Roll Out the Barrel

Now that we've finally tamed the backyard again, we decided it needed a little color. Since we just finished laying new landscape paper to block the weeds, we didn't want to cut through it and give the suckers a chance to grow again. Instead, we added some half-barrel planters to the yard.

The original plan was to buy wooden whiskey barrels, but I went to the store by myself to get them, and wow - those things are heavy! So, I found these lightweight resin ones instead. They may not last more than few years, but they were much easier to move. I drilled a few holes in the bottom for better drainage first, and then added some organic potting soil.

Then came the fun part - adding the plants! I had picked up a bunch of calibrachoa and petunias on the Lowe's clearance racks a few weeks ago and hand't yet decided what to do with them. I wound up mixing them with some Agastache rupestris, sometimes called Rose Mint Hyssop, making for containers full of butterfly attractants.

Agastache rupestris

Calibrachoa 'Coralberry Punch'

Petunia and Calibrachoa 'Coralberry Punch'

Plants in containers may require a little extra water, but fortunately we had some nice rains last weekend to fill up the rain barrel. This color and plant combination should be irresistible to butterflies now that our Florida weather has finally returned (what's up with 40-degree nights at the end of March, anyway?). These barrels give My Florida Backyard just the kick of color it needs to welcome spring!

Fly Like An Eagle

So the other day, I came home from work to find this in the pine trees outside:

The picture is terrible, because I had to grab it through the back porch screen before they flew off. Still, who cares? There were TWO bald eagles sitting in My Florida Backyard!

Once I made it out into the backyard with the camera, they spooked pretty quickly and flew off. One landed a way off across the lake, and I was able to zoom in and grab a few more mediocre shots.

Could this be a mated pair, nesting in the area? We've seen bald eagles in our neighborhood before, and Florida does have one of the largest nesting bald eagle populations in the country (second only to Alaska and Chesapeake Bay, in fact).

But, note the dark "smudges" on this eagle's head and the edges of its tail. These are signs of an eagle that's not fully mature, which takes up to five years for this species. This is most likely a fourth-year eagle, and therefore is unlikely to have been part of a nesting pair.

It's really wonderful to see these representatives of America's healthy bald eagle population. There aren't a lot of conservation success stories out there, but this is certainly one of them. Having bald eagles in My Florida Backyard is a reminder that every little thing we do to help the environment can have a big impact, and it's always worth the effort.

Wordless Wednesday: The Bird is the Word

New Faces

This has been an interesting winter on the lake in My Florida Backyard. Perhaps because of a lot of new vegetative growth in the lake itself (we believe most of it is the very invasive hydrilla, but it's not something we have any control over as the lake belongs to the HOA), we have seen winter visitors we've never noticed before. Our wintering water fowl have always included Lesser Scaup and Ring-Necked Ducks, but in recent months we've also noticed Blue Winged Teal and American Coots. And this past weekend, we documented another Florida winter bird that was new to us - the Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata).

We first noticed this pair while watching the more usual mallards on the lake, but quickly noticed something different. The bills of these birds are simply massive, and have a very obvious shovel shape. A quick web search for "duck shovel bill" gave us our answer, and the information that this bird is extremely common in the US. It winters here in the South, migrating north to its breeding grounds in the Northwest US and Canada.

The glossy green head of the male and obvious large bill make it easy to identify this bird. Interestingly, several of our birding guides note that this bird is more of a forager and is less likely to upend itself, instead feeding by swimming along with its head underwater. Our experience has been quite different, as these birds spend at least half their time with their hind ends up in the air looking for food (placing themselves squarely in the category we here in My Florida Backyard call "butt ducks"). This does give you a nice chance to notice the blue and green feathers that hide underneath their wings.

The guides also note that this species is monogamous, so the pair that's been in our pond all weekend are probably a mated pair getting ready to head north for the summer. We're not sure exactly why more species of migrating waterfowl are choosing the lake in My Florida Backyard this winter, but one thing's for sure - we're not complaining!

