Springtime Tallahassee

It's definitely Springtime Tallahassee.  My vegetables are growing strong, our bluebird eggs have hatched, and blooms are opening everywhere.  I visited Native Nurseries last weekend and came home with a native Florida Azalea (Rhododendron austrinum) and pretty Coral Nymph (Salvia coccinea), a cultivar of Tropical Sage.  Now I'll have to add red Tropical Sage to our our flower garden and Pinxter Azalea to the Florida natives section of our backyard.  Plants need companions!  The Mountain Laurels (Kalmia latifolia) were blooming at the nursery and this shrub is definitely on my wanted list.

Here are some pics of our new additions and beautiful blooms that we want:

Florida Azalea

Coral Nymph along with some Tropical Sage

Mountain Laurels

Now for what's happening in our yard:

Coral Honeysuckle, Amaryllis, Milkweed, Spiderwort, and the newly planted Coral Nymph all blooming.  I made some cuttings of the spiderwort and milkweed that are beginning to grow. I also have some Four o'clock seeds sprouting in this garden and our butterfly garden.  

Amaryllis

Hello Yellow Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa)

I cleaned up the nursery section of the yard and would like to start adding a lot more in the near future.  Here I have lots of Angel Trumpets, Crepe Myrtles, Firespikes, and a section of miscellaneous plants that started on their own.  

Yellow squash, pole beans, snap peas, and carrots are all growing well.  I have also planted a section of herbs that have yet to sprout.  In our other garden we have red potatoes and tomatoes growing.  

Look at that little squash growing under the bloom!

Our new garden truck!

Spring, Questions, and Research

This past week has been beautiful.  Azaleas are blooming everywhere, the mornings are cool, and blue skies throughout the day.  With everything growing so well, I find myself with lots of questions.  I've been reading a lot about plants online, checked out some books from the library, and bought a couple books off Amazon that I know I want around as references.  Here are some books that I have enjoyed.

The Gardener's A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food

Secrets of Plant Propagation: Starting Your Own Flowers, Vegetables, Fruits, Berries, Shrubs, Trees, and Houseplants

Plant Propagation A to Z: Growing Plants for Free

These books have been helping me get ideas for my vegetable garden and with identifying which plants I can take cuttings from.  I've also been starting a lot of random seeds lately.  One example is Red Maple seedlings from seeds I've found around my yard.  I also plan on taking some Japanese Maple cuttings from a tree at work during the early summer.

I emailed my locate agriculture extension today asking about the Wisteria blooming around town.  I'm not sure if it's native American Wisteria or highly invasive Chinese Wisteria.  I'd love to start some native cuttings and plant them around my ditch.

Here's what's going on around my yard:

Yellow prolific straight-neck squash about to bloom

Very healthy Red Potatoes and tomato seedlings

Seven sister rose bushes growing rapidly and starting another bloom (last week I wrote about how I start these from cuttings)

Day lilies starting to bloom

Neighbor's amaryllis by their mailbox

Giant swallowtail butterfly on our massive dianthus

This Eastern Redbud was a stick for months

Bald cypress growing needles

I found this 3 gallon Coral Honeysuckle in a "make offer" section of a local garden center.  Hope I can get it to bring in some hummingbirds.

And our male bluebird catching bugs for his babies...

Pollen + Rain = Yellow Puddles

This past week has been nothing but pollen and rain.  It rained non-stop for three straight days and now the pollen picked right back up covering everything.

A positive from all the rain is that lots of my vegetable seeds have sprouted.  In this picture I have sugar snap peas, onions, and carrots.  I also have three varieties of tomatoes sprouting as well as the red potatoes and yellow squash growing strong in the gardens.

A couple weeks ago my neighbor "crape murdered" her crape myrtle tree and cut it back to the trunk.  I grabbed one large branch and made 20+ cuttings with 10 or more already sprouting.  I'm really impressed how quickly they started growing.  I hope they root well.  Google 'crape murder' if you want some entertainment.

My larger Angel Trumpets (Brugmansia) cuttings are growing real well.  Tonight I trimmed off the dead parts of the cuttings so that they have room to grow tall.  It's amazing how easy these things grow.

Here are more Angel Trumpets (Brugmansia) cuttings.  The softwood cuttings from last fall are in the middle and growing well.  All the bare sticks are hardwood cuttings from the winter.  Some are rooting but no leaves yet.


Seven Sisters Roses

The gutter is supplying plenty of water to the rose cuttings.

Two new cuttings starting to grow leaves.

The previous three pictures are from our front walkway garden.  Originally we had ratty looking boxwood bushes but I removed those by pulling them out with my truck and now I've been planting Seven Sister Roses.

The original rosebush came as a cutting started by my Grandmother.  I started a 2nd bush at my old house and then when I moved last summer, I dug up these two bushes to take with me to my new house.  The rosebushes went through an initial shock and dropped all their leaves, but have rebounded very well.  Since then I've made four more bushes from cuttings branches off the two bigger bushes.

I've learned that when trying to grow these roses from cuttings, all you need to do it remove the leaves, stick them in the ground, and keep them watered.  Mulching around them keeps the soil moist and once the roots grow you have a new rosebush.  The cuttings I ignore seem to grow the best.

Until next time....

