Hummingbird Attractors

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, by taffyknits (me!)

I have a customer who likes to have hummingbirds visit her garden, and she makes sure many of her plants are nectar sources for these teeny birds, in addition to the feeders she puts out.
She stopped by and got an Ultraviolet Sage, and told me she would definitely get the Ruttya Fruticosa if I knew for sure whether or not hummingbirds like it. My husband calls it Jammy Mouth, but everywhere else I've found it, it's called Rabbit Ears.

Ruttya Fruticosa or Rabbit Ears. Large evergreen shrub in zones 8-11 that flowers year-round if there is no frost. For you snowbirds, it's a good houseplant during the winter, and you can put it outside in the summer for birds to feed on the blooms!

Well, in researching this plant, I found a whole bunch of other plants we carry that will attract hummingbirds, and I got so excited about it, it's my theme for my booth in Lakeland, this Saturday at the Curb Market.


Orange Zest Cestrum (small tree/large shrub with leaves that smell like peanut butter!)

The one plant that surprised me, though Jim already knew it, was Red Yucca. It's supposed to bloom in the summertime, but for some reason one in our nursery felt happy and it's blooming. It shoots out a 5-ft tall stalk with showers of pink flowers all over it. It's in the agave family, so aloe is another one that would be good in a hummingbird garden.


Here's what's on my list to carry:
Salvias! Jim says just about any kind will do, but I have Ultraviolet Sage, Mexican Sage, Compton's Beauty, Scarlet Pineapple Sage, Faye Chapel, and Indigo Spires.

Tacoma Stans, or Yellow Bells - another tall woody shrub that is blooming right now
Cestrum, Orange Zest
Crocossmia (a bulb, orange blooming in the spring)
Cuphea Cigar Plant
Shrimp Plant Fruit Cocktail
Rabbit Ears
Hummingbird Plant
Red Yucca
Black Adder Hyssop (any Agastache member seems to be a great one)
Orange Milkweed
Fire Bush (that's one outside my window where I have spotted Ruby-throated Hummingbirds).
Coral Honeysuckle
Other ones we have but I may or may not bring are day lilies, agapanthus, gayfeather (liatris) and Indian Paintbrush (we only have one and I'm not allowed to sell it)

I think it'll be fun. Butterfly Gardens are a hot topic of conversation, but I'll put a different twist on it with Hummingbird Gardens.

Jim will also have a booth in Lake Wales, at Pioneer Day Festival. It's a lot of fun! Who knew our little town could hold so many people. Come for the architecture tours, the pretty lake scenery and just a cheery festival atmosphere.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have decided to compare myself with the bee.
Bees are busy and I am busy. In fact, I am as busy as a bee!
The little insect and I share space in the nursery. I often say "excuse me" to a bunch of them as I pick up a plant to move it. Their favorites seem to be the Black Adder Hyssop and the African Blue Basil. They buzz around but we have a peaceful co-existence.



If I were a bee, I'd be the worker bee. I would be female (and I am!) and my job would be to clean, collect pollen and feed the larvae. Not too different than what I do as a human, although I have to admit, I don't clean too much.

Fall is here so the bees are finalizing their pollen gathering, making honey, and preparing for winter, when they huddle together inside the hive and don't leave, eating that honey. Fall for this worker human means preparing for all the fall festivals. In days past, the fall was the harvest season. Although we are more removed from the actual gathering of the harvest, we still celebrate and prepare for the upcoming holiday season with craft festivals, pumpkin patches, and garden shows.

This weekend is Boktoberfest at Bok Tower Gardens (www.boktowergardens.org). Jim works there as a Head Gardener and he has our plants in the Plant Shop. The manager asked him to bring some out, and we've been filling the Great White Whale (van) and trailer with cestrums, grasses, coreopsis, stoppers, fiddle wood, sweet almond bush, just to name a few for the past two days. We have a garden wagon that we have to wheel across the front to the back, load it up with 10 3-gallon sized pots, and wheel it all the way back. There's a slight incline where the septic tank is, and you have to dig your heels into the ground to keep the momentum going.

