Gardens Attract The Best Visitors

Gardens bring rewards in addition to beautiful  blooms, fresh food, and a healthier body.  As we provide shelter and nourishment for birds and butterflies, we receive the joy of viewing some of nature's loveliest creations close up.  The garden is never more alive and enchanting than when you step into it and see butterflies dancing across the top of blooms.  My Pagoda Flowers have been luring Zebra Longwing butterflies in for weeks.

Pagoda Flowers also entice our smallest feathered friends...a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

My bed of Zinnias is where the butterflies are always cavorting.  I can see about half this border from my kitchen window and it's lovely to watch them fluttering from flower to flower.  A Gulf Fritillary...

This Buckeye butterfly is one of the first I've seen this season...

And these little guys, I don't know that I've ever seen them before.  A pair of tiny Fiery Skippers.

This next photo is also a Skipper, Horace's Duskywing.

There have been a lot of Spicebush Swallowtails in the garden also, but they are probably the most nervous butterflies I've ever seen.  This one finally sat for half a second...

Male, Ruby-throated Hummingbird on magenta  'Wendy's Wish' Salvia.

A 'mama' Eastern Bluebird nesting for the second time this season.

Another female Ruby-throated Hummingbird dining on a Hardy Red Gloxinia.  I've been spreading this plant around my shade gardens as it just has the look of  what a hummingbird would want.

Everything is still blooming with wild abandon, although our full sun, rainless days are rushing the blooms toward decline quicker than I would like.  Daylilies, agapanthus, and roses...

Gaura doesn't mind the heat, it sheds it's blooms at the end of each day and begins anew each morning.

Sunny in the morning...

The only shady spot in my front gardens in the afternoon.

I hope you're all having a great weekend...happy gardening.

Late Spring Garden ~ Central Florida

Hell-o to all!  Spring has been altogether lovely this year in Central Florida.  We've had a mix of true spring-like weather, along with some typical, sultry Florida days.  My plan today was to do a post about all my different hydrangeas, but I got side tracked.  I started a new flower bed last fall, which consisted mainly of moving a lot of pots out of one area.  My goal was to have an orange and blue bed, with Pagoda Flowers, Mexican Firebush, and Hydrangeas.  Looking from my new bed to my older Hydrangeas...this is the effect I'm looking for.

Pagoda flowers and hydrangeas...

I'm starting to achieve it on a very small scale with Mexican Firebush and hydrangeas.

The hydrangeas are not quite a year old,  they're the ones I started from cuttings last June.

The 'mother' plants.

The new bed has a long way to go, but I'm a patient gardener.

Anyway, I started following around a beautiful Tiger Swallowtail butterfly this morning, and realized I have better things to post about than Hydrangeas in shade gardens...so on to something new.  Shade gardens will keep, but right now spring has presented me with a lavish display of beautiful blooms to share, and they won't last forever.  Agapanthus could only get better by being adorned by a lovely visitor.

One of the two 'Red Leaf Plum' trees we planted last fall.  My front gardens were lacking in plants with height after we lost our Dogwoods, so these will serve that purpose without getting too large. 

A look at a slice of the garden behind the front fence.  Notice the height of the Agapanthus in the foreground...they're amazing this year.

I don't know if you can see it, but my white Crinum is blooming.

Trapped behind rose canes.

Another visitor to the garden, a Great Crested Flycatcher, who is nesting in a birdhouse out back.

Red 'Challenger', and yellow 'Lemon' daylilies.  Oranges to follow soon.

'Challenger'

Looking back toward the house, to the rose garden...

Zinnias, by the front walkway, with Coneflowers grown from seed.  Waiting (patiently) for the Purple Coneflowers to bloom.

Thryallis is just beginning to bloom, and anything yellow is most welcome now.

Thank you all for visiting my garden.  Please come again.

April Garden

The garden is most lovely this time of year!  Lots of blooms, and what's not blooming is full of buds, assuring us of more beauty to come.  My Amaryllis are blooming a little late this year, but I prefer this, rather than them blooming early, all alone...

On the other hand, my Agapanthus will bloom early.  This one is already showing color...  

Agapanthus are one of my favorite summer blooms, and they're so easy to grow here in Central Florida.  I have them everywhere in my full sun gardens.

Another great plant for zone 9 gardens is Gaura lindheimeri.  It's just begun to bloom, and it's another plant that I use extensively in my full sun gardens.  It's available in pink or white, but I prefer the white because it returns more faithfully than the pink...for me, anyway.  

Zinnias do well in full sun also, and these have only just begun to bloom.  They're the kind of flower that makes me smile, when I see their cheerful faces.

I bought this Red Yucca off the clearance rack last year, but it didn't bloom at all.  Finally...

Two more photos out in my full sun garden...

Around back by the gazebo, the clematis and gardenia are both blooming.

My shade gardens are also a tad slow this year, but it may be because I buried everything under many inches of good oak leaves.  Everything will soon push it's way out.  There's plenty of pretty for right now...

Sinningia sellorii, Hardy Red Gloxinia

It's bloom...

English Dogwood

I planted this Mexican Flame Vine behind my fenced vegetable garden. so it could cover up a stack of old wood.  So far, so good.

We've been working all week on the chicken coop, off and on.  It's almost done and I'll be posting photos soon.  The chicks are growing  fast, and yes, I will be happy to move them out of my house and into theirs.  

Happy Gardening!