For Mother’s Day….. Central Florida, May 12, 2012. Twelve of the many native wildflowers that grace my property. I wish all the moms, daughters and sons of moms, a very happy Mother’s Day. May all your native plant gardens grow.
About Loret T. Setters
Loret is an active member of The Florida Native Plant Society. She writes about wildlife happenings in her native plant garden on a rural acre in Central Florida at the Osceola FL Garden Blah Blah Blog, and is part of the team at Beautiful Wildlife Garden. Follow @PineLilyFNPS for daily updates on conservation and native plants.
"I garden for wildlife ~ the benefit to my senses is merely a bonus"
The Garden Bells are Ringing
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Central Florida, April 2012: I love spring. You can almost hear the pretty bell flowers of a few shrubs in my native plant garden ringing as they sway in the breeze. I’m talking about members of the Heath (Ericaceae) family. The Heath family includes about 70 genera with over 1,500 species of plants. I’m sure [...]
Make a Butterfly Everlasting
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Central Florida, March 13, 2012 Call a plant “Everlasting” and to me it conjures up visions of fluffy clouds and love in the air. Why then is the same plant commonly called “Cudweed”, which to me conjures up…well…VOMIT or SPIT! Ok, I’m sure that some farmers had livestock who didn’t necessarily have the best table [...]
Depressed? Try St. Johns Wort in Your Garden
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No matter how you spell it, St. Johns Wort, St. John’s Wort, St. Johns-wort, or St. Johnswort (Hypericum spp.), the plants in my yard are like a ray of sunshine with their pretty bright-yellow flowers blooming at this time of year. Hypericum is a member of the Clusiaceae Family. Most of the lower 48 [...]
Where Do You Get Your Trees?
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Happy Arbor Day (well almost). Ok…are you scratching your head and wondering if I’ve lost my sense of time? In seven days, on the third Friday of January, it will be Arbor Day for both Florida and Louisiana…two states who appear to want to be first in the nation. We are all familiar with National [...]
In a Wildlife Garden, It Isn’t Shy at All
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I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks with Shyleaf (Aeschynomene americana). Also called Deer Vetch or Jointvetch, this plant is native to the southeast and Maryland. A rather aggressive annual…not a good choice for a small home landscape…it is of great value out here in cow country. It is recommended forage for both deer and [...]
Sex in the Wildlife Garden — Baccharis halimifolia
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OK, have I got your ATTENTION? I’ve talked over at BWG about plants that are dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female plants. Sorry to disappoint those who thought I was going to have a REALLY “interesting” topic this month. I’m not the most observant person in the garden…although I spot the smallest [...]
Arranging Native Plants
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Ok, the title might lead you to believe I was going to talk landscape design, but the truth is, today I’m talking about making floral arrangements using Florida Native Plants. At this time of year, I always clip pieces from my various plant offerings and gather them into a very fancy vase (a.k.a. an old [...]
Tasty Morsels and their Native Plants
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Do you have native plants as larval hosts? What you say? Of course…Look, there is my Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) ready for the Sulphur Butterflies and over there…Purple Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) just waiting for the Gulf Fritillaries to lay their eggs. Then there is the Water Cowbane (Oxypolis filiformis) standing tall so the Black Swallowtail [...]
Planted for the Birds, by the Birds
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Propagation can take place by several means: we break apart large clumps of plants at the roots and plant elsewhere or share with others, we gather seeds and plant or share with others, the wind blows seeds, mammals and other critters carry seeds from place to place and there are many other methods, including propagation [...]