After Boktoberfest the next weekend is the Garden Extravaganza in Munn Park in Lakeland. That will probably mean getting up at 4 to make a couple of trips back and forth. Jim has been saying we need to move half the plants in the nursery, and I really hope that after these shows that most of those plants don't come home!

Did you know that bees can see every color except red? They smell the flowers.

Love

Let's all put on our deepest, smokiest, Barry White voices and discuss.. love.
Here in the nursery we have two kinds of love going on: the twice-yearly swarm of love bugs, and a great fall plant, Love Grass.

There's something about grasses that just says Autumn to me. Maybe it's because I've lived in the south too long and don't get to crunch my feet in leaves and have to do my oak tree raking in the spring. I think too it's the wheat-like bloom so many grasses produce in the fall and that makes me think of harvest time.

Love Grass is also known as Tallahassee Sunset or Tallahassee Skies. It's botanical name is Eragrostis Elliotti, and it's native to the Southeast of the US, as far west as Texas. It's a short grass - not more than two feet high really. But it puts out a great number of blooms and the blades take on pink and blue hues.
In our nursery in the early morning light the row of Love Grass looks like pots that have been shrouded in fog.

The other bit of love going around concerns the birds and the bees, only it's Love Bugs. They spend their larval life underground, but in May and October, they sprout wings, develop pheromones, and zoom out to find a mate. Cars wear special protection over their grills because you can't help but drive into several thousand while on a trip to the store. The splattered remains of the love bugs are supposedly harmful to a car's paint job. I've heard of people freshly waxing their cars or applying a thin spray of oil on the car to make washing them off easier.

Other than that, they are pretty harmless. I even read that the larva are beneficial to the soil and help plants find nourishment easier. They don't bite or sting, just mate. But if you're outside for a long period they land on you and tickle you, and fly in your hair and maybe in your mouth.

Nothing seems to eat love bugs, except me when one goes in my mouth by accident. Maybe a spider when one is caught in the web. My rooster doesn't seem to find them enticing. The larva are enjoyed by birds and armadillos. Imagine how many more could hatch if the larva weren't tasty!

They are really easy to catch and very fragile. Merely brushing them away because of the tickle will cause permanent harm or death to the love bug. The PE teacher at my childrens' elementary school came up with a unique game called Love Bug Tag. The students have to run out to the field, catch love bugs, and when they bring it back to the coach and it is still alive, then they get a prize. I bet she gave out a lot of prizes.

When we first moved here I had painted our porch. The railings were a bright white, and the love bugs loved it. Several hundred gathered there, and completely freaked my older daughter out. She does not enjoy love bug season at all. And she's not the only one. Just the other day a grown woman, a Master Gardener, came out to our nursery, and she really had to work hard to pretend she wasn't bothered by them.

The grasses are blooming, it's definitely fall in Florida, and it's a season we deserve after the long hot summers. Enjoy gardening!

Simpson's Stopper: Plant Highlight

I think my husband is getting to me. I was out in the nursery, looking at a plant. I read the tag, thinking to come inside and look it up. It had a botanical as well as common name listed. For the life of me, I could only remember the botanical! Can you believe I pulled Helianthus Angustifolius out of my head, and not Gold Lace or Swamp Sunflower? But more on that one next week. I had promised a profile of Simpson's Stopper, which is one of Jim's favorites.


I had thought humans were a relatively social group, but so many I meet at farmers markets have been confiding to me that they'd like a hedge to block out a neighbor. Viburnums are usually the first thing that comes to their minds. We do carry viburnums, and there is even a native variety, but I like to recommend the Simpson's Stopper because it's not an over-used plant; the hedge it creates won't look like the other hedges every other block. It has the same, if not more, nice qualities of a viburnum.

Simpson's Stopper is a fun common name, and one I remember better than Myrcianthes Fragrans (although I think I can figure out the 'fragrans' part).
Medical lore says that Simpson's Stopper, particularly the berries and bark, can be used to cure a certain stomach ailment which requires one to be stopped up. Apparently a fellow named Simpson had a bad case of diarrhea.

