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?

Spring has sprung!

 Hello friends! Florida's spring is in full force, and it's quite exhilarating! The green bean seeds I planted a week ago are already growing! Those little buggers are quick, check them out:

Pole beans in the back, bush beans in the front. As you can see, some of the pole beans have already found the trellis I made. Next is the other bed:

The row closest is pumpkin, the back is 4 tomato plants, the two middle rows are jalapeno (former) peppers and sweet California bell peppers (latter). Behind them is sweet basil and Greek oregano. The bottom photo is a close up of the tiny jalapeno peppers coming in! Next is my two jasmine bushes:

They both have new buds and are finding the trellis behind them! Next is my rose bush:

Next is my Emerald blueberry bush, notice the buds already forming!

My wonderful hibiscus has it's first flower!

That's all for now!

Spring planting 2012

Saturday Chris and I decided that it was time to plant our spring garden. So while he watched the two kiddos, I went to work. Let me just say how I miss being outside with my feet squished in the mud with gloves on my hands as I reconnect with the life force that is Mother Nature! I swear I could feel the plants in the back yard call out greetings to me as I walked around watering. It was like a buzzing in my head, an excitement of all the living things around me clamoring to tell me about what they have been up to.I think I may have even laughed out loud in glee!

So I transplanted my jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, tomatoes, oregano and basil. Here is a picture:

The tomatoes are in the back, the jalapeno peppers are in the front, followed by the bell peppers. Behind them are the basil and oregano (it got cut of by the camera)

This is a beautiful azalea bloom. We planted these around the pond that Chris dug out.

My beautiful rose bush got it's first two blooms! I have had this bush for three years, and every year it keeps giving me more and more roses. They smell so sweet, are so bright and grow pretty tall!

My blueberry bush is already starting to get some blooms. This one yielded one crop last year, but my fingers are crossed that it produces more this year. I am buying two more at UT's GreenFest, so it will have plants to cross pollinate with.

And here is a side view of my tomatoes :)

That is all for now!

Garden under construction

I came home today, and to my surprise, Chris had hooked up our rain barrel and drawn up plans and started building a water area in our back yard! We had received a pond from a friend of ours, and it has sat in our back yard for about two years now. I am glad we will finally be able to put it to use! The space faces east and gets the morning sun until about 12:00. Here it was being built:

Here is Chris and Piper in a carrier:

Here are the plants he picked out, azalea bushes, yellow and white shasta daisies, and delpheniums:

This is our vision of the space:

I think we will keep the pond as just an ornamental thing for now. We still have to install a rain gutter over this area to keep it from eroding every time it rains. Also, that border is temporary. We will probably buy a plastic or stone border and make it the same shape as the pond. I love how misshapen and  unusual it is.

While he worked on that, I got my 18 bags of rich compost and soil and started adding it to my two raised beds. Chris bought a drip hose, so that we could snake it through our veggies and water them without soaking the leaves and eroding the soil.

Spring gardening is in full swing!