31. May 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

To those of you who have contacted me about free seeds, thanks for registering. Be sure to drop me a note and let me know you are interested so I can save some for you.

Thanks

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4. May 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

I heard a couple people say they couldn’t register today. To register, look to the right at the pink column. Follow it down under the category Meta, after Archives, maybe half way down the page. Click on Register.Thanks

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27. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

I have seeds from milkweed, sweet pea vine, white orchid tree and basil. If you are not too far from Ft. Lauderdale, and would like some, let me know and I’ll save some for you. Also have native plants and a few exotics, left from a recent sale that apparently wasn’t well advertised by the sponsor, so am selling at a discount.

The tree and plant list includes: Mulberry, Bulnesia, Hong Kong Orchid Tree, Copper Pod Tree, Lancewood, Indigo Berry, Maple, Buttonwood, Clusea, Yellow Elder, Ponytail, Miraguama Palm, Canary Island Date Palm, Florida Thatch Palm, Crape Myrtle.

Shrubs Perennials, Vines and Cycads include: Angel’s Trumpet, Pink and Red Powder Puff, Salvia coccinea, mimosa, Pandorea Vine, Cocoplum, Java Glory Clereodendrum, Justicia spicegera, Hummingbird Bush, Dioone edule, Jasmine Sambac, Blue Passion Vine, and more.

Let me hear from you if you are interested.pinkie@pinkshovellandscapes.com or thepinkshovel@gmail.com

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24. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Next month, I’ll begin featuring Green gardeners and their gardens and also interviewing scientists and researchers regarding their work which affects our environment. If you are an Ecology minded gardener with a fine garden and would like to be featured, or if you are doing important research, let me know. I look forward to hearing from you and learning about your gardens or your work.

I recently interviewed a bee colony researcher at the University of Florida. Watch for the posting here soon.

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21. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

If your garden is Green, the following pictures are among some of the types of visitors you are likely getting in your garden.Recently I was disappointed it was so wet with the non stop spring rains lately and the mosquitos. They were keeping me out of the garden.Today I see the sun and dragonflies have arrived to take care of those biting critters. Here are a few pics of some of the garden visitors in my south Florida garden. Just click on the picture to enlarge it.

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11. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

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11. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Spring is upon us and it’s time to do the work that will help your garden thrive throughout the coming growing seasons.Take a walk through the garden and have a look at your plants.

Notice if any have discolored or unnaturally curled or eaten looking leaves, or branches crawling with ants or dark colored branches. You are looking for the signs of pest insects.

In my garden I spied white fly already, and some scale on a couple of plants. Treat those problems first. Stay away from chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.

For a quick, easy, safe and cost effective remedy for pests and fungi, fill a water soluble fertilizer hose applicator with 1 part cheap cooking oil, 1/2 part liquid dish soap and 1/2 part alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. Fill the balance with water and mix.  My applicator holds about 8 ounces. So I put an ounce of cooking oil, 1/2 ounce of dish soap, and a 1/2 ounce of hydrogen peroxide.

Don’t use the mixture on new seedlings.

I used it on everything that showed the signs of pests. And on plants showing signs of fungus. Due to our unusually cold and wet winter here in south Florida, I had several potted Cocoplums in duress due to a fungus. Be sure to soak the plant as well as the soil around and under the plants to be sure you have smothered your little garden pests and fungi.

This is a simple topical mix so it does not have any residual effect in your garden.

You might also try Neem oil, from the Neem Tree, as a pesticide or fungicide.

Copper fungicide is also considered safe and is used on organic crops.

After you have any pest problems addressed, it’s time to prune off any winter burn or any plants that are looking leggy and need to be filled out, as well as any plants that are getting too large and need to be thinned.

To thin a plant, cut the branches out at the base of growth, at the Y joint where it connects to another branch, or to thin it even more, cut the branch back all the way to the base at the soil.

