August in the Garden

 I've spent most of my outside hours pulling things out of the yard lately, when the weather allows it.  It's gotten horribly overgrown with lots of  rain and neglect. I'm not the earliest of risers, and the day quickly heats up. The heat and humidity are such that it's easy to flirt with heat exhaustion doing "just one more thing." Some days the relative humidity is just about as high as the temperature. This is summer in southwest Florida, and even though I get uncomfortable and worry about hurricanes, it's my favorite season.

 

I spend a lot of time drinking coffee and staring at a Spanish stopper  through the dining room window. This tree/shrub is unassuming almost to a fault, and since it has a short blooming time, it's easy to miss its "glory days" altogether. But because of my coffee habit, I usually know what's going on with it.

Spanish Stopper, Eugenia foetida

Even the most modest natural things, living or not, can possess an element of striking beauty that is visible only to the passer-by who chances to pause and look. Spanish stopper is a typical wallflower, present, but not noticed. It has rather narrow, vertical habit, so is good for small spaces and hedges. Despite its species name, it does not stink. 

Spanish stopper has its moments of glory when clusters of white flowers clothe the branches. The petals are shell-like and delicate, and the flower itself is adorned with numerous stamens. They are intensely beautiful, even though they have to be observed closely, even with a handlens, to be seen clearly. They make the shrub look like it has been dusted with snowflakes. The flowers don't last very long, especially if it rains, but they are superb while they last. 

One reason our yard is such a mess is that I tend to leave plants that seem "interesting" to me for one reason or other, and a lot of them turn out to be weeds. West Indian pink root, Spigelia anthelmia, isn't the most rampant, and I'm not sure I'd even call it a pest. It's not quite showy enough, even for my taste, to merit cultivation, yet I'm loathe to pull all of it out. The deeply veined leaves are almost sculptural, the tiny flowers attractive, and the general form graceful.

 Dried extract of leaves, roots and stems is available on the Web for homeopathic treatments of nervous disorders and headaches. All parts of the plant are toxic, though. But then again, so are many drugs. It has been used as well to treat worms - hence the species name "anthelmia." As far as I've looked, none of the plants in my yard have had pink roots, not even in cross-section.

Spigelia anthelmia

I have several vines, both planted and uninvited (morning glory) on the fence between us and one set of neighbors. I trim them when they tumble over into the neighbors' space too much. I try to keep the worst of my horticultural untidiness confined to our yard. 

Among the "casualties" of my  pruning were numerous sprays of coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens.  Native to much of the United States and Mexico, it isn't vouchered for Collier County, but it grows well here nonetheless.  It slows down periodically, but I don't think it every ceases flowering completely. It's a great favorite with hummingbirds and some butterflies. It's on the side of the yard, though, so I don't often see it or the visitors, which is a pity. In this sketch I agonized less about getting the trumpet shaped flowers in correct perspective, and just went for the energy.

Coral Honeysuckle, Sketchbook Pages

Finally, with all the rain we've been having, everything is very green and lush. A few days ago we had the largest flock of white ibis we've seen for a long time grazing in the vacant lots across the canal from us. They will forage unperturbed even in a fairly heavy rain. They've adapted well to the suburban landscape. I don't know how many get poisoned by lawn fertilizers and pesticides, but as long as they stick to the vacant lots they probably are safe. Ibis are common along the beach, too. I don't know whether some prefer salt and some fresh, or whether they use both here. Inland, they would have only freshwater prey, obviously.  Old-time Floridians, like my father, call(ed) them "curlews." There were still a few immature (brown) birds mixed with the flock.

Ibis

This was the quickest of sketches - just an impression of  the birds as they grazed and squabbled. They were gone a few minutes later.

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I have a longer post about the Spanish Stopper:

https://flbysb.blogspot.com/07/07/2020

I also have a longer post about Spigelia Anthelmia:

https://flbysb.blogspot.com/06/08/2018.

August

This August has been something of a slog. And now we're already in the 3rd week of September! Medical procedures, mounds of paperwork, and heat indices into the 'teens have combined to keep me inside. Outside, things are occurring in the yard at a frantic pace. While spring ushers in a flurry of new growth in anticipation of rain, late summer shows a mad rush to grow and reproduce before the dry season begins.