It's in the Myrtle family, a group of tropical shrubs and trees. Simpson's Stopper, which I'm sure you figured out by the botanical name, has a fragrant flower. It's small and fluffy and white. It then makes a red berry. The leaves are stiff and dark green, and it likes to branch out. These branches, berries and flowers make this Stopper a popular hub in the garden for butterflies and birds. It's also an evergreen, which is an important feature for a hedge, don't you think?

Down further south the Simpson's Stopper can grow quite tall. It takes pruning well and is an easy undertaking to make it a hedge, or a shaped shrub or tree.


So if you wish to block an eyesore, enjoy a plant with medicinal and culinary value, or create an obstacle near your property line, consider the Simpson's Stopper!

Yes, Well, It Was August

I had a lapse, and I blame August.
In July, I was a wonderful peon in the nursery. I moved pots, swept, weeded, potted; you name it. I mowed my big lawn with a tiny push mower. I perspired like crazy but it was a satisfying, accomplished sweat that felt good.
Then August came. I started to sweat from places I never had before. The corners of my eye, my jaw. It was uncomfortable. And very hot.
I moseyed out to water and make sure things were looking healthy. Here and there I picked a weed.
Even our vendor schedule took a nose dive. We had been going to Farmers Markets each Wednesday and Saturday, but the one in Lakeland closed for the month of August, and that left us with only two Saturdays to sell plants. So we took a few road trips and basically tried to enjoy summer.



These photos show our booth at the Curb Market in Lakeland, FL. Emily, 13, my daughter and companion on Saturdays, gets the good chair.

The rains finally came, and though that caused weeds to go like crazy, at least we didn't have to venture out and water.
Now it is September, and it is time to get back into gear. We are busy loading our van, which I call the Great White Whale, with plants to take to market. I shall spend tomorrow pulling weeds. Things are looking so pretty out there in between the weeds. Jim potted the Butterfly Pea into three gallons and staked them on a bamboo pole, and they are blooming like crazy. The Tibuchina is starting to color. Soon we'll have Gloxinia Bolivian Sunset and I hope to finally see the Garlic Vine.
Jim is taking a Master Naturalist class through UF and is getting into the heart of FLorida plant and wild life.
Tomorrow I'll get out and take some pictures of Simpson Stopper, my next choice for plant highlight.
Oh, and the chicken is most definitely a hilarious rooster.
Hope you get out to a garden, or support your local grower!

Plant Highlight: Bulbine

When we go to our retail locations (at least 3 sites, 8 times per month), I always make sure I am carrying at least 2 bulbine. I decide what plants to push, not because I really know anything about what's cool to grow, or because we have a bunch of one kind, but because I really like them. And I really like Bulbine!
We had a very cold winter here. Some of you will call us Floridians wimps because we whined that we had to turn the heat on and dig out coats, but it really was an unusually cold winter. Just ask the plants! We had so many just turn to cellular mush.

Our average frost is 28 degrees, and we may get a few a winter. But last winter, temps stayed in the teens for days. Even the orange groves were struggling to keep the fruit on the trees. We had some exciting sink holes pop up as a result because they pumped water continuously.

I was already highly recommending Bulbine to customers during the summer months. A succulent with pointy bright green leaves that are about 6 inches high, Bulbine shoots out a stalk 12 inches high with teeny orange and yellow petals popping out of a spike. During the summer, it's very easy to care for. You could neglect it and it would thrive. Very drought tolerant.

When I popped out of the house with my several sweaters on (didn't have a coat) to explore the survivors among the cellular mush, and the temps had climbed to the high 30's, there was Bulbine to greet me. And it was going to bloom! It therefore won my title as Plant of the Year, and I keep blabbing about it to customers.

I read that it was chosen in 2006 as Plant of the Year by the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscape Association, so it already has some notice. Good for it. It's a South African native, likes full sun, and is easy to propagate by breaking up the clumps (even I did it, so you can too).

Jim came home the other day with a plant list, nominees for Florida Gardening Magazine's 2011 recommendations. And Bulbine was on it. It won my vote. We have others that are on the list that I also really like, like Sweet Almond Bush and Cestrum, and others I can't think of right now. But I'm voting for Bulbine.

