Leekle! Thank you so much for sharing all this! I can see where you're heading with your yard and I share your vision! It will be so charming to watch your different areas take on lives of their own. One of my favorite aspects of gardening is that it's constantly changing. Unlike re-arranging your living room furniture and having it look the same until you purchase new items or move furniture around again, plants grow and sprawl and climb and flower and branch... Every few days, to the watchful gardener, it looks quite different!
I love the Passi vine and the rum bottle fountain! *Stealing those ideas!*

;)

Like you I am working with limited space, but we have to start somewhere. I think it is off to a great start. I wish I had the space around my trailer you do...hehe. I have found my best hope was to figure out what I hade and how it grew first. Plumbago and Canna really are polar opposites and didn't belong planted next to each other as they were in my already established bed......wonder what the previous owner was thinking. :-)

As I said I think you are off to a great start! And like you have found the people here very helpful.

Cindy

Nice job, looks like you are quite the propagator. I just started seeing butterflies in my yard. I have a few Gulf Frittilary cats on my Maypop. It is the only one that survived an over zealous weed whack job in the garden. That is another story, I might need therapy after this particular episode.

Oh, Dawn! What happened?!? Certainly YOU didn't whack them???

I need to go check my stuff for cats, too.

I also love the rum bottle fountain!
Nope, my husband insists on hiring this guy to mow the lawn. Problem is, people who know nothing about plants do yard work. This has been an ongoing problem, I told him no more "weed" wacking, mowing only and this time he has to replace the stuff he killed.

My husband mowed over a 2-foot-tall, 2-foot-wide purple porter weed... AFTER being told to watch for it.

He doesn't "garden."

Thank you folks. I admit, looking through the pictures, it doesn't really convey what I see each day, perhaps I need to bug my mother to give me some photography lessons so I can make certain features stand out more.

When I got the idea for a Beach theme for my yard, for some reason it got in my head that Rum Bottles should be one of those Repetition features that should occur in a 'true' landscape. So I added a few to the beds and thought I would turn that one into a fountain. Since I already had the pump, I went and got some glass-cutting drill bits which had 1/4" as it's largest size. But attaching a 1/4" hose to that small pump made for a bare trickle coming from the bottle. Like I said, it worked, but the trickle was so small that it barely disturbed the water at all, which meant it would not do a very good job of discouraging mosquitoes. So I either need a stronger pump to put more pressure through a 1/4" line or a larger bit to cut a 9/16" hole in the bottle so I can feed the PVC pipe into it. There are rum bottles that are also half-buried in the other beds. I like rum, but not so much that I go through it all that quick, so it will be some time before I have enough bottles to have them all around. I'm also thinking of setting up a fake still.

I have not yet seen cats on my passionvines, just the one Gulf Frit. Since that day I have only seen one Gulf Frit in my yard at a time and I'm wondering if I'm seeing the same one. But she keeps visiting the vine (only the P. Caerula, not the P. incarnata) so I'm hopeful that it won't be long before my shed starts looking naked again. Though the vines definitely reduced the temperatures inside the shed a bit. I have also seen a few Zebra Longwings lately, but while they approach and fly over the vines, they have not landed. I think the conditions are not right for their tastes. Recently, the family and I went for a walk at the Sunnyhill Restoration Levee and we walked through an area heavily shaded by a tree canopy (about the only shaded area around the levee) and the number of Zebra Longwings flying around was impressive. So I think they prefer to lay there eggs on vines that are under the cover of shade... which as you can see I lack.

Leekle-
It's very impressive to see what you have done! All with limited space I gather...you clearly love this new hobby of yours and it shows.
Great work and thanks for the long post and pics.
Hester

For having to work with limited space you sure have accomplished a lot! It looks like you've put a lot of care and thought into everything.

My dad has just about every tool under the sun including several sets of drills, so when you come to my party why don't you bring your rum bottle with you? Chances are that he has something that could drill a larger hole in that bottle for you.

With you including rum bottles into your garden theme a small bottle tree would look really neat. And by bottle tree I mean a tree made of either rebar or wood that has bottles sticking out of it.

Someone really doesn't want me growing Beautyberries. Last night we had a storm blow through around 2 or 3 am. I went out to check on things this morning and I didn't see any damage or problems. Then, a few hours later, I was heading out the door when I looked over and saw my other flat of Beautyberries, the one still sitting in my lanai, with one of those transparent dome covers flipped upside down and laying all the seedlings... well... flat. The kicker is that cover wasn't near that flat. It was on a higher shelf. The wind last night must have picked it up from that upper shelf and blown it down onto the seedlings.

A Fall Follow-Up of the above.

The east side and 'front' of my house. It's funny how we start off with one idea for an area and as time goes by, we realize that idea won't really work so we have to shift gears. Without going into too much detail, that's what has happened here. I had an idea that used quite a few hard-line bed definitions and I was going to have my herb garden here. But the summer sun, even though it was only morning sun, quickly let me know the folly of this idea. Now I'm working on building it up to be a 'natural flower garden'. When done, this should be the closest thing I have to a formal bed, without actually being formal.