There have been several waves of polydamas swallowtails after I blogged about them in July. In fact, a new adult was flying around last week. Predatory yellow jackets have been in evidence most, but not all, of the time. I don't know whether the butterflies hatched here or flew in from elsewhere. I've looked for chrysalids, but our badly overgrown yard offers a vast number of places to hide one. 

Our yard is home to many native plants. While they may struggle in their actual habitat, put them into a garden where they receive a modicum of care in somewhat amended soil, and they can run rampant. Mother Nature doesn't know a lot about sharing, and just about any plant that grows reasonably well here will try to take all the space. I try to scan all the bushels of vegetation I pull out or  prune back for evidence of caterpillars, cocoons or chrysalids, and baby tillandsias, but I'm sure I miss some.

 I  keep several water garden pots though I don't have any native waterlilies or lotus. The waterlilies bloom most of the time, which reminds me that I haven't even gotten around to fertilizing these heavy feeders yet. The lotus are mostly bloomed out by the end of July, and even beginning to go dormant by this time, but I had a few isolated late bloomers much to my delight.

                                                    Lotus, "Green Maiden"

Coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, blooms most of the year here. It was in full flower in the middle of March. It may not make as impressive a show now, but the flowers haven't stopped. I couldn't get it established in Georgia, where it is native, but it flourishes here in sw Florida, which is south of its normal range.  It is a favorite of hummingbirds during their migrations to and from more southern climes, as well as many species of butterflies. Problem is, I've got it planted along a fence on the side of the house, so we miss most of what goes on with it. It is another proverbial "trouble-free" and "drought-tolerant" plant, and it also tolerates our flooding rains.

                                                Coral Honeysuckle

I finally got the bird pepper (Capsicum annuum, var. glabriusculum) that I bought way back in March  into a bigger pot. It was beginning to decline seriously before I did anything, but has responded beautifully to better circumstances. The birds weren't finding it where I put it, so I moved the pot to under a Simpson's Stopper (Myrcianthes fragrans), which is a favorite perching and foraging space for mockingbirds. Some of the fruits have disappeared, so something is eating them. 

This tiny pepper is a form of the ancestor of all our  peppers. It has a real bite, but the sting doesn't continue to linger and burn like many hot peppers. It's a great addition to all sorts of dishes, especially Tex-Mex and stir-fry. It's a  diminutive plant for starters, and its structure is so dense and compressed that it's hard for me to figure out just how things are arranged.

An invasion of Eurasian collared doves was an unwelcome event. Sadly, they discovered the Jamaica Caper, and literally shook the small tree with their clumsy weight as they stripped its fruits. The mockingbirds got some, but these aliens, imported years ago for hunting, probably got most. Our native mourning doves are delightful and coo melodically, but these boors have a call like "Raaaalf!" I always think of somebody barfing when the Eurasian collared doves are around.

The starry rosinweed (Silphium astericus) which I bought at the same time as the bird pepper, but planted right away, has outdone itself and already formed a second flowering clump. It has dark green, coarse leaves that can get 6 inches long or more, and the basal rosette is persistent. The erect, branched flowering stalks grow at least 18 inches tall. It has been blooming nonstop since late April/early May. I think I have the variety simpsonii, which occurs naturally along Florida's coastal plain, and is more tolerant of heat than some other forms. It will be interesting to see what it does once the rains stop. The butterflies and other pollinators were quick to discover it.  

                                        Starry Rosinweed

Elliott's aster (Aster elliotii) has produced its usual weedy-looking mass of skinny stems. I keep it because it is so stunning in full flower. Otherwise it is something of an eyesore, and since it spreads by rhizomes it will colonize any area that is even slightly moist. No illustration here - it is surprisingly difficult to draw or photograph a mess!

Last, but not least, one of my ponytail palms, Beaucarnia recurvata, bloomed. This one was a sort of gift from my late next door neighbor who didn't want it and suggested I take it. I have a problem letting things die ( one reason the yard is so overgrown - I don't pull out all the volunteers) so I took it. It was humming with honeybees and perhaps some other smaller pollinators.

This stem succulent has a very swollen base, and is not closely related to palms at all. It eventually will grow too large for this yard, but by then I will be long gone. Given the way old houses here are scraped away and replaced with narrow, 3-story mansionettes built all the way out to the setbacks, my tiny piece of semi-natural habitat will vanish too. It's a melancholy thought.