Earth Shattering Gardening

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In September 2010's issue of Family Handyman , there's a great story about Tim Carroll, an old-fashioned horse-logging operator in Minnesota. Working with clients to reduce the amount of construction impact on building sites, Carroll uses horses to haul away logs instead of modern tractors.

"Conventional logging calls for skid loaders. they not only tear up the woods but also require a lot of trees to be cut down for manuevering room. The horses, on the other hand, just leave a nice, long trail of road apples, and luckily, the remaining trees appreciate those." ~ Trace Larsen

Tim Carroll, a woodworker who also builds custom cabinets says about his work, "We're not loggers - we're forest gardeners."

Logging with Hoof and Heart

Cedar River Horse Logging

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Great news for all of you sun worshippers in Florida: Scientists have found certain combinations of plant compounds can prevent skin cancer. The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio is conducting research with red grapes, that is proving to be successful at preventing skin cancer in mice.

"On the basis of our research, supplements and creams or sunscreens may be developed, tested in humans and then used to prevent skin cancer," said Zbigniew Walaszek, Ph.D., research associate professor of pharmacology at the Health Science Center.
The plant substances are being tested in SENCAR mice, which because of genetic manipulation are sensitive to skin cancer initiation and promotion/progression. The natural agents include resveratrol, found in the skin of red grapes, and grape seed extract. Others are calcium D-glucarate, a salt of D-glucaric acid, present in many fruits and vegetables and also the bloodstream, and ellagic acid, found in a host of berries and in walnuts.

Skin cancer affects over a million people a year. Finding a preventative would be certainly be miraculous.

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An awesome photograph of Hurricane Earl from outer space taken by NASA Astronaut Douglas Wheelock. Will Hurricane Earl threaten Florida gardens? At this time, it looks like we will just be subjected to rain and 15-foot waves on our coast. But, this time of the year, you should always be prepared for hurricanes. Hurricane Fiona is right behind Earl.

You can follow Doug Wheelock's tweets and more beautiful photographs on Twitter.

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Choosing garden containers for Florida's hot summers takes some forethought if you're going to be sustainable and keep your plants thriving.

With our high evapotranspiration in our subtropical and tropical climate,and if they choose a clay pot or a planter that allows the soil to dry out quickly, Florida gardeners can find themselves watering their container gardens once a day. But new European designed pots may be the secret to never having to be afraid to leave your flowers in your container gardens high and dry.

Lechuza, a division of Playmobil, a worldwide corporation and yes, the maker of world-famous traditional children's toys, has created an intelligent self-watering planter for container gardens inside and outside your home.

Using the plant's natural root growth to create a sub-irrigation system of wicking water up through the plant's root system, Lechuza planters outdoors can depend on rainfall during Florida's rainy season without worrying that your container gardens will need constant attention. Establishing your plants first before leaving them to Mother Nature is critical but once that is done, Lechuza planters seem to be very low maintenance and water conserving.

The Lechuza Factory Outlet in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida has a wide array of modern and cottage containers to choose from. All of Lechuza's self-watering planters come with a pure mineral alternative to soil called Lechuza-Pons, an organic plant substrate created with pumice, zeolite, lava, and fertilizer. Added either to soil or used alone, Lechuza Pons will help your container plants thrive with little need to worry about fertilizing.

Lechuza's award-winning designs include classical lines, urban design, and cottage simplicity for every garden theme. The planters are made of durable plastic that can withstand heat without fading for a look of elegance for pool patios or your very own backyard botanical garden.

I couldn't resist purchasing a purple Cubico for my beautiful pink and green Calathea. It looks like a piece of furniture in our home and can now look out the window and receive great eastern exposure. Before it was in a porcelain pot placed on the floor. It is thriving with its new container.

Prices range from $30 for interior table top and herb container gardens through $180 for larger containers suitable for palms and smaller trees.

Pretty impressive for a toy manufacturer. Those of us who have handed down our Playmobil sets to our grandchildren to play with, know what quality toys Playmobil makes. Creating a beautiful, durable self-watering garden container with the same ingenuity and integrity, I'm looking forward to handing down my Lechuza planters to my grandchildren that will hold great memories of gardening with me.

