Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Ginny Stibolt, a naturalist with a master's degree in botany, lives in Green Cove Springs in northern Florida. She's written a book, Sustainable Gardening for Florida published by University Press of Florida. Her website, Transplanted Gardener contains a six-year log of Florida gardening, nearly 100 articles, and links to more than 100 podcasts about gardening in Florida. She's an active member of the Florida Native Plant Society and is one of the primary FNPS bloggers. She is also an active member of the Lawn Reform Coalition.
Just about now, when people are removing their holiday decorations, let’s talk about a decoration feat I discovered last fall. I have some exuberant stands of the native dotted horsemint (Monarda punctata) in my yard. It’s a tall mint with a wonderfully complex tower of flower heads. The flowers themselves are pale yellow dotted with [...]
The timberdoodles are back! We’ve probably had them wintering on our property for years, but first noticed them only last year. Their plumage, a mix of different shades of browns, grays, and black, blends in with the winter vegetation and they stay hidden during the day unless you flush them out of hiding. Last year, [...]
It was an exciting day a few weeks ago when I spotted a gopher tortoise in my yard. The gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is the only land tortoise east of the Mississippi River. (There are three others native to the western US). Its range includes southeastern tip of South Carolina down through central Florida [...]
While this (1 = 3 (or more)) equation is not rare in the native plant world, few accomplish this more beautifully than coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). It produces long tubular flowers in a beautiful shade of orange/red. The leaves immediately below the flowers are perfoliate–they are joined at the base and the stem emerges [...]
The exceptional and beautiful polka-dotted wasp moth (Syntomeida epilais) breaks a number of Mother Nature’s rules: #1. Adult moths fly at night. Fortunately for photographers, this beautiful moth flies in the daylight hours. #2. Adult moths have pale or pastel colorations. With their iridescent gunmetal blue coloring punctuated by white dots and [...]
The Poison Cycle In a balanced ecosystem, predators will be in the minority. In other words, in a natural environment, there are many more prey organisms to ensure a continuous food supply for the predators. In such an ecosystem, there are huge numbers of prey including, aphids, white flies, cabbage worms, leaf miners, mole crickets, [...]
So this happened the other day between the natural pond out in our front yard and the front porch: A female cooter turtle (Florida cooter (Pseudemys floridana)) laid some eggs at the edge of a mulched path near a rain garden. After I took several photos that invaded her privacy, I went inside to download [...]
Last month I talked about all the native plant resources in Florida including the Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS), this time I’ll provide a guide to my addiction. My local chapter holds informative meetings with expert speakers on a wide range of topics relating to native plants or habitats, offers plants for sale or raffle [...]
People who’ve decided to add more native plants to their landscape often have a difficult time getting started. Local nurseries and home improvement stores usually don’t offer native plants and even if they have some, they are not well marked and the staff may not be helpful when it comes to recommending native plants. Here [...]
