Florida,  Gardening,  Outdoors,  Photography

Garden Bits—in Reverse

I had the day off for a doctors appointment and spent the morning mowing the back yard. It was seriously over grown, weeds had over taken half the yard. I also surveyed the frost damage from last week. It always takes two to three days for the damage to be known and sure enough the tell-tale signs of browning and curling were beginning. The ylang ylang took a hit as did the tropical almond and other tenders. I once had a starfruit seedling that bit the dust after a 45* night. Very tender tropicals. I think most everything will recover now that it has warmed up, but I will keep a close eye on things for awhile.

We had two iguanas take up a roost in a hanging basket about a month ago and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them in awhile. We also had a black racer snake chilling in our front flower bed but I haven’t seen it in awhile either. I was nervous about running them over in the tall weeds, but I didn’t see anything. *phew*. We’ve hit a few snakes before that haven’t moved from the mower; I always feel bad about that.

After all of that I brought my camera out and did the reverse lens technique out there. This time it was sunny and I could set the ISO to 100 and all was well. Ok, minus the wind, which makes this even tougher without a mount! I had the tripod, just no mount. I think my endeavors turned out pretty well!

bidens
This little weed is what has taken over the yard. Bidens alba. It’s a great plant for butterflies and I do keep some of it around, but it seeds itself everywhere and has a tendency to become, well, weedy!

bberrylily
Blackberry lily berries…love this plant!

amaranth
Amaranth…I got a plant from someone at a garden swap a few years ago because it is an edible grain and I thought I’d try it out. But man, does it seed itself everywhere. I haven’t been in the yard in awhile and the containers are full of little seedlings. Not to mention they have spikes on them so you have to be careful how you pull them out.

sophora
Sophora tomentosa, necklace pod, pods…a native to Florida.

herb
Basil flowers…I should go collect the seeds.

white b berry
White beauty berry. I transplanted this a few months ago from the tiny pot it was in to a much bigger pot and it hasn’t quite recovered. I think the rainy season will see it to better days.

cypress
I think I’m going to try this shot again because I couldn’t get the white in focus as much as I wanted. I am not sure what little egg sac that is, spiders maybe?

As for the frost and freezing temperatures, Saturday was bad, but Sunday seemed to be worse. I had ice on my windshield that morning and I found frozen puddles in the center part of the state on Monday morning. I’m actually very nervous for Little Slough and all of the ghost orchids. I’m hoping the water kept the area warm enough, but the wind was pretty bad and since it is winter the trees have defoliated. We’re going to go out and check in a few weekends to see how things fared.

Don’t forget the photo challenge!.

3 Comments

  • amanda

    hey misti! thanks so much for the sweet blog note! i pop onto yours a lot…just a lurker i guess 🙂 love your photography…wouldlove to get a macro lens! you have some gorgeous shots!
    ~amanda

  • Chris Hind

    much luck with the ghost orchids in little slough (hopefully they can take cold better than last year’s dry). we were out hiking in big cypress looking for pinguicula pumila this past weekend and in many areas the cold even roasted the native cocoplum. thats crazy. yet the brazilian pepper just a foot away was fine =/

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