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Low-pressure systems in southern California during June and July and a cyclonic phenomenon called the "Catalina eddy effect" have increased inland cloud conditions keeping summer temperatures cooler. Except for the mountain ranges and desert regions, Southern California has experienced below normal temperatures since April.

For gardeners and farms that cooler season has prevented fruits and vegetables from ripening. Jill Morganelli, horticulture curator at the Los Angeles County Arboretum noted:

"The fruits and vegetables, the tomatoes and a lot of the citrus and things like raspberries are not ripening up because it's not getting hot long enough," she said, adding that some fruit could taste less sweet because less sun means less sugar content.

Morganalli said she has picked just one fully ripened tomato so far from her own summer garden.

Read more: Temperatures continue well below average in Southern California - Whittier Daily News

More climate change news:

Record Cold at LAX

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The USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station has created a free pdf download of invasive plant species, “A Field Guide for the Identification of Invasive Plants in Southern Forests.”

The book is a more comprehensive identification guide to nonnative trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, ferns and forbs invading the region’s forests and other natural areas. The revised guide includes 23 more plant species with updated information on the original 33 species; 241 new photos and images and a new “Resembles” section so users can identify plant “look-alikes.”
The book’s appendix contains the most complete list of nonnative invasive plants in the 13 Southern states, providing common and scientific names for 310 other invading species including, for the first time, aquatic plant invaders.

Complete with color high density photographs, it takes a few minutes to download or you can email:

To: pubrequest@fs.fed.us
Subject: Publication Request
In email, type: Please send me: A field guide for the identification of invasive plants in southern forests (GTR-SRS-119) by Miller, James H.; Chambliss, Erwin B.; Loewenstein, Nancy J.

This publication should be in every Master Gardener Clinic, County Extension office, Master Naturalist, eco-tourism guide, and environmentalist's library. The pdf is an updated version of their original publication from 2003.

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Horticultural Week announced that South Africa's leading botanist Prof. Braam van Wyk, will be speaking on South Africa's Highveld Grasslands at the Garden Museum, London in September.

We have great memories of the 17th century Museum of Garden History, as it was formerly called. On our honeymoon, nearly five years ago, we discovered the hidden treasure in the Church of St. Mary-at-Lamberth near the Thames River and Westminster Palace. The former church and yard is small, with a cemetary that honors the buried Sir. John Transcendant and Captain Bligh, both important in horticulture. If you have the chance to visit, dont' miss this gardening jewel. Now that it's been renovated, I can't wait to go back and see the exhibitions.

You can see the enlarged photographs here: The History Of Gardening Museum, London, England

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I'm always on the lookout for flower and gardening references in movies and commercials. I was thrilled to discover one of my favorite blooming flowers in the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope "On the Road" movie marathon this weekend. In "The Road To Bali" there was a great song about the exotic fragrant moonflowers.

Growing moonflowers is easy. Either find moonflowers in seed packets at the garden center or find someone with moonflowers. The seed pods are plentiful. You'll never need to buy moonflower seeds again. Make sure you soak the seed pod overnight and score the hard shell with a knife before planting. They will emerge quickly and seem to grow overnight to about 8 to 10 feet tall. This is a wonderful plant for children as it combines human senses; large, white flower that literally blossoms in front of your eyes for sight, heady perfume for smell, and it opens at night.

Moonflowers in "The Road To Bali" should be the clue that this annual vine will freeze in cold weather. But finding the flowers in bloom and seed now will allow you to save them for next spring.

You can hear Dorothy Lamour singing the song here.

MOONFLOWERS

From the film "Road To Bali" (1952)(Johnny Burke / Jimmy Van Heusen)

Romance comes with the moonflowers.

Tonight the moonflowers will be in bloom.

Love walks among the moonflowers.

I planted moonflowers outside my room.

I'll watch the path that winds by the wishing tree.

It ends beneath my window and there I'll be.

And there I'll wait for the love I longed for

Tonight the moonflowers may bloom anew.

(Orchestral Interlude)

I'll watch the path that winds by the wishing tree.

It ends beneath my window and there I'll be.

And there I'll wait for the love I long for

Tonight the moonflowers may bloom anew.

