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!