To encourage a plant to grow fatter and fuller, cut it back at the tops of branches. Cut back 4 to 6 inches if you are trying to maintain it’s height and let it get taller. Cut back harder, as much as half the plant, if you are trying to keep it short or if it is really leggy and needs a lot of help.

Next it’s time to weed. If you aren’t the type who likes kneeling in the garden, plucking the weeds from the soil by hand, or digging them with a hoe, then use vinegar to kill the weeds.

Unlike many of the chemical pesticides on the market, vinegar will not buildup in the soil and cause herbicide toxicity which will weaken your plants over time.

Keep in mind the vinegar will kill whatever you spray and is not selective. So take careful aim.  I put my vinegar in a small gallon sprayer and use it on weeds that are not too close to my plant’s roots.

When the weeding is done, it’s time to top dress plants with a good compost or composted animal manure. Remember healthy soil is not just dirt. It’s alive and teeming with microorganisms important to the health of your soil and your plants.

Spread the compost around the area of the root of all your plants, or if you have enough, top all of the soil bed with the compost.

This will help put important beneficial fungi and bacteria in the soil, creating a healthy living soil and a symbiotic relationship between roots and soil. Doing this regularly, at least each spring, if not several times a year, will make your plants healthier and more disease and pest resistant.

I add horse manure compost from a local horse ranch to my compost. And top dress with the horse manure compost in spring. This way I’m certain that I’m not using a product filled with estrogens and antibiotics, and God knows what else, used in the feeding of food animals. Remember mad cow disease was discovered to be a result of forcing cows to be cannibals, feeding them their own dead.

Mushroom compost has also been found to be a fine soil additive with nutrient value.

Next it’s time mulch. Be sure to use a natural mulch and not a dyed recycled construction debris wood mulch. The construction debris mulch has been found to have formaldehyde and arsenic in it by University of Miami and University of Florida researchers.

So, though it sounds like a good thing in theory to buy a recycled product, in this case it is not!  When children and pets walk on it and when you are applying it, these carcinogens can be absorbed into your skin. The theory is that the plants will take the poisons up into them. Well often this is true. If  you are growing food crops or herbs you are likely to be eating these poisons if you are growing in recycled wood mulch.These products, like the other chemical products put more dangerous pollutants into the soil, water supply and the air.

Also, stay away from unnatural, manufactured mulches, like rubber or plastic. These products do not break down in the soil and provide no nutrient value to your soil or plants the way natural mulches do. Their manufacture also puts pollutants into the atmosphere.

Choose a natural product. Use bark chips, dried leaves, hay, pine needles and the like. You get the picture. In my area, we can buy maleluca bark, eucalyptus bark, pine bark,  and even cypress.

Though cypress comes from a native plant and may be best to forgo.

Spread your mulch about 3 inches thick. Thick enough to help keep weeds at bay and help hold moisture in the soil, and protect plants’ roots from the heat, without depriving the soil of oxygen.

Be sure to leave a little breathing room close to the trunks of plants and trees.

Water well and let nature take it’s course.

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3. April 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

In my garden iguanas have been a part of the ecosystem. I’ve had to get used to the fact that I would see few of certain flowers and watch the demise of many of my beloved herbs and tender perennials. The local iguanas have found my ground covers irresistible, chowing down on such favorites as the native Mimosa, Ruellia, and even muhly grass. Eating the flowers of bouganvilla and the lone Hibiscus.

Gardeners have asked me time and again for remedies to rid their gardens of these exotics creatures. They are escapees into our local habitat and are thought to have gotten out of hand due to owners of these creatures setting them free.

I have been unable to offer remedies beyond planting more woody shrubs and trees that they don’t enjoy as much, and planting more mature plants.

Certainly we can spray our plants with flavors they wouldn’t be likely to enjoy like cayenne pepper. And while I often use and advocate the use of environmentally friendly alternatives to pesticides, fungicides and herbicides, some of the activities offered by other advocates are just too silly and time consuming to even be considered, like spraying the plants forever and a day, just to keep the iguanas at bay.