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I love new plants. Especially flowers that are one of a kind that are easy to grow and look as gorgeous as candelabras on a grand piano. I found the Candelabra clerodendron at Blodgett's Nursery on Edgewater in Orlando last Friday. Its' deep green leaves and upright white flowers took my breath away. Perfect for shade or partial sun, this clerodendron is new to the market and not easily available. In fact, when I talked to Mike Gibson, with Blodgett's, he said they only had four! I think I'm going back for more!

I can't find any research on them so I'll be taking notes and letting you know how they perform in my backyard!

Another colorful shade-loving ornamental is the Persian Shield, Strobialanthus dyerianus. Very drought-tolerant, easy care, no pest issues, and provides psychedelic colors of purple, gold, green, and many other colors depending on the light. It can grow to 5 feet tall in full sun, but in the shade it will only get to be 2 - 3 feet. In full sun they will need more water and suffer stress.

I'll be talking about citrus problems in your backyard with Charles Fedunak, Lake County's Horticultural Agent. If you have orange, grapefruit, or tangerine trees, you won't want to miss it!

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University of Florida's Jason K. Kruse's summertime temperature comparisons between natural turfgrass and artificial turf.

Even if you have to mow it, real turfgrass is much better for the environment.

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We're only mid-way through the summer and the heat is right on schedule. Rainfall is above average in Central Florida with Lake receiving nearly 53 inches, 5 inches over the norm. Orange and Seminole counties rainfall totals of 53 inches gives the residents 1 inch more than average.

So why is it so hot? It's July in a subtropical temperate zone! Thank goodness for air conditioning. Yes, we could be in Alaska with snow on the ground. Our aunt and uncle are visiting her home state and were given a weather buffet of everything you could ask for sun, rain, sleet, snow, but no heat.

As you can see with their beautiful photographs, Alaska's summertime flowers are Florida's wintertime annuals of lobelia, pansies, snapdragons, and phlox.

Okay, so it does look refreshing but it's not reality for Floridians. The bad news is that with our rainfall, expect to see more dollarweed, mushrooms, fungal diseases. Good news is that you don't really need to do anything to your turf but turn off the irrigation and let Mother Nature do the irrigating. Dollarweed can be reduced by reducing the amount of water your turf receives. It's too hot to spray herbicides. Mushroom spores are airborne and the mushrooms will eventually die. Fungicides are productive only if you spray them preventatively. If you can't get to Alaska, we're going to have to settle for a/c because we have at least three months till cooler weather arrives to our great outdoors.

Two weeks ago, WLBE's antennae took the brunt of a lightning strike that had the station out of operation for two weeks. Fortunately, last Tuesday the station had it repaired but not in time for "In Your Backyard." We're back this morning at 11:06 for your gardening questions. Looking forward to chatting with you.

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The argument continues for environmentalists and anti-GM (genetically modified) protesters against chemical use in agriculture. David Mercer, AP is reporting on Breitbart:

The weed killer, known generically as glyphosate, is absorbed through plants' leaves and kills them by blocking the production of proteins they need to grow. At the same time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers it to have little toxicity to people and animals, and aside from the plants it's sprayed on, it's less of a threat to the environment because it quickly binds to soil and becomes inactive.
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With increased reliance on Roundup, herbicide use on corn decreased from 2.76 pounds an acre in 1994 to 2.06 in 2005, the most recent year for which the U.S. Department of Agriculture has data. Spread that out over the 81.8 million acres planted in 2005, and it's a decrease of more than 57 million pounds of herbicides annually.

Farmers also found they could cut back or in some cases eliminate tilling, reducing erosion and fuel use.
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But with any herbicide, the more it's used, the more likely it'll run into individual plants within a species that have just enough genetic variation to survive what kills most of their relatives. With each generation, the survivors represent a larger percentage of the species.

St. Louis-based Monsanto maintains the resistance is often overstated, noting that most weeds show no sign of immunity.
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In Australia, weed scientist Stephen Powles has been a sort of evangelist for saving Roundup, calling it a near-miraculous farming tool.