Railroad Tie Raised Garden Bed

Just when I thought we were in full blown spring, the temperature drops to 35 degrees.  It looks like everything survived and we don't have any more cold weather on the forecast, so I believe I can officially say that it's finally spring!

The last couple weeks I've been working on building, filling, and planting a raised garden bed out of railroad ties.  As stated in a previous post, I received these railroad ties free from someone offering them on Craiglist.  The previous owner used them for a playground border.  Now I'd like to share my experiences with setting up this garden.

I picked up eight foot long railroad ties and cut two down to use on the ends with a circular saw.  I had to cut all 4 sides of the wood and then use a hand saw to finish the edge so that it was smooth.

The next step was deciding what to do with the grass.  Since this area of grass was so thick, I found some large boards to lay on the grass to kill it before putting in the soil.

I picked up a cubic yard of garden soil and shoveled about 20 cubic feet of soil into the garden.  The grass wasn't entirely dead but I did cover half of it with a fabric to see if it prevents weed and/or grass growth better than no barrier at all.

The filled garden was looking good!

My next step was planting some squash plants that my little girl and I started by seed in the seed-starting tray on the right.  We also planted some carrot seeds in rows by the popsicle stick.  I'm waiting on some bush beans to get bigger to transplant them in the open area of the garden.

Luckily I put pine straw around the seedlings before the cold front came through.  I really hope this protected the squash plants!  So what do you think of the railroad tie raised garden?


Here are some other things going on around the backyard garden:

Red potatoes, herb seed planted, and tomato seedlings.

Cleaned out the butterfly garden planted our lemon tree, and mulched around the citrus trees

Spiderworts blooming in our flower garden.

Mother bluebird leaving her house!  We are excited for our first spring in the new house!!!

Finding things you need on Craigslist

I've discovered that Craigslist has become a great tool for getting things I need for my yard.  Sometimes I get lucky and someone posts a free ad near me.  There are times I can negotiate a price down so that I get a great deal and other times I just post an ad in the wanted section for whatever I need.  I've received many items free or a lot cheaper than retail prices.  If there's an expensive item I need, I'll sell other items and save the cash to buy the needed item.  Right now I've saving for a reliable weed eater/trimmer.

Another online resource that I've found very beneficial is freecycling.  Freecycle.org has a network of cities around the US that people offer items they believe others could use.  You are also able to post wanted ads and I've received many items this way.

I bought this garden cart last week from someone off Craigslist for $20.  It's in great shape and will be extremely helpful moving things around my yard.  I've seen retail prices for these carts anywhere from $70-$150.  I think I got a great deal!  The bricks were posted on the free section and I loaded up the back of my truck.

So far I've used the bricks for a fire pit and as a border for my flower garden.

This flat-free wheelbarrow retails at Lowes for $64 plus tax.  I got it off Craigslist for around $30 in excellent condition.

Big box stores love to jack up prices on seasonal items like rain barrels.  I found this one on Craigslist for around $40.  I've begun using the water from this rain barrel daily when watering my vegetables and seedlings.

I heard about this potting bench from an ad the building had on Craigslist selling benches of different sizes.  I've also found a guy that fixes lawn mowers and yard equipment motors.  A mower I sold recently I originally got for free, he fixed it for $30, and I sold the working mower for $100.  Easy $70 profit!

Trash cans, railroad ties, lumber, pallets, a table, and lots of pots are examples of items that I've got for free on either Craigslist or Freecycle.  There's a lot out there that people don't want and it's great that I can put these things to use instead of them going to a landfill.

What have you bought on Craigslist or received from freecycling?

Pollen is in the air... and my nose.

It's Spring!  Well not officially, Spring starts March 20th, but plants started blooming and birds are making nests.  Our bluebirds are back checking out where I moved their house.

My Eastern Redbud tree is starting to show life again and my maple tree looks very cool with all the red seeds hanging.  Does anyone know if maple tree leaves make good mulch for around the base of trees?  I usually just use pine needles.

 

I added some amaryllis and spiderworts (I think) to my flower garden.  I still need to mulch around them to keep the weeds from growing.  I've decided that this area is where I'll plant things that people give me.  There is an odd collection already in the garden including aloe, milkweed, ivy, Ox Eye Sunflower, and more that I haven't identified yet.  

This was a spur of the moment project.  I was working in the yard and got an alert on my phone that someone was giving away railroad ties.  I heard about how people make gardens out of them so I thought I'd give it a try.  These are pretty old railroad ties that have rotted some, but the garden frame ended up looking good.

Now I need to find around 20 cubic feet of garden soil to fill my new railroad tie garden.  So far I have a quote of $35 dollars for 1 cubic yard (27 cubic feet) but the soil is in Wakulla.  Does anyone know of a place in or around Tallahassee that has good quality garden soil at a decent price?

This is an area of my yard that I'm trying to plant all natives.  So far under the pine trees I've planted 3 Arrow-wood, 1 Spicebush, and 1 Crabapple that were purchased as bareroot trees at Native Nurseries.  Do you say "bareroot", bare-root", or "bare root"???  I also planted 3 'Little Gem' Southern Magnolia toward the back of my property line.

Here is a closeup of the Crabapple. None of these trees are very big but my goal is for them to fill out the area covered in pine needles and give birds, insects, and wildlife food and shelter.

Sun setting over my future native filled landscape...

The time springs forward this weekend so that means more time in the yard!!!  (if my wife lets me...)