Back Again, and Here All the Time

 Driving out of my island retreat in late February I saw my first swallow-tailed kite of the season, pretty much right on schedule. They may have been around, but I hadn't been out where I could see them. It made my heart glad. I will never tire of these elegant aerialists. They don't use just their tail-feathers and wings to navigate, but  also can turn their tail itself nearly 90 degrees, using it as a rudder, as they execute complicated maneuvers, rolls, and even backward dives. And they make it look effortless. Once aloft, they tend to ride the thermals all day, returning to the trees only at night, to roost. 

Ornithologist/artist David Allen Sibley describes them as, "Unmistakable; incredibly graceful, [with a ] flowing flight."(The Sibley Guide to Birds. Knopf. 4th printing Jan. 2001, p.111).

When mature, these raptors have white bodies with long, slender wings trimmed in black, and a long, forked black tail. They measure about 2 feet from bill to tail tip, and have a wingspan of a good 4 feet or more. They are fairly gregarious, and nest close together. 

There are 2  subspecies of Elanoides forficatus - one in the U.S., and one in Central and South America. The population in the States breeds in Florida, coastal Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina and parts of Texas. Their range in the U.S. used to extend up the Mississippi river all the way to Minnesota, but hunting and habitat loss have shrunk it drastically. They breed here in  late winter and then in July gather in large flocks for the return to South America. The Central and South America population stays put.

 They pluck their prey - mainly insects, reptiles and sometimes baby birds, from the treetops, and since the mangroves don't grow exceptionally tall here, it often is possible to get a good look at them as they hunt. They can eat, and even drink, on the wing. Unlike other raptors, they also will eat fruit. They are pretty adaptable - I  used to see them in heavily-populated suburban Miami, and I see them over populated areas in Naples as well. 

Apart from my own observations, I found information on these birds on the following websites:

American Bird Conservancy - abc.org

Cornell Lab - allaboutbirds.org

Florida Fish and Wildlife conservation Commission - myfwc.com."swallow-tailedkite"

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A few weeks after the filthy storm surge brought by Hurricane Ian in September of 2022, rendered all ground-hugging vegetation brown and dead, a few brave individual plants of blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium, not only appeared, but actually bloomed. It was a little out of season for blooming, and I suspect it was triggered by the sudden kill-off - a desperate attempt to ensure that there would be a new generation.

The swale, where these diminutive iris thrive in my yard then became the staging ground for all the wallboard, furniture, appliances and personal belongings destroyed by the flood. That debris included sodden carpet, cans of chemicals, solvents, portable gas tanks,and other unimaginable, including half a pizza, that washed in from elsewhere. The FEMA claw trucks made regular runs, picking up this detritus with remarkable dexterity. As cleanup and demo continued, these piles of battered remnants of past lives regenerated with remarkable speed. The skill of the crane operators in maneuvering such colossal crude claws was impressive, as they managed to scrape up virtually every last piece of broken glass or plaster. Still it was in no way a delicate operation  - it was digging and scraping and leveling on a brutal scale.

Instead of creating a desert, though, this enormous soil disturbance brought thousands of seeds to the surface. Some of these "weeds" were actually desirable plants, just not here, and certainly not welcome in the wild abandon with which they grew. The blue-eyed grass seemed overwhelmed.

The massive pollution spread by the flood paradoxically seems to have had a fertilizing effect in my yard. To be sure, fertilizer itself can be a pollutant, but the wasteland I expected after the flood didn't materialize.  I had to pull out massive clumps of dune sunflower, Helianthus debilis,  one of my favorite natives, which rendered the rest of the yard impassible, repeatedly. 

I had to have the swale mowed - no way was I going to be able to hand-weed that mess. Mowing the swale made it look presentable - but it made the weeds bushier and denser. One of the plants taking over was a lovely little native legume called Pencil-flower, Stylosanthes sp. It grows wider than tall, and tends to be rather open when left alone, but it loved the mowing, getting much tighter and blooming like crazy.

I still  had to do something about noxious exotics vying for control, so hand-weeding had to accompany shearing after all, Even with gloves I get scratched up by the woody twigs of the pencil-flower. 