Australia has been dealing with Roundup-resistant weeds since the mid 1990s, but changes in farming practices have helped keep it effective, Powers said. That has included using a broader array of herbicides to kill off Roundup resistant weeds and employing other methods of weed control.

As with most agricultural practices, specific herbicides are not silver bullets, especially when abused. Multiple, holistic approaches are needed for management. Overuse of any chemical, fertilizer, ingredient that is humanly applied will lead to Mother Nature arguing defensively on what actually should happen to her planet. We ultimately learn our lessons the hard way and the answer is usually a Goldilocks strategy, Not too much, not too little but just right.

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You know summer is here when you open your front door and it feels like a laundryroom with the dryer going full blast. The heat and humidity is hard to overcome in our tropical climate. At least we have cross breezes from the ocean which bring us afternoon showers. I'll take them if we can get them but dont count on the weatherman's rain chance percentages.

What we could be seeing in the landscape are damages from fertilizing and using herbicides during the wrong time of year. When plants are dehydrated and heat-stressed, they are not able to absorb the chemicals adequately and can die.

Reading the manufacturers' instruction label is critical for all chemical applications. The label will tell you explicitly "Do not apply this product to turf under stress from drought, insects, disease, cold temperatures, high temperatures of above 85 degrees."

Don't have the label? Here's a great site to look up MSDS sheets: CDMS Agro-Chemical database.

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Father's Day coming up - let him take a break from yardwork. Tell him that for the next two months he doesn't need to fertilize or spray pesticides and you'll mow the lawn for him! Keep the grass cut high at 3-4 inches. Another great Father's Day gift is to have the lawn mower blades sharpened. He'll be able to get through that thick St. Augustinegrass. Sharp lawn mower blades keep the grass blades cut evenly, which means less susceptibility to pest problems!

If you have missed any of the last month's "In Your Backyard," you can find them at http://www.wlbe.org/ and click on the Past Shows.

Listen and call in with your gardening questions today at 11:06 am! Tell me what's going on in your backyard!

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It's winter. There will be high traffic. Short-lived. It's not green enough. It's South African's native grass kikuyu. Not green enough? What is it with people having expectations of turf "green-ness?"

Well, when it's South Africa's World Cup games and literally, millions of people around the world are watching, the grass may not be green enough. Which is not settling well with black South Africans. They are proud of their native grass and reject the notion that it's not good enough for Europe.

Kikuyu is a fast-growing grass that spreads through rhizomes and stolons that was first introduced to the United States in 1915 . It tolerates sun, shade, and warm temperatures. But don't look for it here in the United States. It has the temperment of bermudagrass and is considered a federal noxious weed. The FIFA's solution is a combination of ryegrass and for the first time in World Cup history, artificial turf.

Millions of Africans have been saying it for years: the grass is greener in Europe. Now the world's football bosses have decided that Africa's indigenous grass is not bright enough for international television audiences.

In a major blow to South African pride in hosting next year's World Cup, stadiums used for top matches have been told to scrap their hardy African kikuyu pitches and switch instead to tender European ryegrass.

With warm season grasses, it's going to need more maintenance, more water, more fertilizer on the football (Soccer to us Yanks) stadium field than the kikuyu. Over-seeding with rye isn't catching on with South Africans who are frankly insulted that their field isn't up to European and HD television standards.

Let's hope FIFA gets the aesthetic look they want to achieve. Cape Town has wet winters this time of the year and the ryegrass hopefully will not turn yellow.

Tournament spokesman Rich Mkondo, agrees with the Sports Turf Research Institute in Yorkshire, England. He thinks that eventually South African soccer athletes will get used to the fancy, temporary turf. He reminds the world that as a boy, he played soccer with a tennis ball on gravel.

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Teresa' note: Now those vuvuzelas are another story! A whole month of listening to those might send me looking for the world's largest flyswatter! Those should be banned from the world!

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UPDATE: Oil has reached Florida's beaches.

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Florida's fishing industry wants Floridians and tourists to know that the fishing in Florida is great! Despite all the MSM's devastating reports, rumors, and dire predictions about the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, Florida's beaches and waters remain at this time normal.