My daughter's Butterfly Bed is really starting to come along in terms of flower varieties. Unfortunately, it still hasn't been too popular with the butterflies. Bees and wasps like it, but not the butterflies. There must be something about this location that really turns them off. Still, while they don't seem to hang out here, the Monarchs keep laying their eggs on the milkweed and the caterpillars keep eating it down.

Another angle on her Butterfly garden. From this angle you can see the unused puddling saucer (which needs cleaning) and the hypertufa face from "Nova aka Susan". In the front of this picture is a 'Yellow Salvia' from Karalynn's party. I still can't find any further information on this plant though.

The north side, not much has changed... at all. It's hard to get inspired about a side of the house you don't get to see too often except when pulling up.

The north steps. Rotting in place. I think I'm going to have to replace them in the spring. If I had this area properly mulched, you would be able to see the four thin sprigs of Fakahatchee grass that I have placed here. Since Fakahatchee is supposed to do well in either Sun or Shade, I figured it would be a perfect choice for an area that gets full sun in the summer and full shade in the winter. Time will tell.

The Northwest bed. Really not much has changed here, just a season's worth of growth and the addition of some pentas plants and one Gold Mound Duranta. Everything else was there in the spring, but was MUCH smaller. I can't wait to see how this looks next fall, assuming that large stand of Blue Firespike survives the winter in this bed. The mandarin, which was showing heavy signs of Citrus Greening now seems perfectly healthy. All I've really done is kept it watered and given it monthly applications of micro-nutrients.

Another shot of the Northwest bed, just getting a better look at the Pentas and Duranta.

A shot of the "Watering Pool" as I like to call it. It's not really big enough to be a pond and a little too big to be simple birdbath, so it's a pool. In the original post, I had said I had the idea of turning this into a sandy, beachy area. Well, the summer rains changed my mind on this. Half the sand I had surrounding this pool ended up in the pool itself. The other half got pounded down into the soil. Another lesson learned: While running the condensation pipe from my AC did indeed keep this pool filled throughout the summer, it actually kept it constantly overflowing, which the lantana did not appreciate one bit. When I finally removed the pipe and this area started to dry up a little, the Pawpaw I had planted here quickly died off. Apparently being constantly watered like that caused the Pawpaw to not send out its roots and so it was not able to adjust when the water stopped.

My seating area in the Northwest corner. Last spring this was a lot of grass and two chairs. Now it's a lot of grass, two chairs and a rather full looking Beautyberry shrub. This Beautyberry was started from seed last Fall/Winter, sprouted in Spring and is now this clump. Since neither it nor any of the others flowered at all, I figured they would need another year before they flower and fruit, but this one actually started flowering at the beginning of November is now starting to form its berries. It's a race against time to see if it can finish ripening off the berries before the real cold hits. You can't see them in this shot, but there are two Florida Privets behind the chairs that are coming along nicely as well as a Pineland Lantana. I probably should get another picture of that bed to showcase those plants.

The Southwest bed. It has grown in size a bit since last spring. Since the spring, I have designated this as my 'Shrub Bed'. While not everything in this bed is technically a shrub, I'm not planting anything here that will exceed 10-12 ft tall. Well... I DID have a native Persimmon tree sapling here, but a squirrel took care of that for me. Now that I have all the 'foundation' plants done for this bed, I think next spring/summer will be spent filling in the blank spots with more flowery plants... if I can force myself to do 'flowery'.

The Vine Trellis Wall. Another lesson learned. I built this with good intentions and a good bit of ignorance. As I have watched those vines getting thicker and thicker over the summer, I have come to the realization that it won't be long before they rip all that pvc latticework right off the side of the shed. The grape vine died over the summer, but in it's place I have put in two Dutchman's Pipevines. Another project for next spring is to build a more utilitarian, sturdier trellis that sits about 18-24" from the wall of the shed instead of right on it. I also need to do some research on how far back I can cut those passionvines and have them survive, but I will wait until after Winter has done its thing. Below the trellis is a stand of Tropical Salvia (great for hummingbirds and Gulf Frits) and a nice ball of Pineland Lantana that doesn't seem to be a HUGE butterfly draw, but all the butterflies do nectar on it from time to time.

A Northwest-facing view of the Shrub bed. In the middle of that tan patch is a small Sparkleberry sapling. Over the past couple of weeks the leaves have slowly gone brown and fallen off. I'm hoping this is just the plant going dormant for the winter and not signs that I will be replacing it next spring. The Blue Firespike really dominate this bed thus far, especially from this angle. I'm told they should start sending up their flower spikes in December or January, if a hard frost doesn't set them back.