On Pets and Pests

My thoughts today stem from Mo, our chicken. She was standing on my bed, looking out the window, and clucking at the butterflies.
It's an odd thing, to have a chicken on one's bed. The reason is simple: my kids fear our dog will kill Mo, and they also fret when Mo is alone for too long in her coop so bring her inside where they can keep an eye on her. They are on constant poop patrol.
Mo is short for Mohawk, because when we bought the little chick, there was a black strip of short feathers along the top of the head, just like a mohawk. The 'do has grown into a poof of feathers. Mo is a Golden Buff Polish chicken, and I have designated her female, because I don't really want a rooster, but at 8 weeks old it's a little early to tell whether Mo will cluck or crow.


Anyway, Mo was looking out the window where several Gulf Fritillary Butterflies were flitting around the Fire Bush plant. She was clucking at them because she recognized them as something yummy to eat. When I pot, I have Mo by me under the oak tree. She scratches in the dirt mainly, and eats ants I think off the gourd that climbs around the composting dirt. Once I found two wings of a Fritillary, and I think the cause of death for this lovely butterfly was Mo.
The butterflies around the Fire Bush reminded me of my upcoming nursery duty: I am to repot half of our Purple Passion Vines to 3gallon size. Yesterday I prepped the area a bit and noticed just about all the Passion Vines have caterpillars on them. A few of the vines aren't suitable to bring to market because they have lost half their leaves. So I spent some time moving caterpillars to one or two select plants, hoping they could happily share one victim and leave the others alone to grow gloriously. Meanwhile Mama Fritillaries keep coming.
So, what I may do is have Mo be a part of the food chain today. I'll keep him with me in the potting area and he can munch on caterpillars if he pleases.

Plant Highlight: Fire Bush

The Fire Bush is a great native to showcase because it can be planted in many climates, and used as a perennial or an annual.
I think of it as a home-town plant, because its northernmost point as a native is Central Florida! Go Fire Bush! But, travel farther south, even down to Central and South America, and you'll find it. If you live in other temperate regions of North America, where there are four seasons and it's not uncommon for fluffy white stuff to fall, Fire Bush is used in annual gardens. It grows very short in those regions, but the flowers are just as spectacular, and the leaves turn red before the plant dies. It does produce a fruit, and as with other annuals, you often see them next year because the plant has reseeded itself.
We offer some in the nursery - they are still pretty small. They got zapped in a freeze a couple of days after the plugs arrived and we've been coaxing them along. While little shorties, they are happy enough to start blooming.
We do have one planted in our garden bed in front of the house. It dies back in the winter time (we are Zone 9A - I think Zones 10 and 11 keep a year-round bush) and comes back with a flourish. It is quite large - about 6-7 feet tall, and very wide - I'd say 4 feet. Everything loves the Fire Bush! One year we had seven garden spiders (the Charlotte's Web kind, that 'write' in the web). We get Ruby Throated Hummingbirds, black racer snakes, and so many different kinds of butterflies. Sulphurs, skippers, swallowtails, fritallaries... wasps and bees too. It likes full sun and is pretty drought tolerant, another nice feature of a Florida garden plant.
Other names you may hear for the Fire Bush are Scarlet Bush and Hummingbird Bush.