Noting that misconceptions spawned of misinformation have already levied heavy tolls on Florida's recreational fishing industry, Florida Guides Association President Capt. Pat Kelly said it best:

"I think somebody cried Big Bad Wolf, but the Big Bad Wolf hasn't started biting on us yet," Kelly said. "When we have some of the best guides in the state losing trips, something is wrong."

Like most that make their living from Florida's natural resources, Kelly said he harbors deep concern for any potential harm to local ecosystems. Highlight "potential." The damage to Louisiana's coastal marshes is sadly inescapable. Harm to Florida is not a foregone conclusion. In fact, as of this writing, no documented reports of oil in or near Florida waters exist. Beaches remain clean, state waters remain open and anglers are having no trouble bending rods with trout, redfish, Spanish mackerel, cobia, tarpon, snapper, grouper and many others.

Read what is actually going on the men who are out there on the ocean.

Don't let your summer plans be ruined by assuming that you won't be able to fish or that the fish will be contaminated or killed by the oil.

This is the message of Florida's recreational fishing industry: Don't worry about something that has not happened, don't trust hype over facts and don't cancel plans to experience the nation's most diverse saltwater fishing.

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June 1st signals the first day of hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin. This year NOAA has issued their projections of fifteen hurricanes with eight major storms. The hurricane names will be:

1. Hurricane Alex
2. Hurricane Bonnie
3. Hurricane Colin
4. Hurricane Danielle
5. Hurricane Earl
6. Hurricane Fiona
7. Hurricane Gaston
8. Hurricane Hermine
9. Hurricane Igor
10. Hurricane Julia
11. Hurricane Karl
12. Hurricane Lisa
13. Hurricane Matthew
14. Hurricane Nicole
15. Hurricane Otto
16. Hurricane Paula
17. Hurricane Richard
18. Hurricane Shary
19. Hurricane Tomas
20. Hurricane Virginie
21. Hurricane Walter

How many will hit Florida is yet in Fate's hands. But you need to be prepared!

By June 1st, all your preparations to weather a Category 1-5 hurricane should be completed. That means that you have enough food and water to last a few days, that weather stripping and house renovations are finished, and that your landscape and yard have had a walk-through to remove anything that could damage your house or be windblown during a storm.

Have you inspected your trees? Large limbs in older trees that form a vee and deep crotch could be weak and break or mask a hollow interior that will easily uproot with strong winds. Check out any limbs hanging over homes or are growing together. Look closely for heavy limbs that hang over homes, cross or rub together.

It's important to understand that it's not just pruning a tree, or cutting off limbs that will make it safe and healthy. Cutting trees improperly can make them more dangerous in a storm or and actually reduce the life of the tree. Never try to cut large trees yourself. Always use a certified arborist.

A certified arborist is the only person who should help homeowners make a decision on what limbs to prune or if a tree should be removed. You can easily find certified arborists through the International Society of Arborculture. By inputting your zip code, city, you can find several qualified arborists in your area. If you have an arborist's name or license number, you can verify his certification and good standing.

Before hiring an arborist, it's always a good idea to get three bids so that you feel comfortable that the service is actually needed and with the cost. Professionals understand that you will be calling other arborists for bids. That's part of the business. Don't be afraid to say that you need to check them out or get other bids to price check.

The best advice is to make sure that you're planting the right tree in the first place. The University of Florida/IFAS has enough studies that they now have determined which trees are the most wind-resistant. You can read that study here. It will save a lot of work and money in protecting your home during hurricanes if you select properly for your site.

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More science based data on CO2's harmful effects: There's none.

CO2SCIENCE: Isolated for 42 days in chambers of ambient and elevated CO2 concentrations, we periodically document the growth of cowpea plants (Vigna unguiculata) via time-lapse photography.

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If you didn't get to participate in any Earth Day events, there's still plenty to do:

This Friday, April 30th is National “Save the Frogs” Day, highlighting awareness of our amphibian friends and their habitats.

The Lake County Water Authority is hosting a wetland walk at Sawgrass Island Preserve for the public. It is limited to 15, RSVP 343-3777, ext. 0.

The Hike will start at 9:00 am in the northern parking area. Participants will visit the Preserve's seasonal wetlands dipping for salamanders and frogs. The biologist will talk about the native wildlife, importance of wetlands and the uplands that protect these fragile habitats. The 1,200-acre Sawgrass Island Preserve was purchased by LCWA in 1994 to protect the 600+ acre marsh at the north shore of Lake Yale.