Added this extra shot of Shrub bed. Here you can get a better look at the Firebush and two blueberry shrubs. The Firebush... well... I will never have a garden without a Firebush. After seeing the constant level of activity around this thing over spring, summer and fall, I can't imagine being without one. Butterflies and hummingbirds just can't get enough of this thing. Especially the Zebra Longwings, they almost exclusively nectar on this bush. On either side of the Firebush are my blueberries. Emerald on the left and Jewel on the right. The Jewel is looking better than the Emerald by a fair sight, but I haven't fertilized them at all, simply letting them get established this year, and I think only recently I have managed to get the PH right. The Emerald's leaves were getting worse and worse with that 'burned ashy' look which I understand to be a result of the PH being too high. As of August, this has not gotten any worse and seems to have stabilized, but the bush also hasn't put out any new growth. I know BR is THE GURU when it comes to these plants, but I'm trying to avoid using chemical fertilizers as much as I can. If I end up having to break down and use Miracid or some other fertilizer, I will, but for now I'm just using pine bark, pine needles, left over coffee grounds and pickle juice with applications of compost.

The South bed. This bed is in a state of transition. I have been moving plants out of this bed into other areas where I feel they will be happy (or happier) and getting the area ready for being turned into a Tropical bed. I had to move my tomato plants to the wall here as their old location, while being fine for Spring tomatoes, did not work so well for Autumn. The change in the sun's angle and the amount of shade resulted in some very leggy plants. After moving them to this spot, they have recovered some and started putting out fruit. I think I am going to have find a better spot for them next year, perhaps out along the fence line.

And the Tropical Corner. This is where I used to have my tomato plants, but as I said, they didn't like this spot for Autumn growth. And so, starting with four banana pups, this bed is going to be the anchor for my Tropical Garden. I have some Persian Shield cuttings in sunken pots that I will be able to move next year if it gets too sunny for them. And there are also two Wild Coffee plants that will likely be planted here. There is also a Porterweed, but I'm keeping a close eye on it for invasive potential. But these will have to wait until spring to be planted along with Bird of Paradise, Heliconias, Gingers and Crotons. As stated in another post, under all that pine bark is a 3" layer of grass clippings (and weed seeds). I have a layer of newspaper between the grass and the pine bark to smother out/inhibit the weed seeds and this area should compost down nicely by spring. Until then I'm not about to dig into it and release those weeds!

New additions:

These first two are a new bed that I built for the very SW corner of the yard. Currently I have three plantings of Fackahatchee Grass, a Simpson Stopper, native Plumbago (Longtail Skippers love this one), Beautyberry and a Gold Mound Duranta. There's also a bit of Tropical Salvia thrown in to provide some nectar for the butterflies. There are also some plantings of perrenial Blanketflower and Coreopsis that I'm hoping have had enough time to establish to survive the winter and be ready to bloom in spring. As you might be able to see, this bed is currently topped with grass clippings. Over the course of the winter, I will be topping this entire bed with sand and compost and then watering it down into the mulch. Around March I will then paper and mulch the bed once more before spreading Wildflower seeds. My hope is that next year this bed will be covered almost non-stop with pollinator attracting flowers.

This is the section along my lanai that I have been having a heck of a time trying to figure out what I want to do with. I finally broke down and figured I would move my herb garden here. It's decent spot where the herbs should get enough sun in the mornings and evenings to be happy, but should be out of the baking, high-noon sun of summer. It could probably stand a bit more soil amendments though. There is also some Blue Firespike here that will help with the transition into the Tropical Bed. So far, aside from the Blue Firespike, I have Lemon Balm, Pineapple Sage, Sweet Basil, Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme.

Last but not least, this is the corner of the yard that I really wanted to do something with, but really didn't want to have to deal with it. So I went xeric here. While most of my beds will hopefully get down to very little care once established, this bed should be absolutely no care. I believe everything here is fairly drought resistant and yet won't rot during our summer downpours. So far it's just African Iris, Muhly Grass, Portulaca and bulbine (yellow and orange varieties).

This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Wed, Nov 20, 13 at 20:32

Love the progression, it is nice to compare. I have had to do some rethinking about what to put in certain beds. I read all about microclimates and figured the southeast part o f my yard would be where all my tropicals should go, well come January, the bed was a bunch of brown sticks. The northwest part of my yard is my best tropical microclimate. I am trying a Lychee tree there now. your daughter's butterfly garden has become so pretty. Like your observation, I've noticed the Zebra Longwings like Firebush, I have Firespike in the same area and they hang out on the opposite side of the yard from "the butterfly garden."

The yellow salvia that you got from me is a forsythia salvia. Here's a link with more info.

This weekend I'll go out back an look at my sparkle berry and let you know if it ia also dropping it's leaves. My is a very mature plant so if it is then yours should be fine.

Great update. You certainly have been busy!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.floridata.com/ref/s/salv_mad.cfm

Thanks for that link, Karalynn. I now know that I have it in a spot that it will probably not like come next summer when it gets dawn to dusk sun. Not to mention it would eventually outgrow that little bed. I guess I will be transplanting it come spring. With its larger leaves, it might work in the tropical bed planted next to or under the bananas.

My sparkleberry still has all it's leaves but it is a very mature plant so that may make a difference. I collected some berries off my plant if you are interested in some.

> Posted by morningloree
> Zebra Longwings like Firebush, I have Firespike in the same area
> and they hang out on the opposite side of the yard from "the butterfly garden."

Dawn, I have ZLW-active Firebushes, am planning to get Firespike.
There probably is some information in your statement that would be good to know,
and I need your help in understanding it.