I just haven’t felt the need to kill the pesky critters or to take their lives. I am blessed with such such an abundance and there are plenty of plants they do no harm. Like the glorious oaks, whose branches they used to lay on above my head as they took pleasure in warming themselves from the sun.

In my own garden they have eaten the younger plants first so that older Alocasias are untouched by them, but smaller, more tender elephant ears have disappeared quickly.

After this last cold their numbers have dwindled to the point where I have not seen one in my garden. Experts believe many didn’t survive when our temperatures dipped so low that they could not recover and many died. In my garden the mint and the Belemcanda are growing back. The Hibiscus and bouganvilla are blooming.

Wednesday I was in a friend’s garden, admiring her new additions, and there climbing through a patch of king’s mantle was one of the bright green creatures we thought we were rid of, eyes fixed on us. Not until she shook the branches of the plants did it make an attempt to scuttle off, up a nearby cabbage palm. She noted how the flowers on the king’s mantle were dwindling. Whether or not a mate for this creature lives nearby is an unknown. So, the problem may or may not be over.

If they show up again in my garden, I will let them live there with the native creatures, but I will miss my flowers and tender perennials, if that should happen.

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12. February 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Recently the cold weather here in south Florida hit some of the tropicals quite hard. Palm trees suffered most. My Licuala grandis has browning leaves and looks like something that belongs in the compost bin. As I drive the area and walk through the gardens here I have seen extensive damage to Alexander Palms, Christmas Palms, Coconut Palms, and others.

While those plants suffered through the cold, antique roses are in their element, and showing off. Several vareties of antique roses, Calliandras and perennials planted in my garden to feed butterflies and overwintering hummingbirds look fabulous. All of the perennial Salvias are showing off and the hummers are visiting them daily.

Antique roses putting on a show right now and showing no intolerance of the cold, include: Old Blush, Cecile Brunner, Louis Phillipe, Cramoisi Superieur, Champney’s Pink Cluster, Martha Gonzalez, Mrs. Dudley Cross, Duchess De Brebant and Caldwell Pink also known as Pink Pet.

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1. February 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

The next time you visit an area of natural beauty and see the Green that nature creates, notice that the Green Living Landscape, when it is healthy, has not been chemically engineered, and yet it is beautiful, the plants are green. No one planted the trees and shrubs and no one pours bags of fertilizer and pesticides and fungicides into the area. No one runs their noisy dirty power tools to keep the landscape cut into graphic structures. The natural landscape, though without the touch of a talented designer,is a model for a truly Green landscape. It lives without all the engineering and chemicals that far too many gardeners today depend on.

While design is an important consideration for home gardens, continuing to grow plants that require so many chemicals in order to thrive is detrimental to the health of the living landscape. Chemicals in soil, air, water and even our food supply are reaching frightening proportions. The chemical load in our bodies is also at an all time high.

It just makes sense to stop growing plants and lawns that require so much engineering, so many chemicals. The carbon footprint of engineered landscapes may surprise you.  Gas power tools have a carbon footprint. The manufacturing of the chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fugicides produce more carbon footprints. The chemicals, when we make them a habit, become part of the landscape, our air, water, soil, food and bodies. Many of these contaminants are known to have deleterious health affects, many are known  carcinogens.

The wonderful thing is, there are so many wonderful plants that can thrive in any landscape provided one plants the right plant in the right place. Planting plants in conditions where they thrive, one begins to create a Green garden.

Consider for example, those who force sickly hybrid tea roses to live in south Florida gardens. Many hybrid teas require, not only improved soil (which is an easy thing to provide) but also heavy doses of fungicides. This addiction to chemicals is an unnecessary and unhealthy way to garden. Chose an alternative. Learn the choices. There are other roses one can grow here. Chose non-fussy antique China roses that perform well in zones 10 or 9 for a south Florida garden instead of sickly chemical dependent hybrid teas, which will not thrive in our humidity and heat.

