We aren't sure if the birds are eating any, but so far we still have a good population of fish in it. It really is a wonderful experience to just be out in the yard and see what is hanging around. While working on some stuff the other day, I was able to watch a monarch, a gulf fritillary and a zebra longwing all feeding in the butterfly garden at the same time. It is such a beautiful day, I am out there now to enjoy.

Reptiles in the Habitat

I know to many people, attracting reptiles into your backyard may not sound appealing. Our family, however, happens to like snakes and lizards and we keep many as pets. We also like them coming to our backyard as visitors. One of the most common reptiles in our area are the little anoles, they live in plants, under leaves, and they eat loads of insects. We see them mostly by the fences, and in my butterfly garden, hiding among the plants, and running out to snatch an insect. I consider them one of the best friends a gardener can have, since they don't harm your plants. Besides the anoles, we get some of the exotic lizards that have been introduced into Florida. We have curly tails, a few small geckos of different breeds and the cuban knight anoles. So far, we haven't seen any iguanas in our yard, but sure in the next few years, they will be here, they are taking over South Florida. I am not sure what we will do when they arrive, they don't belong here, but so many now, not sure if they can ever be eradicated. We also like attracting snakes, snakes eat rats, and because of the garbage from the apartments behind us, for the last 5 years or so, we have seen rats. A nice hungry corn snake can clean out a nest, I know this because I have 5 captive born corn snakes, and boy, can they eat. Sadly, these snakes are being killed by many of our neighbors because they are uneducated about the environment around them and figure any brightly colored snake is poisonous, so as soon as they seen one, they grab something and kill it. The most common snake that we do see is the black racer, these snakes hunt in the day time, so you are likely to see one when you are out in the yard. They are fast, and if cornered can be aggressive. Luckily many of our neighbors are now learning that if they see a snake, to come get my son, and he will identify it and remove it from their yard. We have a brush pile in our yard to encourage the snakes to hang around our yard where they won't be killed.

More of a rant

This is more a rant against our local government and water management people than about my garden today. Yes, we are in the middle of a long drought, rainfall has been down. I am all for conserving water and I have been making every effort I can to use less water. As I replace lawn with native plants, most don't need hardly any water once they are established. When they do need water, if I must use the hose, I do it only as needed, not on a daily or even weekly schedule. When we do get rain, I don't water anyway, just because it happens to be my day to water. At the moment we are allowed to water twice a week, but I am not watering even that much. I use recycled water mostly for watering plants, we have turtles, they need to have their water changed a few times a week, that always goes onto a thirsty plant, not just down the drain. If I find a glass of water that someone left on the counter, that goes to a plant. When watering a potted plant, I place it next to another plant that can use the water that runs out of the pot. I have been saving rainwater in a small kiddie pool and using that for almost all of my backyard watering. Oh, and as far as my remaining grass, it is surviving just on rainwater. It has been fairly brown for a few weeks, last night it rained a bit, that will keep it alive for a few more weeks.
Okay, now to the reason I am so upset. Starting January 15 when we go to once a week watering, I will have one day only when I can water my plants, these are plants that provide habitat and food for butterflies, bees, food for birds and they also provide beauty, and purify the air by producing oxygen. I can't water these without fear of being reported on by a neighbor and fined, yet this same neighbor can wash his car any day of the week. Yes, they have decided that having a clean car while it pollutes the environment is so important,that it is okay to wash your car regardless of the fact that we are running short of water in South Florida. We have two guys across the street from us that have been washing their car three or four times a week since we have been on water restrictions. Their little patch of lawn that is sprayed with chemicals is watered every single day that it is allowed, even if it is raining, they are watering.
I will follow the once a week water rationing, I will try to cut back even more, even shorter showers, trying to do less loads of laundry, and I just bought a bucket to bring in the shower with me so I can collect water while I shower to use on plants, but can I say I am ticked. I just can't accept that needing to wash a car or boat on an almost daily basis is more important than saving water.
Look at these pictures, then think of clean cars, what is more important to the future of our planet.

Around the yard

It has been a busy week around the garden. Last Saturday was the plant show at Fairchild Gardens, I had a fantastic time with my sister. Okay, we have totally different taste in plants, she calls mine weeds and I feel hers are boring exotics with no potential for attracting wildlife to her yard. She looks at that as a good thing since she doesn't want the nasty little worms eating her plants. Little does she know that my son and I have plans to put in a butterfly garden for her grandson.

I got several native plants, and finally convinced my husband that another tree would look good in the front yard, we put in a necklace pod ( sophora tomentosa). Now I think it looks a bit lonely so needs some plants around it. I also got some more plants for the area in the bed in front of the pool, hoping to make that area more attractive to the butterflies by having more nectar plants. I put in a wild sage, (lantana involucrata), the native tick seed or coreopsis and a porterweed. I also bought my son a larger coontie (zamia pumila). He really likes those and the one he bought is very small and they are not fast growers. I still have a cassia to plant somewhere in the yard today. It is a host plant for some of the sulphur butterflies, which we see, but they hardly ever land, so I would like to attract more of those to our backyard.

Other than planting, we have had a few visitors, we have gulf fritillary and monarch caterpillars, and we just found some more giant swallowtails ones this morning. I am thrilled to be getting those, but wish they would give my wild lime just a bit more time to grow. I may have to take those off, get some of our key lime leaves and raise them indoors, so this poor plant can get a few more leaves. I also admit, I wouldn't mind trying to get a picture of an adult. I did see one this week, but couldn't get close enough. We also may have seen the hummingbird again.