More pics :)

Bossyvossy,

Thanks!!! That is a popcorn cassia (Cassia didymobotrya). It is a host plant for sulphur butterflies...mostly orange-barred where I live. I have plenty of seed pods all the time if you'd like to give it a try. If so, message me with your mailing address.

Here's what it looked like when first planted:

Rhonda

Oh, I didn't zoom enough to see detail on leaves. Popcorn cassia not winter hardy for me in Houston area. My fave butterfly is the sulphur and I try to grow as many host and food plants as I can. Have tons of butterflies around but just a few sulphurs. I guess our house is not yet listed on the YELP butterfly edition.

Rhonda, you made a beautiful place for the butterflies, congrats! it is filling nicely and looks very happy.

Silvia

Bossyvossy, Christmas cassia/Cassia bicapsularis is hardy in your area, also you can grow sicklepod/C. obtusifolia and partridge peas/Chamaecrista fasciculata. I get cloudless sulphurs every fall on my partridge peas, and sleepy oranges use Christmas cassia every spring.

Rhonda, what is that beautiful salvia (at least I assume it's a salvia) with the blue GROW sign in front of it?

Sherry

Sherry, can you post pic of c. Obtusifolia. Googling it is confusing. I grow the Christmas senna and recently got what I think is c. Splendida.

Thanks Silvia! It makes me happy as well as the butterflies :)

Bossy, sorry that it's not hardy but Sherry knows her stuff so I'd get one that she recommended :)

Sherry,

It is salvia splendins "Faye Chapel". It's only cold hardy in zones 9-10 but you could grow it in pots. It has bloomed non-stop since I planted it. Considering that it prefers partial shade, I am surprised that it has been such a trooper in my total sun (after 11:00 a.m.) garden. If I had a shady area, it would probably be more lush. I got lucky and found it at a nursery outside Ocala, Fl. in 1 gallon pots for around $4...much cheaper than online. If you would like any cuttings, just let me know.

Rhonda

Wow it looks great

Thanks Glenn!! I'll check my rain lilies tomorrow and if blooming I'll get a pic for you. They're planted at the foot of one of the magnolias.

it looks great and it's such a wonderful example of understanding how plants mature and the garden becomes beautiful i need to look at this once a day....

Thanks for the kind words Zippity! This is the first garden in Florida that I actually did it the right way...tilled good soil and compost into the entire garden before planting one thing :)

Bossyvossy,

Here's a picture of a stand of sicklepod growing by a nearby cow pasture, which is where they most commonly grow -

Here's a close-up picture -

You may be able to see a few little red flowers in the first picture - those are on the cardinal vine that's growing with the sicklepod. Sicklepod makes an insignificant looking yellow flower that faces downward, as I recall, and long, very thin, curved seed pods come from the flowers. You can start your own plants with these seeds. Since you're in Texas, I'd assume you could find some on the edge of pastures. I don't know what it is about pastures, unless cows eat the seeds and spread the plants that way. I once fertilized one, and it grew into a 5' X 5' bush that had lots of sleepy oranges, and, I think cloudless sulphurs on it. Pasture side height is usually about 3'X3'.

Sherry

You've done a great job on this. I need to find a different salvia for my garden, the one I have gets really leggy and then blooms like crazy in the fall. I want blooms all Spring and Summer.

Thanks Rita! Salvia Amistad is awesome. It bloomed all spring and summer at my old place in Williston which was 9a. It's doing the same thing here but is taller but not leggy. It's the tall, bushy purple salvia in my pics.

Rhonda, what a gorgeous garden! I'm in 9b and have hummers almost all year since

I planted and then propagated Purple Porterweed. I have 5 or 6 regular visitors who

come a couple times per day. Just wanted to give you a tip to keep the little guys around.

Thanks Mr1010! I do have mature purple porterweed and have red cuttings in the ground. I know that in 9b they often stay year-round as I have a friend in Clermont who has them in his garden most of the year. But, they won't stay year round here in my 10a Gulf coast yard. They are here from late July through Spring.

Thanks, Rhonda

wow wow wow...that is amazing!!

I saw you said you tilled in good soil, do you have any idea about how much?

What other tips do you have, you did an amazing job!

Hi SMC, Thanks so much!