I will be at EPCOT on Sunday, May 9th for the International Flower and Garden Festival to provide garden advice for your backyard. Looking forward to talking to Florida residents. I'll be posting photographs of all the great flower containers, topiaries, and scenery. It should be wonderful weather, come out and see me!

See previous year's International Flower and Garden Festival photographs at EPCOT.

The Lake County Water Authority's tour of their one year old NURF facility was incredible. It's amazing to see how the alum cleans up the polluted water of Lake Apopka that comes into the Beauclair Canal. If you didn't get a chance to visit, here are some of the highlights:

NURF Tour -April 22 -2010

Today's topics:

With the warmer temperatures we are now seeing an increase of flea infestations, not only on our pets but in our yards. Even homeowners that don't have pets can see flea issues due to rodents like squirrels, mice, and citrus rats. What should you do so you don't have to "flea your premises?"

Name these lovely native wildflowers that is blooming freely along the backroads of Lake County?

Answer: Fringed Bluestar (Amsonia ciliata) and Florida Greeneyes (Berlandia betonicifolia)

Good for you if you got them right! Excellent if you have seen them!

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The most frequent question I get from beginning garden enthusiasts is: What gardening book do I use most at home? The answer is never simple. Most gardening and nature books are theme-specific, especially here in Florida where gardening has year-round opportunity. My best advice is always: “Depending on your interests, you’ll need several, but Tom MacCubbin’s books are must-haves for Florida gardeners.”

I can now amend my usual advice to put Tom’s newest gardening book at the top and recommend “Florida Gardener’s Resource - All You Need To Know To Plan, Plant, & Maintain A Florida Garden” that Florida green-thumbs, even non-gardeners, should have in their home library.

Tom MacCubbin, University of Florida/IFAS Extension Agent and Professor emeritus, is Central Florida's award-winning Orlando Sentinel garden columnist, television and radio personality. His books, ““Edible Landscape”, “Month by Month Gardening”, and Florida’s Gardener’s Guide” to name just a few, have made Tom the most relied upon horticultural expert in Central Florida for over 18 years.

A collaborative effort between Florida’s four most popular gardening gurus and authors, Tom MacCubbin, Georgia Tasker, Robert Bowden, and Joe Lamp'l, “Florida Gardener’s Resource” has what I need in a gardening book. The chapters are organized by plant categories for easy reference, with seasonal charts on planting. Monthly chores in the landscape and color photographs provide easy-to-understand information. Less than $15, this gardening book provides advice on lawns,fruits, herbs, and vegetables, natives, water conservation, and attracting butterflies. New residents and experienced master gardeners can now have that “one book". “Florida’s Garden Resource” should become our state's newest gardening attraction.

I'll be interviewing Tom on Florida Gardener's Resource and plant problems today on "In Your Backyard."

More information on where to find Tom gardening:

Tom's website: Better Lawns , blog Tom's Digs, and Tom and Joanie's new video website: "His and Hers Gardening.

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Our scenic Florida highways are a source of inspiration for color in the landscape. The wildflowers are blooming in swales, meadows, and in the medians and sides of the roads. Beautiful native flowers such as spiderworts, Tradescantia ohiensis, lyre-leaf sage, Salvia lyrata, toadflax, Linearis canadensis, phlox, Phlox drummondi, and narrow-leaf yellowtops, Flaveria linearis. In the shade of larger trees and wetter soils, we are seeing Red buckeye, Aesculus pavia , fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus, and titi, Cyrilla racemifolia,

Non-native red sorrel mixed with native toadflax.

Great opportunities to view wildflowers and submit your own photographs or favorite locations.

Please never pick the wildflowers. Native wildflowers will not do well in residential landscapes and ultimately die, but then they are not left in their original location to reseed and bloom the following year so that eventually the wildflowers die and vanish from the site.

Kathy Brown, renowned B. B. Brown's Nursery owner and scrub jay enthusiast, will be on the show today to talk about the colorful, low maintenance natives, how to enjoy them, and her upcoming Clermont workshops.