I wasn't even looking for it when I uprooted a clump of blue-eyed grass in one of my weeding sessions. Then I saw more...and more...and still more. All thriving and blooming like crazy. It was as though the plants, especially the pencil-flower, that I assumed had choked it out, had, instead, acted as a shelter from hot sun and clipper blades. The blue-eyed grass hadn't disappeared at all. It had been there all the time.

If I lived on Fort Myers Beach or Sanibel Island, which experienced catastrophic destruction, my story wouldn't necessarily have such a rosy ending. The Ding Darling Reserve on Sanibel opened only partly in February, 2024, then more fully in April of 2024. It was devastated by the wind and waves. 

Maybe the natural landscape is recovering. I hope so. Given a little space and time, it seems that what we like to call the natural order will try to reassert itself, cling to its rhythms, even heal itself. But that is the big picture. In past decades and centuries one destroyed area wasn't so critical, because there were still hundreds, even thousands of unaffected acres, But now we've built out onto every available inch, and then some, especially along the coast, and we haven't left Mother Nature much recovery room. In fact, we build back stronger, deeper, higher. I am one of the guilty parties, living on what once was a barrier island, where I have no business being there at all. Yet I don't want to leave, and plenty more still want to move here.

(I'm  having computer problems, so can't include photos or sketches. I hope to solve this issue soon).

  

Signs of Spring

Just a few days ago I heard the familiar lament, "I like Florida, but I really miss the change of seasons." We don't have jonquils and crocus, but  there are plenty of signs heralding the advent of spring in SW Florida. As for color signals, what more do you need than the show put on by flowering trees - deep yellow Tabebuia,cooling lavender Jacaranda, delicate pink masses of flowering almond - just to name a few.  

The trees named above aren't native to Florida, but so much goes on in March in the natural world that I labeled 2 posts "March Madness" in 2017. This year has been a little crazy apart from the garden, and  I have made many more scribbled notes than sketches. I hope to catch up on some of the later spring manifestations.

The return of the swallow-tailed kites is a sure sign that the winter has turned. I spotted my first one of this year in the second week of March. These striking white-and- black-marked raptors demonstrate how little color has to do with real beauty. No matter how many I've seen, a soaring swallow-tailed kite still takes my breath away. Author and artist David Allen Sibley talks of their,"unmistakeable; incredibly graceful, flowing flight."(The Sibley Guide to Birds, p. 111). The birds don't use just their tail feathers for maneuvering, but also can twist their entire lower body to execute their aerial acrobatics.

Swallow-tailed kites nest in tall trees in hardwood forests, and due to development, especially intense timbering and replacement of mixed forests with pine plantations, their range in the U.S. has shrunk drastically. They used to nest as far north as Minnesota. Now they are limited to peninsular Florida, and the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana. They return to South America in the fall. 

They pluck their prey - reptiles, amphibians, insects and small birds from the treetops or catch and eat them in flight. I haven't read that they do so, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they also rob nests of other species. Perhaps that is calumny, but "Mother Nature" isn't kind, and she doesn't always go by the rules.

Frangipani, Plumeria sp., isn't native to Florida, but it consumes few, if any, resources, and isn't invasive. It is a quintessential "pass-along" plant. I got mine from a sister, who got hers from a friend. All you have to do to grow it is stick a branch into the dirt, water a little, and watch it grow. Once it is established it needs no irrigation or fertilizer. (At least the one in our yard behaves that way). There are many species and varieties, but the only two I see around the neighborhood are a  pink-flowered and a yellow-flowered one. Ours is  yellow-flowered, and fragrant. Frangipani is one of the flowers traditionally used in Hawaiin leis.

Frangipani Flower Cluster

Once the weather is good and dry, frangipanis lose all their leaves, and look completely dead and more than slightly creepy - like some sort of alien life form, which is just waiting to emerge and wreak havoc. 

Dormant Frangipani Branch

I used a variety of colored pencils to capture the gray-green, turgid look of these branchlets, which really do resemble dead fingers. The true color is something in between all my attempts. The large dry markings are leaf scars from previous seasons, and the squiggly maroonish things at the very tip are nascent leaves. New growth literally bursts through the skin. Buds and stems don't magically appear on the branches, but rupture the skin, leaving oozing wounds. 

Last month, bloom stalks capped with numerous flower buds started rising from the branch tips, and now the first flowers have opened. The plant is a member of the Dogbane Family, and all parts, including the white sap, are somewhat poisonous. I haven't found the sap irritating, but I haven't gotten much on my skin, and other people might have a reaction to it.