Yes, after I roto-tilled the grass and raked all the grass and shells out, I tilled in I believe 40 2 cubic foot bags of Oak Farms Nursery's (in Englewood) own brand of composted soil. If the soil here was as bad as the soil I had in Williston (total sand as I lived in the sandhills) I would have at least doubled the soil I tilled in.

Also, I actually took time to plan where to put the plants based on heights and colors. I love purples with orange and gold. I also love rounded mounding plants (like the Lion's Ear and dwarf firebush) with spikier plants like salvia. I wanted to get as close to a cottage garden look as I could in SW Florida LOL

If in doubt as to what colors look well together, consult a color wheel like this one. 2-3 colors beside each other or across from each other or 3 colors forming a triangle work well together.

I mulched everything with about 2" of shredded cedar. I probably would have used a more natural color and maybe pine straw but everything else in the yard is mulched with the red. The only place where I used landscape cloth is on the path and where the chair and table sit to help eliminate weeds growing up.

The first month or so I had to water every day as we were in a drought. I haven't had to water now for at least a month as we have been getting rain almost every day.

After the plants were in the ground for a few weeks, I sprinkled 6-6-6 fertilizer (I use Rite x Green made specifically for Florida gardens...most nurseries around here carry it and even Walmart does) around the base of each plant and watered it in. I have done that a couple of times since then, about 2 months apart.

This was my first SW Florida gardening venture and didn't know what to expect. As I am very impatient and because NOTHING but natives and weeds thrived in my Williston garden, I planted probably more plants than I should have in this space. But, as I said, I plan on transplanting some of them to a new garden I'm planning in a few weeks LOL

Rhonda

40 bags!!! Ok so that actually makes me feel better. I have hand tilled in a few bags of mulch, top soil, potting mix, and black cow then covered thinly w/ mulch and only had mixed results. I could see the "soil" was still really sandy, but dang how many bags could one girl use at one time! Feeling ridiculous with how many bags I was using... but I was not being ridiculous enough!!!

I heard one someone said they dont dig into the native soil as to not disturb the nematodes, they place a bunch of bagged soil ontop and plant directly in the fresh soil, but I dont see how that is easy to do if you are putting in plants verses seeds.

My worse problem seems to be soil mealybugs, maybe less sandy soil will help.

SMC,

Don't feel bad, you did exactly what I did my entire time in Florida until this garden. The plants looked good until the roots grew out of the good dirt put in the original planting hole.

I could never grow butterfly bush successfully in Williston, nematodes always got them. Knock on wood, but so far they are thriving in my new garden here :)

I definitely believe now that the time and effort up front pays off tens times over.

Good luck with future planting :)

I love it! It's beautiful!

Thanks so much Suncoast!

Gorgeous! It looks very much like a cottage garden! What is the small plant with the dark pink, daily-like flowers?

We'll be moving to another house in the next few months and since that will be our forever house I plan on doung what you did in the yard. Can you tell me how deep down did you dig the bed area?

Sorry for the late response Bea...been away from home helping my youngest son pack, move to Louisville, unpack, clean, etc... Can't wait to get home Saturday and relax lol

Thanks for the kind words. I always had cottage style gardens in Ohio and wanted something close here.

Those pink flowers are gerbera daisies. I'm curious to see if they make it through summer, I've never had much success with them in Florida. But, these are thriving right now.

Congrats on your "forever home". I bet it will be hard leaving your gardens behind. Please make a diagram of the gardens with plant names for the new owners. I know they'll appreciate it :)

The tiller I rented from our local Ace was a big one with huge tines. The first pass through the grass was probably 8 inches deep and I really struggled controlling it..more like it was controlling me lol. The second pass, after I raked out the grass and tilled in the new dirt, resulted in a total depth of a foot.

Good luck and please post pics of your new gardens in progress.

What's the latest Rhonda ? Hey, guess what's been happenin' here all afternoon ?

It's raining, it's pouring
The old man is snoring
He went to bed and he bumped his head
And couldn't get up in the morning

You're too funny Jofus!

I was just gifted with a Chinese Hat plant, I looked it up and it's supposed to be a nectar plant for butterflies and hummers, too. It's not blooming right now or I would send you a photo.

Thanks Sherry for posting pic of sickle pod senna aka cassia obtusifolia. Foliage looks like many other senna but I found a pic of down-facing flower, which would the way to ID this plant.