When planting a suitable rose, amend the alkaline sandy soil with some compost and milled spaghnum peat moss and place the rose in full sun and you have the glory of roses without the chemicals.

Learn about the alternatives to your finicky plants and grasses. It is unnecessary to keep injecting so many chemicals into our living landscape, our food supply, our bodies.

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31. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Any way you look at it, Ficus hedges are not Green. The constant use of gas powered trimmers and blowers to maintain them makes them a plant with a major carbon footprint.

The pesticides required to keep them alive in the environment of pests doing damage to them these days, pollute our air, soil and likely our water and food supply. The manufacture of the pesticides has a carbon footprint as well.

When planting a hedge or screen to be Green, it’s important not to plant a monoculture. While monoculture hedges are quite popular and hedges are a great way to provide privacy to a garden, buffer noises from the street, and screen an eyesore from view, the way they are commonly planted as monocultures in long rows is not Green. 

The best way to plant a Green hedge is to use a variety of plants in a hedge.  Stagger the plants in a zig zag fashion rather than a straight row. Then allow them to grow in their natural habit.

This method protects garden and gardener from great loss, and contributes in a positive fashion to the living landscape.

When the plants need some pruning, do it by hand.

If a particular plant is suddenly under attack by a pernicious pest, one doesn’t have to use pesticides on the whole hedge, nor lose the whole hedge. The plants not under attack remain standing sentinel at their posts in the garden hedge.

Without the need for constant gas equipment to prune the hedge plants, not only does one lessen their carbon footprint, they also save money on the cost of maintenance.

Allowing plants to grow in their natural habit also provides habitat for desirable native birds, butterflies and the likes, as well as annual migrating birds.

Smarter choices of plants for hedges have always been available, but the ease of growing Ficus from cutting and their quick growth, made them cheap and popular with growers, developers, landscapers and homeowners.

My favorite choices for a more natural, naturescape style, Green hedge, include: Simpson Stopper, Green Buttonwood, Jamaica Caper, Bay Rum (what a marvelous bay scent the leaves have when one brushes against them), Golden Dewdrop, Clusea rosea “Nana”, Powder Puff (has beautiful flowers and is available in a variety of colors and sizes), White Indigo Berry, Tawnyberry Holly, Tallowwood, Red Stopper, Redberry Stopper, Spicewood, Natal Plum, Marlberry, Myrsine, Lingarro, Holly Malpigia (for a shorter hedge), Florida Privet, Chinese Hat, Bush Cherry, Bouganvilla, Bay Cedar, Black Torch, Boxthorn (for a shorter hedge), Wax Jasmine, Firebush.

Consider the ultimate height you want in your hedge. Plant the taller plants at the back row when staggering them.

All of the above plants have a lot to recommend them. Some are better than others at tolerating salt water intrusion. So consider that when choosing plants for landscapes near the ocean.

Some other fine choices that have been around a long time include: West Indian Cherry, Barbados Cherry, Yew Podocarpus. All these are also fine when grown, limbed up, as small trees, as are some of the other choices.

Be creative, plant a back row spread about 6 feet apart of Jamaica Capers. Two or three feet in front of them, in between each set of Jamaica Capers, plant Green Button Woods. About two feet in front of the Green Buttonwoods, in the center of each set, plant White Indigo Berry. Or zig zag three of the same plant, then three of another plant and so on until you have created the look you want with your Greenscape hedge. 

If you don’t have that much space, then alternate the plants and stagger them only a foot in front of each other. Be creative.

Top dress with composted manure and watch them grow. Enjoy a Green screen which offers beauty, privacy and desirable wildlife habitat.

Know that you’ve done your part for the environment and the living landscape.

The picture here shows a Greenscape with a hedge, planted at the left of the photo. The hedge is made up of several varieties of plants which do well in south Florida. They were planted small, in three gallon containers and have been allowed to grow in their natural habits. The natural hedge includes groups of Firebush, red blooming Powder Puff, and Golden Dewdrop, all of which are butterfly, bird and hummingbird attractors. They create a wonderful natural visual screen from the neighbors and offer privacy to the homeowners. The plants are all relatively fast growers and are filling the space quite quickly.

