Photos of my winter gardens

Unlike most areas of the country, Florida has temperatures that allow it's residents to enjoy nearly year round gardening (save a few months in the summer). Most of my hardy perennials are still going strong, though some lay dormant. We still have splashes of color amongst the sticks and twigs. Here is what is going on in my gardens today:

 This is my defunct pond that my hubby swears will be revamped this spring! I will plant herbs and flowers around it.

 My crepe myrtle. It is so funny, because it is pretty and full of flowers in the summer, but is basically sticks at the first sign of chilly weather.

 My two garden beds. I cleared the one closest. Here is where I will plant my veggies.

 My sweet magnolia tree, or as my son says "Mommy's tree". My favorite kind of tree, it has grown so much in three years. My daughter snuck in at the last minute lol

 My rose bush. It has such pretty red blooms that smell wonderful. It gets powdery mildew from time to time, but I now know ways to prevent that! If you look on the left, you can see that it has some new leaves coming up.

 After the squirrels got my apples last year, I am cautiously happy about these little guys. 3 little buds on my apples tree!

 The first lime on my key lime tree!

 My meyer's lemon tree. It has some blossoms on it, I cannot wait to smell them!

My lettuce, the unusually warm weather is causing it to wilt :(

That is all for now! What do you have in your garden?

Update on the gardens 3/12/12

Times like this I am thankful to call Florida my home. I am sitting here with the windows open, listening to my various wind chimes, and feeling the cool night air drifting inside. Ahhhh this is the life!

I went outside to take stock of the gardens. My green beans are doing great. The pole beans are all the way up to the first section of the trellis I made! The bush beans are coming in a little slower, and I count about 4 places that I know I planted beans but nothing is sprouting. I will have to keep an eye on them. I have one zucchini/squash plant (not sure which one it is yet!) that survived the transplant, and it's leaves are huge! At least 5 inches across! I planted Thai Chachai watermelon a few days ago. It's an heirloom icebox variety, meaning it will not be gigantic,maybe only 7 pounds. Those have not sprouted yet. The tomatoes almost fill up the cages they are in. I remember when they were little lads, barely an inch tall (tear!) They are covered in little yellow flowers, which I think turn into tomatoes? My four California green bell pepper and four jalapeno pepper plants are doing well also. They have reached their maximum height (about a foot off the ground) and many are sprouting tiny peppers already! How exciting! The pumpkins have each sprouted some leaves and are looking happy. The oregano is getting bigger, but the basil is looking a little pale. My basil got huge last year, not sure what is different this year?

Now off to the front yard. All the herbs are doing well! The rosemary and lavender smell so nice, I wonder if they will get flowers this year. They did not last year. The peony and pansies are holding up, but the longer days and hotter sun are starting to wilt them a little. The bougainvillea is looking a little sad :(  the flowers all fell off and it looks like sticks, but I am hoping they come back. The holly tree is getting a little taller, it's maybe a foot tall now. The apple tree is blooming all over the place for such a small tree! The tiny apple is still growing too :)  The orange tree is half dead, but the alive half has the best smelling blossoms. Oh my how I love citrus blossoms! The gardenias are still hurting. They seem to be dying off, and I cannot see any bugs on them. I tested the soil and it's pretty neutral so we added some vinegar and peat moss to acidify it, but alas! I hope they make it, they are my husband's favorite. And the one myrtle that survived is doing well!

Speaking of those myrtles, I told Chris that when we go to the Greenfest at UT in two weeks I want to buy more myrtles (they are supposed to act as a natural barrier) and at first he agreed. Then he said "You know what, get a couple of Meyer's lemon trees and put them over there." SWEET! Those trees have some of the most wonderful smelling blossoms, the leaves are interesting, and the fruit is awesome. Whew-hoo! I can hardly wait :)

So, how does your garden look?

Winter garden

Hello! I thought I would share some pictures of what my garden looks like in Florida during the winter months :)

This is my aloe plant. It was so tiny when I got it! It seems to like the unusually warm dry winter we are having, which makes sense since it's a succulant.

My beautiful magnolia! We did our biannual pruning, so now the last branch starts about two feet from the ground. Did you know trees don't grow up, they just get taller? So branches that are 2 feet from the ground will always be that high. I didn't know this! I want a magnolia tree, not a magnolia bush, so I have to prune it every 6 months.

This is my jewel blueberry bush. Last year it gave us some berries, so I am excited for it this year. There is already some new growth on it.

This is my rose bush. You can actually see the new leaves forming!

This stick tree is actually my crepe myrtle. It looses it's leaves in November and stays looking like I planted sticks in the ground until about April. This things LOVES heat. It blooms late summer and is the first plant in my yard to lose its' leaves.

This is my apple tree, and it's blossoms! It has a cluster of 5 flowers, and another little bundle right behind it that hasn't opened yet. They smell great!

This is my holly tree! It's tiny now (maybe 7 inches tall) but already producing beautiful red berries. I can't wait for it to get bigger.

These are my baby crepe myrtles that I got for joining the Arbor day foundation. I planted them along my southern yard between me and my neighbor. I figured that would make a good natural barrier. As you can see, the top two and bottom one already have growth on them. The third one, not so much, but when I scratch it I see green underneath, so I think it might just be dormant like the one I talked about earlier.

There you have it! The ecosystem known as my yard in January when the daytime temperatures are in the low 70s :)