By The Plant Lady
As we hear more about the spread of the Zika virus, I started to feel a little guilty about the hundred or so water-trapping bromeliads in my yard.
I also was getting to the point I didn't really like "the look" so much anymore, as the bromeliads spread helter skelter and climbed up the oak trees they ringed. I had mixed too many different kinds, and some of them were harder than others to anchor ,and kept falling over. There were dead "mothers" stuck in among the newer pups, and a number of brown leaves and dead flowers, called inflorescences.
So I went out, sporting my extremely hot leather gloves that go up to my elbows, to spruce them up. The last time I took on this chore, I got dozens of painful cuts up and down my forearms that stung for a couple days, so I ordered the gloves, normally meant for rose growers. That's the thing about Florida; even the prettiest plants can grow out of control.
I came back with about eight mosquito bites. Not good. I noticed a pregnant neighbor out in the yard. Even less good, since the Zika virus causes birth defects. I decided maybe it was time to clean out the mounds of bromeliads around my oaks and go for a new look.
True, you can spray the water tanks of the plants with horticultural oil (though it is pretty hot for that right now, you'd have to get going early in the morning); with a combination of salad oil and dish soap and water; any number of commercial mosquito "dunks;" or even a few drops of mineral oil, to kill off those larvae. But I didn't trust myself to keep up with it. After all, the reason I planted so many bromeliads was because I considered them care-free.
A Keeper.
I was more than ready for a change and this seemed like a good time. I kept some of the more dramatic specimens. A couple Blue Tangos, a few with tall yellow and pink inflorescences, and some brightly colored and speckled ones. I am hardly bereft of bromeliads, but they are in pots on the side of the yard now, except for one bunch of very dark burgundy Neoregelias that I left in front of one oak. It just feels more manageable this way. A great number of a variety that had pretty, but very short-lived, red or pink flowers--and reproduced relentlessly--ended up in the trash can.
Today I filled a watering can with 2 gallons of water, and 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and dish soap, and flooded the vases of the ones I have left. One can was enough.
I am not saying that everybody has to rip out their bromeliads, especially if you only have a few. There are many, many other sources of standing water in South Florida that will have a much bigger impact on the spread of the virus than bromeliads. But be aware of that they are breeding grounds for mosquitos, especially if they are close to your house, and could require some attention if we have a rainy summer.
If you have an questions or comments, you can contact The Plant Lady at christinewj6380@gmail.com.
By Plant Lady
When I moved to Florida from Chicago, the first thing I did was plant a Valencia orange tree in the back yard. The next thing I did was plant a Meyer Lemon. My idea was to add a Persian lime, but the Canker Police interfered with my plans. The oranges were sweet and plentiful, the lemons huge and juicy--typically one cup of juice per lemon--and I felt like a true Floridian, going out into the backyard to snatch citrus off the tree.
After the canker restrictions were deemed futile and lifted after Hurricane Wilma, I finally got that lime tree. Unfortunately, the hurricane also uprooted my lemon and orange trees, but eventually I got my wish and had all three.
The lime tree grew so big I had to buy one of those long pole pickers to reach the best fruit. Some years it produced so many limes that the branches would break at the point where they joined the tree and sag to the ground from the weight of all those plump juicy limes.
I brought big bowls of limes to the garden club, I gave them to my yard workers, the AT&T repair man, and dozens of friends who came over and picked their own. I made cerviche, gaucamole and would freeze baggies full of juice. "How many limes do you really need," I used to joke.
Well, you need more than I am going to have after tomorrow, when I will have my lime tree chopped down. It has been a while since I had one of those humongous crops, and the fruit I did have was much smaller, but I figured the tree was taking a well-earned rest. Instead, it was dying.
I am not completely sure what the problem is. There are so many citrus pests and diseases to choose from in Florida these days. It has some of the characteristics of citrus greening, the current scourge of the citrus industry, far worse than the canker that caused such panic a decade ago. But it also could be root rot or a virus.
According to my research, the symptoms of greening are "yellowing of the veins and adjacent tissues; followed by splotchy mottling of the entire leaf, premature defoliation, dieback
of twigs, decay of feeder rootlets and lateral roots, and decline in vigor; ultimately followed by the death of the entire plant."
My tree has mostly bare branches, mottling of some leaves, yellowing of a lot of others. A few blossoms, but no fruit.
I do have to admit to the sin of not getting rid of my wonderful Lakeview jasmine, which harbors the same nasty insect, the citrus psyllid, that transmits the bacteria that causes this fatal disease.
On the other hand, if it is greening, is has not visibly spread to my other citrus trees--yet. But sometimes it takes years for some of these diseases to show their ugly faces and damage the tree or its fruit.
I have to admit I have noticed that my lemons are getting smaller--only about a half cup of juice, or even less, these days-- and my oranges never seem to ripen fully.