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29. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

One of the biggest mistakes people make in their home landscapes whether it be on their lawn or backyard garden is with their use of pesticides. The constant and continuous use of pesticides creates a toxic environment and puts these chemicals into the soil, the air we breath and even our water supply.

Don’t run out and buy pesticide when you see ants. Consider instead the possibility that soil and plants are not healthy and therefore pests are getting a foothold.

In a garden with lots of plant variety, including natives and good soil, which has been amended with compost and composted animal manures, the plants’ roots become healthier and therefore the plants are stronger when pests appear.

Variety in the garden brings in more variety of insects. With this biodiversity the ecosystem can come into balance with the natural world keeping itself in check.

If you feel you just have to treat for an infestation, try natural remedies. Dish soap and water will kill many pests as readily as many topical pesticides which endanger our health and put known carcinogens into the environment. If the pest is a pernicious one, try soapy water mixed with cooking oil. If you still find you haven’t rid yourself of the pest, add some alcohol to the mix.

If you just don’t feel like making your own mixes, try spraying Neem oil. Why use petroleum based oils, which are known pollutants and carcinogens, when you can use alternatives.

To kill white fly, put equal parts dish soap, cooking oil and water
into a liquid fertilizer applicator and apply as you would any pesticide. Drench the plant and the soil.

As is even necessary with toxic and dangerous pesticides, repeat every 7 to 10 days as needed.

Natural remedies are easy,  safe,  inexpensive, non-toxic. They will not hurt your plants, children, pets or the environment. They work as well as poison and one doesn’t have to worry about where they dispose of the leftovers.

My rule of thumb with plants, is 3 strikes your out. If a plant requires treatment for pests 3 times in a year, I remove it, dispose of it and find a suitable replacement that will do well in the environment in my garden.

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25. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Despite the unusual weather we’ve been having here in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the garden throughout the cold, and the heat and the muggy drizzling rainy days has been filled with delight.

This morning the bird seed feeder has been visited by a host of painted buntings (likely the same one’s who came last fall) there are 6 of them, a male and female cardinal (they’ve been around for a year). Last year they raised a brood here. And a series of blue jays have come and gone, calling out as they swoop down to the feeder. The hummingbird has been moving around the deck taking nectar from the salvia and the pink powder puff which are showing off this muggy warm January morning. The gray catbird and the mockingbird have snatched small round yellow berries from the bird pepper plant which occurs here naturally, and which I allow to grow where it seeds for the most part, for their benefit.

The smaller birds are moving through the branches of the majestic old oaks, and the large bright orioles have kept their distance moving through the wildness of the colorful bouganvillas.

The feeder is one I bought in fall to overcome the constant raiding of seed which was occuring with the old feeder. The squirrels can’t get into this one. So if you’re having a time of it keeping the squirrels out of the bird seed, try it out.

It’s a cylinder shape with wire grate which wraps the entire body of the cylinder. The wire is a distance of the average bird beak from the cylinder and seems to be impossible for the squirrels to get to. They will occasionally hang upside down from the feeder trying to figure it out. They are smart little creatures, but ultimately they give up and have to go forage for other delights in the garden.

The feeder is one of two red ones, tucked up under the yucca plant a the back of the old bench, just behind the sweet rescue dog making himself at home on the lounge chair, in the picture. It is the feeder on the right which the squirrels can’t raid.

Though the feeders are placed quite low and close to the deck for viewing pleasure, the birds still frequent them, as they are in a densely planted Greenscape with good protection from predators.

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22. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Planting in a fashion which provides habitat and food for desirable wildlife is one the most important tenets of Green gardening. The rewards are magnificent, and winter in south Florida is a great time to enjoy the bounty of nature in a south Florida garden. It also a great time to enjoy the beauty of the Ruby Throated hummingbirds who overwinter here when it’s cold up north.

