A House From The 30's

The design of a house tells you when it was built. The balcony style and the coral rock surround of the front door were common in the thirties. Some of the new houses now use some bits of the old style here and there so they don't look like new comers.

Fall And Spring in One Day For a Mamey Tree

Before all of the old leaves are shed, the new leaves are popping out. The leaves shed quickly on mature trees. It gives me a chance to see were all of the fruit's hiding. This mamey is a grafted tree from a tree in Key West and it in tern was from Havana. The large fruit will be ripe in late summer. The small fruit will take another year before it's ripe.

Pink Cassia

Spring is still alive in south Florida. This tree will not give use any apples or plums, but it surely gives us beauty.

My Florida Forthysia

Your plant is Forsythia x intermedia (the x means that it is natural hybrid and not made by man). My forsythia is Oncidium sphacelatum. The orchid looks like a large bush with yellow flowers. Since the forsythia will not grow here I will use the orchid to give me a big yellow bush in the spring.


Here is a close up of the orchids. I started this plant in a four inch pot, but it took 40+ years to get it this big.

Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden

The gardens palm collection is rated as one of the three major collections in the world. We have two very rare talipot palms in our front yard that I posted last year.

The Red Costus In Bloom

I posted this Costus on March 2, 08 when it was just starting to bloom. In that picture you can't even see a bud.
Now yellow flowers are starting to open. The red cone will keep growing all summer.

Another Green House

The front door doesn't look like it gets used used any more.


The side door is the one that invites you in. The house is covered with Ficus vine. The vine is mature and needs clipping almost as often as the grass. The mature leaves of the vine are course. But when it's trimmed the leaves stay immature and it looks much better.

Seedling Daylily

The daylily thrives in temperate areas. We can grow some of them that have been selected for Florida. But very few people bother to grow them in our area. They need extra water to get through the dry winter. This is the darkest one in our garden.

Earth Day April 22 2008

This greenhouse is just starting. The vine on the house is a type of ficus (yes Ficus as in a large tree). If not trained, the vine could cover the house in 10 years. With careful trimming this house will have green walls that never need painting. It's good for the environment but very hard on the pocketbook.

Ground Cover

We have rules, oh do we have rules. Now if you use a landscape architect you must have a specific percentage of trees and shrubs in your yard. The owners can have as much grass in the landscape as they please. The city is trying to minimize grass. We have rules on the times that grass can be watered.

Dealing With The Roots

This big Ficus tree is a beauty, but the roots are an ongoing problem. A few years ago the sidewalk was repaired due to the roots of the tree.

This water pipe is pushed up from the roots that are under ground. Now some roots look like that they are tyring to shove the pipe back into the ground.

Anhinga or Cormorant, Warming Up and Drying Out

The Anhinga tends to prefer salt water and the Cormorant likes fresh water. These three birds are drying out in a branch above a brackish pond in the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

The City Golf Course

The course has nine holes. But it has trees that will make you remember your day on the greens.

This Waterlily Blooms All Year Around

For two nights we had temperatures in the 50's. While the waterlilies thrive, the lotus are having a hard time.

A Coconut With Problems

A coconut palm has only one point of growth. That's why a coconut palm will never branch. If something damages that growth point the palm will die. This palm is trying to recover from damage. If it grows much more, the weight will cause a brake of the new growth from the old trunk.