That gorgeous flower I've been begging folks to identify is still not known. I have noticed, however, that many of the retention pond areas around Pinellas County have this plant growing profusely around the edges. And they are blooming like crazy. It's obviously some type of wildflower that prefers full sun and moisture. I'm also beginning to think, like my friend Karl at Tropical Library that it is some form of evening primrose or Oenothera. I recently visited Lady Bird's Wildflower Center to see if I could locate my species and I couldn't. But it definitely looks like it belongs in the Oenothera family. And that's good enough for me (almost). Knowing me, I'll keep looking around and eventually I'll find it. When I do you'll be the first to know. Happy Florida Gardening.

It's been just about a month since I posted to this site - no excuses but here they are anyway. I went to North Carolina for a week of pretty intensive training. When I got back I felt like my brain had been sucked out of my head and I just couldn't think about anything to write about. Then as I was beginning to come back to life, my semi-Fla sister came down for a long weekend with her girlfriend and the rest, as they say, is history. Today is October 22 and I am just beginning to feel human again. It helped that I worked out in the yard today and finally felt re-connected.

I started by cutting the back yard. I was about 2/3 of the way through when the mower ran out of juice - remember it's cordless. I was a bit baffled since it had been plugged in since before I left on my trip, but I thought maybe the power had gone out and had interrupted the charge cycle somehow. Nope. The electrical cord that the transformer was plugged into decided to blow up in my hand. No wonder there was no juice - there was no connection! Once I got over that little charge, I plugged the transformer into a brand new cord, noted that the red light was definitely lit on the mower and then sat by the pool to decide what I wanted to play with next. I came up with several things all requiring more time and effort than I felt like giving today, after all, the first part of my day had been spent visiting my mother... As I looked around it occurred to me that the palm in the corner of the yard needed some trimming. It had been showing lots of browning leaves throughout its multiple stems since way before the many hurricane visits. So I put on my gloves and got to work.

It took about 1 1/2 hours, but the plant finally started looking cleaner and was actually stretching out its fronds. So I wrapped up for the afternoon and came into the house to do laundry (I know this doesn't sound exciting but I just purchased a new Bosch washer and dryer and am I ever happy). As I sat down to begin writing this I referred back to my favorite plant book, Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants to make sure I correctly named the palm I was trimming. It's definitely a Serenoa repens or Saw Palmetto. What initially threw me was that I thought saw palmetto was single trunked but that's not the case. They actually do grow in clumps and are thicket-forming. This palm is salt tolerant and grows well in full sun to part shade. It does bear tiny white flowers in spring and summer sort of life long threads. The link I provided to floridata.com indicates saw palmetto is maintenance-free once established and they aren't kidding. I literally do nothing for this guy except trim out the brown stuff once a year. Otherwise, it's on its own and content to be here.

So, I'm back. I'm re-connected to my garden and gearing up for lots more fun over the "winter" months. Now where did I put those trimmers? Happy Florida Gardening.