Contain It

March has come in with absolutely no sign of a lion in My Florida Backyard - the last few weeks have been day after day of sunshine and warm temperatures, and today is no exception. Spring is here in Central Florida, no matter what the calendar says, and the two newly-planted containers flanking our garden bench are bursting with spring colors and blooms.

How amazing is this white and peach trailing verbena? We can't wait for it to grow a bit more and begin spilling over the sides. This kind of verbena is a little hit-or-miss in Florida's hot summer heat, but these pots get morning sun and dappled shade in the afternoon, so maybe we'll be able to keep these around for awhile.

The purple angelonia (Angelonia angustifolia), on the other hand, will do just fine in the summer heat. It should flower all summer long, if we keep the dead stalks cut back to encourage new blooms.

Our backyard bench is the perfect spot for sitting in the afternoon sun and watching ducks on the water or wading birds on the shore, and having a few cheerful blooms on either side makes it an even more pleasant place for welcoming spring to My Florida Backyard.

Snowbird

We're "transplants" from up north here in My Florida Backyard, and very happy ones at that. Anytime anyone from up north asks us if we don't "miss how beautiful the snow is", we just laugh and laugh and laugh. The only thing we miss about snow is snow days, and since adults rarely get to enjoy those, we'd be just fine without experiencing snow ever again.

Snow peas, on the other hand, are very welcome in My Florida Backyard's little raised vegetable garden. This is the first year we've tried growing any food for humans - we've always focused on food for wildlife in the past - and we picked some fairly easy vegetables to get started. Peas are a cool-season vegetable, so we started ours about five weeks ago in mid-January. We choose a dwarf variety from Burpee called Snowbird, since there's not much room for unruly plants in the raised bed. They're just starting to flower now, and we have a feeling we may enjoy these beautiful blooms even more than the pea pods that will follow!

It almost seems a shame that these delicate little blooms will have to fall off so the peas can start to form. We'll enjoy them while they're here though, as the only kind of snow we ever really need in My Florida Backyard.

Seeds Grow to Plants

Last fall, we bought a few packets of inexpensive seeds and, rather than starting them carefully in little containers and babying them along, we decided to sort of "Hail Mary" it - fling the seeds into the garden and let the sun and rain do their jobs.

We're starting to see a few results now, starting with this first brave little cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) bloom that's so cheery in the butterfly garden right now. We're hoping to see lots of of little guys popping up to join it soon.

Nearby, we planted a row of Linaria Enchantment, which we bought from Park Seed. They sort of remind us of snapdragons, though they're smaller, and the color and detail of the blooms is amazing.

These have been blooming continuously for the last month or so, after being sown late last fall. Linaria is also known as Toadflax, which is generally a cool season flower. These withstood frost very well last month, although they're in a pretty sheltered location near the house so that may have helped. We fully expect these to die back in the hotter summer months, but hope that they'll re-seed and return next fall and winter.

Successes like these give us the encouragement we need to keep trying new seeds. Right now, we have a couple of seedling trays of zinnia, marigold, and several others getting ready for the summer season, and a few packets of coreopsis to broad-sow when the summer rains begin.

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders." - Henry David Thoreau

Duck and Dive

Winter months bring a variety of seasonal residents to My Florida Backyard, including several varieties of diving ducks. In the fall, we had large numbers of Ring-Necked Ducks, but more recently, large flocks of Lesser Scaup have congregated in the lake out back.

The Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) is one of the most numerous diving ducks in North America. It is closely related to and difficult to tell apart from the Greater Scaup (A. marila), but the Greater Scaup is much less likely to be seen in this area, and is generally found on salt water. So our visitors are certainly Lesser Scaup (the plural of scaup is scaup, by the way).

Males (shown above, left) have more striking plumage, as is often is in the bird world, but both male and females have the bright blue bills that give this species the common name Bluebill. When the ducks first arrived in early winter, males had much duller plumage, and females had smaller sections of white near their bills. As mating season draws closer, the male's black and white feathers have become clearer and more defined, while the female's white bill patches have grown.

Lesser Scaup are noted for their interesting head shape, which almost seems to be squared off at times. At other times, though, their heads are more rounded. What explains this change in shape? It turns out that when a duck is relaxed, just paddling around and enjoying the sun, its head naturally takes on the squarer shape. When they tense up and prepare to dive, the head becomes more rounded, possibly making them more streamlined for the trip to the bottom of the pond. In the series of pictures below, compare the duck in the middle with the duck on the right to see this in action.

Lesser Scaup do not breed in Florida - they'll head north for the summer to breed there. Since we can see they are taking on the brighter plumage in preparation for mating, we can also expect them to begin their northern journey pretty soon. As spring approaches, they'll be off up the Mississippi Flyway to Northwest Canada, gone for another year. We'll look forward to seeing them again the in fall, when they bring their new offspring to enjoy the warmth of winter in My Florida Backyard.

My Pretty Little Pink

With forecast temperatures in the 70s for the foreseeable future, winter seems to be about over in My Florida Backyard, and we're starting to make plans for spring in the garden. As we walked the yard this weekend looking for plants that need to be replaced, we couldn't help but admire those that not only survived the winter, but actually thrived, like these dianthus.

Many of today's popular dianthus species trace their heritage back to the mountains of southern Europe, so it's no surprise that they're a cold-hardy genus. Here in Florida, they generally survive frosts and even a hard freeze or two, and just keep blooming. Although some gardening sites say they are not suitable for warmer climates, our dianthus continue to flower well right through the summer, so perhaps newer hybrids and varieties are better suited to heat as well as cooler temperatures.

Dianthus has a variety of common names, including Sweet William and Pinks. While most dianthus are in fact pink in color, the common name "pinks" actually comes from the distinctive fringed edge of the flower petals. As far back as the 1300s, to "pink" something meant to decorate it with a frilled or fringed edge (think pinking shears). Its been speculated that the color pink actually takes its name from the flower.

Pinks are a biennial, so if you start them from seed you'll have to wait two years for them to bloom. However, they're readily available at all nurseries in a variety of patterns and hues, and once planted, they continue to bloom and thrive for years. Though not a native, this low-maintenance plant is an easy pop of color any Florida gardener can appreciate, as we do in My Florida Backyard.

Love is a Rose

Happy Valentine's Day from My Florida Backyard!

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

O, the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

-John Boyle O'Reilly

Dixie Blossom

Plants are slowly springing back into life in My Florida Backyard, and we recently noticed the airy blooms of white gaura hovering above the butterfly garden. White Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri) actually comes in several colors - we had a great hot pink cultivar last year that we're hoping will come back this year - and is native to Texas and Louisiana, but does well throughout the Southeast.

Gaura, sometimes called beeblossom, is a genus of plants native to North America. Florida has its own native gaura, Gaura angustifolia, commonly known as Southern Beeblossom. It's fairly common in the wild, though somewhat easy to overlook. It spreads by underground rhizome, so you'll often find a pretty large patch of these growing together in dappled shade in the woodlands. The plant is similar to White Gaura, but the flowers are smaller and even less showier. The various Gaura species also hybridize easily, so even experts have difficulty telling them apart from time to time.

Gaura lindheimeri is readily available at nurseries throughout Florida at certain times of the year, in shades ranging from white through brilliant pink. Some have been bred to be shorter and more compact - in its natural state, it's tall and somewhat sparse. Choose the cultivar that works best for you and add some to your yard to draw pollinators and butterflies.