The male Ruby Throated hummers have a diamond shaped ruby colored pattern on their throats. The females are absent this marking. They are a shimmering green and are easy to miss in the garden if you are not watching for them.

Their demure size and speed could keep from ever seeing them if you don’t plant some of their favorite nectar plants close to window vistas you often enjoy from inside your home, or close to the patio or deck or sitting area of your garden.

The plants you use to entice them into your  Greenscape need to be ones that bloom during the fall, winter and early spring in order to provide nectar for them.

In my garden the hummers are taking nectar from Pink and Red Powderpuffs, Porterweed, Purple and Red Firespike, Several varieties of Justicia, several varieties of Salvia, Yellow Elder, Cape Honeysuckle, Honeysuckle, Tropical Fern Leaf Lavendar, Russian Sage, and Firebush, all which bloom on and off throughout the fall, winter and spring.

Something is always blooming in this cacophony of color and I see them regularly when I’m sitting at my windows or on my back yard deck. Their is always nectar available for them in my garden.

I don’t use feeders, as in our on again off again warm climate, the sugar water can sour if not changed often and cause the creatures to acquire a deadly virus on their tiny tongues.

The picture above is a hummer workers at a grower’s field in Homestead discovered cold and stunned laying on the ground. They picked it up, warmed it, held it for awhile and it began to fly excitedly around them after it warmed.

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21. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Some of my favorite trees for south Florida include: Live Oak, Clusea Rosea, Clusea Rosea “Nana”, Sea Grape, Mrysine, Fiddlewood, Apple Blossom Cassia, Dwarf Apple Blossom Cassia, Powder Puff, Yellow Elder, Bay Laurel, Allspice, White Geiger, Orange Geiger and the list goes on. If you have favorites you would like to share, please do. Or if you are looking for a specific type of tree or a recommendation for a specific area, let me know.

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18. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Trees are royalty in the landscape. While palm trees are beautiful and provide great architecture and a tropical look, canopy trees are king.

Canopy trees supply oxygen, remove carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas), trace metals, and other industrial pollutants from the air we breathe.

Trees absorb rainwater from frequent intense summer storms. This holds moisture on your property and prevents storm water runoff which often carries pollutions such as fertilizers, and other chemicals we use on our gardens and lawns off our property down storm drains and into our bays and estuaries.

Proper tree shading can reduce air-conditioning costs and mitigate temperatures, even alleviating the island heat affect of cities when enough are properly planted.

Trees provide shelter, food and homes for urban wildlife. Many migratory birds rest and live in trees.

Trees are long-lived, the longest lived plant in a landscape so that planting one not only enhances your property and its value now, but has a positive aesthetic and ecological impact on your neighborhood and the overall environment far into the future.

So plant more trees. Make use of the swale in front of your home. Plant trees there. Plant small trees over the air conditioning unit rather than planting a tightly clipped hedge that screens the air conditioner but nothing to cool it.

When you plant a large growing long lived tree be sure to plant it a distance from the house so it doesn’t outgrow its space.

Plant smaller shorter lived trees closer to the house.

Watch for some of my favorite trees for south Florida landscapes.

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14. January 2010 by Carol Whitaker.

Green means sustainability, creating and maintaining a living landscape which conserves and preserves our natural resources, including our air, water, and soil quality, as well as the flora and fauna. It is about preserving our way of life, and promoting an ecological balance which enables our environment, the earth, to endure and provide into the future for future generations.

            A sustainable environment will meet our needs in the present without compromising our ability to meet the needs of future generations.

            Green Gardening or a Green landscape is one which contributes to sustainability and does not add stresses and pollutants into the living landscape; this includes using best practices which have little to no carbon footprint, and cultivating a garden without making the many common mistakes in gardening practices; and the use of garden products, which pollute and contaminate the air, soil, water and even the food supply in our shared living landscape, without which we could not live. 

            It means planting the right plant in the right place and incorporating canopy trees and naturescape style plantings that provide for desirable wildlife in the living landscape. 

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