Resources for native plants:

Non-natives can also be beautiful and low maintenance. I am very pleased with how well my lovely False Freesia, Anomatheca laxa, has reseeded and is blooming so quickly this spring. Usually blooming in May and June, this South African drought tolerant native, handles Florida's heat and rain very, starting to bloom in April. I will let you know how long the flowers continue to appear. It easily reseeds and allows you to provide pass-along plants.

Call in with your gardening questions!

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Still enjoying the cooler temperatures with highs in the 80's and lows in the upper 50's at night. Landscape shrubs and trees are busting out with leaves and returning to their normal growth patterns.

We'll be talking about growing vegetables today with Jerry Carris, former Mayor of Winter Garden, beloved West Orange High School Agriculture teacher, and UF/IFAS's 2009 Master Gardener of the Year.

We will talk with Jerry about his love of gardening, how and what to plant for a great spring and summer vegetable garden, and his newest project, the Winter Garden Community Garden.

Want more information on growing vegetables here in Florida?

Last Friday, my husband and I, and our two Scottish terriers trekked a portion of the Florida Greenways, the Marshall Swamp Trail. With the abundance of rainfall in March, this truly was a swamp adventure. The trail is very well laid out but we did have to slosh our way through some lower portions of path. Beautiful native rain lilies, Zephyranthes spp. were blooming just in time for Easter Sunday.

I'll post the link to all of our hike's photographs this afternoon.

Call in to "In Your Backyard" with your gardening questions.

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Usually in April, Florida gardeners have a short spring before jumping directly into summertime temperatures. This year spring's cooler mornings have lingered and our dry season has been non-existant. I love this time of year and that it is lasting longer is nice.

All your shrubs should have leaves emerging, making it a little easier to see if which plants really didn't recover from the freezes. My variegated hibiscus and vitex agnus-castus survived nicely.

If you haven't pruned your plants back, you still have a few more weeks to cut them back before the stems start to bulk out and become woody. Cut out all the dead branches and if needed a third of the growth to shape.

Annuals to plant this time of year for three to six months of color include:

Ageratum, Cosmos,gazania, gaillardia, gerbera, globe amaranth, hollyhocks, impatiens, marigold, Mexican sunflower, moonflower, morning glories, nierembergia, portulaca, purslane, salvia, sunflower, torenia, verbena, and zinnias.

For less work in the garden but great oomph, place containers and hanging baskets filled with annuals and tropicals in strategic locations along pathways to create points of interest, and to add height and depth.

Place tall tropicals in the center of your container, with another fuller annual along the front and sideviews, adding a different annual, ivy, or groundcover to spill over the sides. Make the taller plant at least two-thirds of your container height for good balance. Make sure that you water container gardens on a regular basis as the temperatures rise. Watering your containers every day in summer is not unusual, which is the reason you should have just a few containers - not an entire yard of annuals.

Here are some great examples of container gardens for your yard. These photographs were taken in 2007 at EPCOT, the ultimate gardening experience during their International Flower and Garden Festival. Notice the color combinations! Don't be afraid to experiment before you buy your annuals. Place them in pots or on the floor together to get an idea of what they will look like in your own container. Don't be afraid to move them around.

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Last week's "In Your Backyard" radio show was a "Best Of" so that I could stay in bed and recover from a very bad cold. I still have a cough and a frog in my throat so listening this morning, you'll probably hear it.

Last weekend was the 2010 UF/Natural Resources Leadership Institute (NRLI) graduation for Class IX. The graduating fellows are an exciting and diverse group of environmentalists, municipality, federal, and state agency representatives. The class's final tour event and NRLI board meeting was held at Rosie Koenig's Organic Farm in Gainesville. There is so much to learn about the intricacies of growing and marketing organic vegetables.

On today's show - organic gardening - what does it mean?

USDA - Organic Gardening

On Sunday, we went to Leu Garden's Plant Sale in Orlando. What a great event! Great plants, unusual gardening items! I was able to bring home nun's orchids, vanilla orchid, smoke bush, and herbs.

Will update with your phone calls this afternoon!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Monday, June 21, 2010

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tuesday, March 23, 2010