Sshh, Don't Tell Jim

Plants are like little kids. They have growth spurts. Just as one outfits a child with new clothes, a plant needs to move into a bigger pot. So I got busy repotting Love Grass, a lovely short native grass also known as Talahassee Sunset. It has lovely fringe and shades of pink in the blades.
Moving the Love Grass (I like to say it in my best Barry White voice)opened up an area in the one gallon section, and since we need to hit the back row with the hose after the sprinklers run, I decided to fill in the gaps and relocate the back row.
In doing this, I saw we had a few visitors.
But don't tell Jim! There's only so much Jim can do to protect the plants from all the things that enjoy them on the food chain. He's the grower and he likes his plants in good shape. I'm the nature geek and love looking at bugs. Snails, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, bees and butterflies all come through our fly-by, crawl-through window for a meal on the go. Some are welcome and quite beautiful. They pick up some pollen or nectar and are on their way. Others, like a litterbug, leave tell tale signs. They lay eggs or munch holes. While the ladybug may munch on the aphids all over the Milk Weed (more ladybugs, please) and while a wasp may find something yummy to cart away, they can't cover it all.
Yesterday while moving the Sapphire Blue Salvia, I noticed a Lubber, a type of grasshopper. These things are amazing. Huge! They are about 4-5 inches big. They'll really freak out the insect-sensitive person. Their bite (on a leaf; not me)is in direct proportion to their size.
I think they are really cool. Awful deaths are in store for the Lubber by gardeners who don't respect them. They snip off their heads! That freaks me out. So I gently took Mr. Lubber away and tossed him into the scrub palm field, where I hope he'll find a good meal and not come back.
Mama Gulf Fritillary also came. Perhaps several Mamas. And they made their nursery on our Purple Passion Vine. Their little babies are orange caterpillars with a few black spikes lining their backs. I'll take a picture tomorrow and we'll see how many leaves will be on the vines. I am betting some will be absolutely stripped.
Now, while the caterpillar has a tremendous appetite and will strip a plant of its leaves, it won't kill it. In a few days they'll wander off and complete their metamorphosis by becoming a chrysallis. They'll turn into Mama Fritillary and find some more Purple Passion Vine.
Our Swallowtail caterpillar friends had already munched on our fennel and parsley, which are trying to recover, and they have moved on. It made my daughter sad, who liked to visit them and make their little orange horns pop out when she pet them.
I'm not going to pluck the caterpillars off. If I find a pretty Passion I want to take to market, I'll just move those babies to another vine that's serving as snacks.
But don't tell Jim, because while he shrugs his shoulders in resignation at a bunch of invading caterpillars, he probably will cut that Lubber's head off.

Tickseed: Plant of the Week

Because it's the first in the series of Plant of the Week, and because we are located in Florida, I thought I'd start out with the official wildflower for the state of Florida.
It's a Coreopsis, of which there are quite a few, and it's common name is quite fun: Tickseed. After the flower dies off, it leaves a little brown bump of a seed, resembling a well-fed tick.
It didn't become the State Wildflower until 1991, and it's far less troublesome to the state than its State Flower, the Orange Blossom. Being a native, one doesn't have to worry about pests or disease as much. It also means it's relatively easy to care for. Some natives can spread rather enthusiastically, but the Tickseed seems to keep a moderate pace and isn't invasive in our garden at all.
Blooming throughout the summer in cheery yellow suns, it grows 2-3 feet tall in slender stalks. Cut the flowers to promote more bloom time, and place them inside in a vase, where they'll cheer up your decor as well.
I am now headed out to check on the nursery, do a bit of watering, and rake up some cut grass (the lawn was so high I think I am really making hay). I'll spread the grass around the garden beds to use as a mulch. I'll take our chick, Mo, to keep me company and let it enjoy a sand bath.

Our Neck of the Woods

Look at a map of Florida and find the center of the state with your eye. Chances are, you've landed pretty close to Lake Wales.

We've been here four years. I had visited Florida before, and my impression was a lot of sand, concrete, and of course, the beaches. And it was flat. But Lake Wales, while it has a lot of sand, has some really fun hills. I wish it snowed so I could go sledding down one. That probably won't happen.

Lake Wales is just one town on the Ridge, a section of land, like a spine, that trails down the state. Back in prehistoric times, this was the only part of Florida that stuck out of the water. The sand and hills come from ancient dunes. Fossil hunting is a popular past time here.

We are also in an ecosystem called the Scrub Palm Desert. That means more sand. We have some creatures that you only find around here, which makes us special, unique and often endangered.

Ridge Plant Nursery is out in the boonies of town, with sand roads (there's that sand reference again)and we have great nature. I've seen Scrub Jays, Glass Lizards, Indigo Snakes and Gopher Tortoises roaming around when we go for walks.

So we are in a neat place. We've become sensitive to what we share the land with and what we do with it.

Top Photo: That's our garden bed. Jim refers to it as the propagation garden.
Middle: We have some Swallowtail Caterpillars munching on the Fennel and Parsley.
Bottom: Just one view of the shade area (thank you, live oak for providing that). You can see the scrub palm field in the distance.

Thanks for taking a peek. I'll share more about what we grow and do next time!