Wednesday, June 30, 2010

LATE JUNE RAMBLINGS


With the summer heat bearing down it seemed like a fine time to work in the shade.
I have been eyeballing this area beside my shed for some time . It is under my Avocado tree and stays in the shade most all day or at least heavily filtered light.
I use it to stick some of my heat stressed plants in containers here sometimes to recover when they got too much sun.
So this week the shade area got transformed into a small bed for some of my shade plants to have a new home and not require so much Summer care.
Here is the finished bed into which went some shade loving Bromeliads and their divided pups.
The short fence is there to keep the dogs from running around the corner by way of over the plant bed.
The Passion Vine that I let grow up my back porch awning is really going wild.
It has reached the awning top and grown sideways to the house in two directions . This vine is at least 12 feet long.
It has produced Passion Flowers which last for one day before falling off the vine.
We had ten Passion Flowers in bloom at the same time this last week.
It is really neat to watch and this is the first time this vine has bloomed here for me. It is a volunteer that started itself from a vine around the corner.
The vine will be safe until the first hurricane gets close to the sandpit when I will have to cut it out to close the awning.
In the meantime it is producing an abundance of flowers and has numerous butterflys on it throughout the day.
We also gave the Bird area a rearranging. This corner I save for the birds and have planted protective bushes to encourage them .

There is Orange Jasmine shrubs in the far back and a large Cassia bush to the right of the bird feeder.
These bushes give them a lot of hiding places which birds seem to like.
The bush in front of the feeder is an American Beauty berry that I started from seed two years ago.
It is almost chest high now and will produce clusters of berries that the birds eat from the stems. I think it is related to the Mulberry tree.
Anyway the birds have more cover and seem to like it . There are two Northern Mockingbirds and a Loggerhead Shrike that hang out here eating bugs every afternoon. Free bug control for the organic garden.
And speaking on bugs here is one of my Spider lilies that has bloomed this week.
For some reason I find this plant fascinating .
It is just able to display a subtle simple beauty that appeals to me.
And as far as the home made bug repellent for the vegetables I have started mixing up the ingredients for the folk brew.
The first step was to get a bar of Ivory soap. It is supposed to be soap not detergent although I really don't know the difference or why it would matter. But it might so we got the soap bar.
Now this has to be whittled down into slivers and put into a container with a bit of water so the bar will melt into a liquid slurry.
Done and done for step one. Going to let the Ivory slurry percolate a few days and shake the container every time I go by it to mix the soap well.
More on the mixtures progress next time.
--Sanddune--

8 comments:

  1. Ooh, that passion vine is awesome. Hopefully, your area will be missed by storms this year. I love spider lilies as well! Look forward to their bloom every summer.

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  2. Sanddune, Everything is looking great, I too hope you will be missed by any major storms. It would be such a shame if you had to cut down the passion vine. - G

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  3. I can see that the heat isn't keeping you indoors. The passion vine looks great climbing up the post on your patio. You can watch the butterflies up close when they visit the gorgeous flowers. I agree with you on the spider lily...it's quite exotic looking...somewhat other-worldly looking.

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  4. Your new shade garden is quite nice. Smart of you to put up the fence to keep the dogs on a new path around that corner. Your passionvine has really gone crazy! Love those blooms. They look like the ones I have that have a nice scent. Your bird area is lovely too. Looks like you have a lot of attractive plants for birds and butterflies. Enjoy!

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  5. FloridaGirl,
    Don't know what is effecting the passion vine but it just keeps getting bigger and producing more blooms. Maybe it is because it gets a lot of water from the rain runoff from the awning.The Spider Lilies are my favorite.I look forward to their bloom each summer. As to the hurricanes I pray they stay away from all of us.

    Gary,
    I hope the Hurricanes leave us alone but it has been awhile since a major one came through here so the odds are increasing. Living in South Florida sometimes makes you feel like the ten pin in a bowling alley.

    Susan,
    The Passion vine has been a great source of entertainment. It always has something going on to see fron bugs to butterflies to flowers.

    NanaK,
    Shade is what there is least in my garden so it is always valuable property here. I am getting away from containers and making more in the ground beds as my soil improves with the compost.
    The dogs will soon have their day as my next project is a garden fence to keep them out of the plants entirely.As for the Passion vine I don't know what kind it is but it keeps growing and flowering so I am so happy with it.

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  6. Sanddune,
    You've got a really lush looking area for the birds and butterflies. I'd like to borrow that loggerhead shrike for a few days. It's said they are the only predator for lubber grasshoppers ... those evil things that continue to gnaw away at my garden at rapid rates. Sorry for the tangent.

    Your passion vine is gorgeous and just looks like a calm, cooling addition to your patio. Let's hope there's no need to close that awning this year. :-)
    Meems

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  7. Sanddune, your garden spaces are lovely, especially your passion vine patio! My passion vine is being devoured right now by the gulf fratillary cats but I've decided to leave them alone. We're on round 2 of the cats...the vine recovered from round 1, only to take a hit by round 2. Oh well. One day, I hope mine will look like yours. I like your bird corner too...very pretty and inviting! I've been contemplating a cassia bush...I like them so much, but don't they get pretty big?

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  8. Meems,
    The Loggerhead Shrike kind of shows up a couple of hour before dark. It divebombs the yard snatching up bugs. It is an agressive hunter so I think it would take care of the lubbers. The best cure for them is to get a pet chicken and in short order your grasshopper lubber problems will be no more.

    Kimberly,
    The Passion Vine has been exceptional this year on its own.I really don't know that much about the type that I have or do anything special to make it grow better. Maybe that is the answer to just leave it be. Seems to be working well so far. As for the Cassia it can be trimmed easily. I let mine grow pretty unrulely just because it makes a great hiding spot for the birds. The kind that I have has lots of twisted branches under the canopy that the birds like to stand on. In the late fall it will be covered in yellow flowers and is Quite spectacular.

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