Summer Showers

The past few weeks have been nothing but rain and more rain.  Sometimes it's a downpour while other times it's just a constant drizzle.  The main problem with all this rain is that the sun barely comes out to dry it up.  I haven't watered anything in over a week and I'm afraid my seedlings aren't growing very much without any sunlight.

I bought a small greenhouse that I'm going to set up on our back porch for starting seeds so that the rain doesn't wash away the seeds and soil.  I'll probably have it set up where I want it by my next post.  Speaking about my next post, our son, Branson, is going to be born within the next week so times are going to get busy but I'm going to make sure and keep posting as we move into fall.

New Contact Info:

Instagram - codysplants

Email - cody@codysplants.com

From around the yard:

In the garden we have black-eyed peas, watermelon, basil, and newly planted okra.  I also have overgrown tomato plants and sweet potatoes in another garden.

I'm working on stopping the grass from growing with cardboard and adding pine mulch to the walkway.  That's our new automatic hose reel, pretty cool how it works.

Amaryllis seedlings, I'm surprised at how many sprouted.  Now I need to wait for the bulbs to form.

Yellow and Purple Coneflower seedlings.  

Blue Victoria Salvia, Marigold, and Black-eyed Susan seedlings.  The marigolds are from seed saved from a parent plant in our butterfly garden.

Butterflyweed seedlings.  Having a hard time dealing with aphids on these guys.

Our drift roses are starting to fill out the front garden and looking nice.

I planted these two hibiscus next to our rain gutter and they are blooming very frequently.  

The monarchs have found our Tropical Milkweed!  

Wet and Hot as Firespike

It's definitely summertime in North Florida.  Last week was extremely hot and dry while this week we've had thunderstorms every afternoon.  On Sunday, I still was able to get a lot of work done between storms.  I've been re-potting many cuttings that have taken root and also started some seeds for summer crops and flowering plants.  One of the coolest plants that I have growing from cuttings are Firespike (Odontonema cuspidatum).  These plants bloom in late summer and fall with tall red spike flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies.  I plan on growing these all along our back porch and selling the cuttings once they grow larger.

Here are many firespike, red maple, and spiderwort.

This is a picture of a firespike from last fall.  They are a lot taller this year!

Marlin enjoying the Firespike blooms last fall.

Crape Myrtle from cuttings.  Probably a third of the original cuttings took root but still very cool!

This Gardenia cutting was taken for the flower and while in the vase it grew this roots!

Seeds and Seedlings:

Over the last month or so I've made some seeds purchases through eBay and Botanical Interests.  Sharon's Florida Milkweed post I wrote about in a previous post guided me to her eBay store and I ordered seeds for some native plants from her... beautyberry, sabal palm, blueberry, and some wildflowers.  Through Botanical Interests I ordered many more flowers and some vegetables:  yellow squash, butternut squash, cone flowers, marigolds (although I'm learning to save seeds from some I have blooming), sunflowers, and more.

Here are the seed packets from Botanical Interests.

Newly planted seeds such as black eyed peas, herbs, beautyberry, okra, and butterfly milkweed.

Rose cuttings, amaryllis, sweet potato vine, goldenrod, and garberia.  

I have lots more to plant and need more space!

Elsewhere around the yard:

The orange cherry tomatoes are growing out of our compost bin.  

Beautiful Bleeding Heart Vine.

Ox-Eye Sunflower