Simple Gifts

There's something so wonderful about an afternoon to yourself at the end of a very busy week. And it's even nicer when that afternoon is warm and sunny (while the weather reports are full of the winter storm up north!), and you have a few new plants needing homes, like the kalanchoe and sedum you found that are just perfect for the rock planters, and the marigolds you rescued from the clearance rack for half price.

Nothing fancy, nothing crazy... just some simple garden tasks in the backyard that you've finally taken back from the weeds of last summer. Remember this nightmare from last fall?

You can't help but pleased to know you're finally in charge again, and your favorite bench is available for basking in the winter sun once more.

Once you're done getting your hands in the dirt, you can wander around and see what's new in the garden. Winter is a wonderful time for native Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and in a few weeks the hummingbirds will pass through on migration and stop to enjoy it. This afternoon, the pleasure was all mine.

I've not been alone all afternoon, of course. The tufted titmice and cardinals are visiting the feeder, and a Great Egret is stalking its dinner in the pond nearby. Even more interesting, a pair of Blue-Winged Teal are floating past, the first time we've documented this species in My Florida Backyard.

And now, as the song goes, "the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart..." as well as across My Florida Backyard. 

It's not as calm and peaceful as the pictures might suggest - our neighbors are racing a dirt bike around the block, children are playing a noisy game across the lake, and it's our time of night to be in the flight path for Tampa International Airport. But the frogs are singing too, and a mockingbird in a nearby tree is trying out every tune in his repertoire. A limpkin calls in the distance, and the flapping of wings on the ponds suggests not all the ducks have settled down for the night. Nature fights for dominance in the suburbs, and rarely wins. But we do our best to focus on the simple gifts of My Florida Backyard, and let the rest slide by - at least today.

Pale Green Stars

Each year, we treat ourselves to a new variety of hippeastrum (more commonly but incorrectly known as "amaryllis"). This year's purchase, Evergreen, has begun to bloom, and it's pretty spectacular.

We're absolute suckers for green flowers, and you just don't find all that many of them in nature. This variety of hippeastrum looks like pale green over-sized stars studding the tall green stems.

The bulb was enormous, the size of a softball, and threw up three flower stalks almost as soon as we put it in the ground a few weeks ago. The flowers are slightly smaller than some other hippeastrum we've grown, but the number and color more than make up for it.

Our other hippeastrum are getting ready to bloom - the orange "Miranda" in the front yard is nearly a month early, too. More pictures coming as soon as they start to open!

Early Years

It's been another warm winter here in My Florida Backyard, and coupled with last year's complete lack of a hard freeze, some of our plants are getting a very early start. We were astonished this year to find our hippeastrum already pushing up shoots in mid-January, at least 3 weeks earlier even than last year, and more than six weeks ahead of the extremely cold winter of 2010. There's no doubt that, even in Florida, changes in average temperatures can have a real impact on plants and animals.

In the mid-1800s, Henry David Thoreau began keeping a very detailed journal documenting the first flowering dates of plants in New England. Scientists recently compared Thoreau's flowering dates to those from recent years, and discovered that, on average, plants are blooming about 11 days earlier than they did 150 years ago. In that same time, average temperatures have climbed, and scientist have worked out that flowers are blooming "up to 4.1 days earlier for every 1 degree Celsius rise in average spring temperatures, which translates to 2.3 days for every 1 degree Fahrenheit" (via National Geographic).

This doesn't come as a surprise to gardeners, or to scientists for that matter. Just last year, the USDA released a new Plant Hardiness Zone Map, reflecting a shift to warmer average temperatures since the last map issued in 1990. (My Florida Backyard shifted from 9A to 9B, although our urban environment means reflected heat that really puts us in zone 10A.) This winter seems to be keeping line with those changes, with no hard freezes in the area so far, and none in the forecast despite some chilly mornings in the 40s.  Other plants and trees are blooming early, with redbuds and toadflax already putting on a good show in many areas, and willow trees leafing out even in cooler inland areas.

Regardless of your belief in the impact humans are having on our climate, there's no doubt that it's changing, and at a very fast rate. Gardeners in all climates will have many changes to adjust to, and many surprises in store, in the years to come. What's blooming early by you this year? I'd love to hear some other examples of how frost-free winters are affecting Central Florida gardeners.