Emerging Flower Stalk
Maroon Structures are Young Leaves

The Great Southern White and Florida White butterflies reappear in mid-to-late March. Both occur here about the same time, and I'm not quick enough to id them on the fly. When we first moved here in 1994, we would see great swarms of white butterflies, but now we see them singly or maybe in pairs. If you can get close enough to see them, the bright turquoise tips on the antennae are a dead giveaway for the Great Southern White.

White Butterflies:
Great Southern White, Left, and Florida White, Right

The emergence of lubber grasshopper nymphs is also a marker for spring. The nymphs start emerging in great numbers in February. So far they have defoliated one bougainvillea, and demolished the Crinums and Tradescantias. They'll all recover, with the possible exception of the Tradescantia. which really are happier in more northern sections of Florida. There must be many microorganisms that afflict the nymphs, because the number of adults I see later on is a fraction of the immature population. Both nymphs and adults allegedly are toxic to most predators. 

Newly-Emerged Lubber Nymphs

Just like "up north," perennials are forming new basal rosettes and resuming growth. Elephant's foot and rosinweed have made a fine beginning, while blackroot and Pluchea have resprouted directly.  Native grasses like Elliott's Love Grass and Pink Muhley are sending out fresh, colored blades from what clumps of dried foliage from last year. Gaillardias sown by last year's plants are germinating here and there in the yard. I leave them where they don't block a path, and try to transplant others, even though it sets them back. 

March brings persistent drying winds. Our last rain was the second week in February, and given the wind and increasing sunshine I have to water at least twice a week now, whereas during winter even the potted plants don't require a lot of attention. 

Blue-Eyed Grass

Blue-eyed grass made a magnificent display throughout late winter and early spring, but is going to seed now. The tickseed is also beginning to appear somewhat the worse for wear.

It's March Madness in the garden all over again. There is plenty more going on, but I have to stop for now.

Clean Sweep

I've never managed to keep a  neat garden, and neighbors and walkers tell me they like my flowers. Still, I worry that the subtext is, "Your yard is an unholy mess, but at least it's colorful." Finally, old age, an arm injury still lingering after cleaning up after Irma in 2017, and my general sleaze coalesced into the proverbial "perfect storm" landscape-wise, and I had to hire somebody to clear-cut the mess.

Chaos is the Opposite of a Garden

Phyla nodiflora, "Fogfruit," makes a wonderful flowering natvie ground cover that attracts many pollinators, the lovely white peacock butterfly included. It was invading the driveway, and  had crept, kudzu-like, over a stack of paving blocks, 6 bags of mulch, and a patch of wickedly spiny agave, itself out of control even though I had been attacking it regularly.

Phyla nodiflora - Good Pollinator Plant

Sea purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum, another desirable native ground cover,  was smothering a pot of lotus and a nice patch of Heliotropium amplexicaule. It also presented a bad tripping hazard for anybody brave enough to make a foray into the "jungle." Thickets of scorpion-tail, scattered scarlet sage, and blue porterweed competed for light. Swaths of gaillardias and mounds of dune sunflower were flopping over onto the neighbor's driveway. The gravel swale, where I had nourished the fond idea of creating a meadow of blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), was instead a mess of moisture-loving opportunists. A dead palm tree and deformed Red Geiger, both courtesy of Hurricane Irma, completed the picture of utter surrender.

Even the rosiest of glasses couldn't mask the reality. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I called a garden center to restore the bare bones of  the landscape. Two truckloads of debris and over a hundred bags of mulch later, we have one of the neatest and most cared-for yard on the street, which has its pluses, but is not exactly my ideal garden.

New Look for the Front Yard

Although the yard hardly is bare, the new space comes with a cost beyond what the garden center charged. For years our yard has been one of the very few landscapes in our neighborhood to offer  significant amenities of pesticide-free shelter, food and water for animals. Now in its rather barren state those amenities, especially the shelter, are much-reduced.

 However, we do not want to return to what it had become, which was by no means a garden. One thing I have learned is that the garden is as much about space as it is about plants. Without space,  there is no focal point, no rest for the eye or the soul. If the garden is neither  pleasant for walking or viewing, it is a failure, regardless of the beauty of individual plants. The very word "garden" signals the imposition of some kind of order. A  "wild garden" is a contradiction in terms.

So now, I have to recreate some of the lost habitat without losing the harmony of the space. As the old plants begin to resurface through the mulch, I have to organize them into well-defined beds, augmented perhaps with potted specimens. The self-discipline to pull out the surplus will be hard for me to maintain, but if I don't, the mess will re-establish itself quickly. That should provide motivation enough, because the yard really had become horrible and impassable.

Pots for Color

Given the fact that the yard is so small, I also need to ensure that the majority of the plants do more than one job. The agaves don't exactly fit that requirement, though dragonflies like to perch on their upright leaves, and pollinators love the flowers when they appear finally. But we both love the sculptural quality of the plants. A Red Geiger volunteer seedling will fill the space left by the agaves, and all will have enough room for the next several years. Though not a native, the Geiger will be a multi-purpose asset, and deserves its own post.

Wish me luck!

March Madness in the Garden - Part I

March is winding down, and too much is going on to document it all. The growing season is pretty much year-round here, but March still marks the end of the cycle for some plants, and the beginning for others. Soon the tropical hardwoods like gumbo limbo, mahogany and fish-poison tree will shed their leaves, with new buds anticipating summer's rains. 

As usual, it's windy and dry. Fire season is well underway, with between 17,000 and 18,000 acres burned so far in two brush fires that merged into one megafire. Both were started by lightning. High wind and low humidity made the foresters' and firefighters' jobs even harder. Thick smoke enshrouding everything meant very little outside activity, and portions of US 41, the "Tamiami Trail," and I-75, "Alligator Alley," south and east of Naples had to be closed at times due to poor visibility. 

Choking Haze of Smoke

Much of Florida's flora, and indirectly, fauna, is either fire-dependent or fire-resistant. The question that I have not seen addressed is whether all the branches and trees downed by Hurricane Irma made the fuel load high enough to make the fire truly destructive and allow it to get into cypress strands and hardwood hammocks, which burn much less frequently under natural conditions.

Gardeners mimic fire by cutting back native ornamental grasses hard either after they bloom or before new growth resumes in spring. I cut  back the Pink Muhly Grass this March. I also get down on my hands and knees to reach under the clumps and pull out old rotting thatch, which goes onto the compost pile. If we did not live in virtually de-natured suburbia, I would hesitate to do that, because a nice big clump of grass would be a great sheltering place for a pygmy or even bigger rattlesnake. As it is, I have gotten stung by wasps in hidden nests, so now I wear gloves and stay ready to run. 

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) has bloomed vigorously for months, and is now going to seed, along with Tickseed (Coreopsis leavenworthii). 

Coreopsis leavenworthii

Gaillardias (Gaillardia pulchella)are at their peak, and it won't be long before I have to start pulling them out or cutting them back hard. Dry, windy March is aphid, mealybug and whitefly season, and the foliage of the Gaillardias is getting ratty. The plants also develop long leggy stalks that eventually fall over, and the whole clump tends to collapse on one side. They will regenerate sometimes if I cut them back hard and water them, but it's easier to pull them out, because they reseed so readily.

Quick Impression of Gaillardia Clump

 There is  something inherently cheerful about Gaillardias, and they are tough; extremely drought tolerant, need no fertilizer. They flower so heavily that dead-heading can be an arduous task. I do some before I just give up. 

Cheerful Gaillardias

This year they are everywhere in the yard, blocking even the rudimentary paths I have through the garden. Other years they aren't quite as dominant, but they always come back.

I Love Sketching Gaillardias

One of the agaves bloomed spectacularly, and is now declining. I don't know the name. It was given to me years ago, and I've kept it going via seedlings. This year I don't think any seedlings formed on the inflorescence, but I have a couple pots of the plant, so I don't worry about losing the species. The stalk resembles a huge, tough asparagus spear.  I couldn't reach any flowers while they were still open, and had to settle for the withered ones that fell to the ground.

Reminds Me of Jack and the Beanstalk!

Red Stopper and CocoPlum are putting out new growth in varying shades of reds. Seagrape leaves already have changed from translucent coppers to mature green.  Depending on light conditions the new leaves can look delicately pastel or flaming, almost black-red.

Eugenia rhombea, New Growth

I'll have to catch up with the rest of March in the next post. Life in the garden goes on, whether I'm able to keep up or not!