I am afraid it is only a matter of time. Growing citrus in Florida is not nearly as much fun as it used to be.
By The Plant Lady
When I first moved to Florida, I thought crotons were dull and commonplace. All I ever saw were those foundation standbys, the Petra and the Mammey, and I saw them everywhere. I was much more dazzled by all the orchids, hibiscus, and oh, so many flowering trees!
But over the years I have come to love crotons. Petras are still not favorites, but I have even found beauty in the humble but colorful Mammey, though I admit it is overused, especially since there are so many other cultivars available.
There are perhaps as many as 600 varieties, although some of the older ones are out of circulation and lost to posterity, and others have become rare. But that still leaves quite a few. There is a wide variety of leaf shapes, colors and color patterns among those many cultivars, so it is worth hunting for different varieties instead of settling for the same old, same old.
Unfortunately, you will be lucky to find four or five at your local garden center and maybe a dozen or so at a typical nursery, unless it is a specialty nursery, such as Peters Crotons & Cordylines in Vero Beach (www.peterscrotonnursery.com),where you can probably find close to 200 cultivars. You can also find some of the flashier varieties by hitting the plant show circuit.
Mammey and Fishbone
It is that wonderful promise of year-round color from your crotons that puts single-day hibiscus blooms and annually blooming orchids to shame in my mind. I probably have about 20 different croton varieties in my yard.
I don't know the names of all my crotons; some came from cuttings from friends, who are not as obsessive about names as I am, and on others, name tags faded or were lost. And many are labeled, even by good nurseries, simply as CROTON, ignoring fun names like Sloppy Painter and Pie Crust and Curly Boy. That is a pet peeve of mine, and I will rarely buy one that isn't named.
I always thought crotons were fairly bullet-proof, but that is not necessarily true. They are susceptible to sustained cold spells, which cause leaf drop, and can be afflicted by both mealy bugs and scale. Scale is the hardest to fight, and it frequently occurs after a plant has been weakened by cold weather. Although horticultural sprays are a good first line of defense, scale is tough to kill because it has hard shells, and frequently requires a systemic insecticide like Bayers.
Magnificent, Red Batik and Sunny Stars.
Most crotons like sun, but don't necessarily love full sun in the hottest part of the day, so bright filtered light is considered a better location. A few actually prefer shade. A lot don't seem to care. Colors will vary, though, depending on how much sun/shade they do get.
After Mark Peters, owner of Peters Croton Nursery, came to speak at the Parkland Garden Club, I learned that my crotons have been very forgiving of what can only be described as unintentional neglect.
I do try to fertilize my palms, my fruit trees and some of my flowering trees three times a year, but often only manage two. I rarely pay much attention to my crotons, aside from maybe a handful of palm fertilizer cast in their direction when I have some left over. To me, the tag "care-free" truly means free of care.
But according to Peters, crotons cannot thrive without fertilizer, perferably palm fertilize with its abundance of micronutrients. He suggests young plants in the ground should get a quarter cup of palm fertilizer two or three times during the spring and summer, and established plants 1/2 to one cup. Opps.
He also suggested that pruning is mandatory, something I only do when scale is out of control or I want clippings for propagation. He said it creates strong stems and encourages branching.
They are also relatively easy to propagate, either by cuttings in the spring or air layering.
Although they are considered drought tolerant once established, Peters also recommends a minimum of one-half to one inch of water a week and says an irrigation system is essential. Mine probably do okay there, but I think I need to work a little harder on pampering my care-free crotons.
I am pretty happy with the way most of my crotons are as is, but I figure the payoff from more attention will no doubt be hardier bushes, and even more year-round color.
If you have questions or comments, please email The Plant Lady at
christinewj6380@gmail.com.
By The Plant Lady
One of the easiest and most dramatic plants you can put in your tropical garden is the bromeliad. There are more than 3,000 species in the world, and few plants are more carefree, even being so cooperative as the reproduce themselves in an orderly fashion. Each bromeliad "mother" produces a number of pups, which grow into new plants in a period of anywhere from one to five years, according to Andrew Steen's "Bromeliads for the Contemporary Garden." The gardener's only chore is to remove them (which encourages the production of more) and replant them, when they are anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the mother plant, which dies back.
Planting bromeliads is not that much of a burden, since most don't require dirt; their roots are mainly for support. You can simply set them in pots or attach them to trees or wedge them among rocks. There are some semi-epiphytic varieties that can adapt to growing in soil and develop bigger root systems, which you can plant.
They also run the gamut from thriving in full sun to deep shade. The general rule of thumb is that the thicker the leaves, the more sun a bromeliad can tolerate. The shade-lovers tend to have softer, more pliable leaves. However, if you get it wrong, the shade-lovers will scorch badly in too much sun.
Bromeliads are one of my favorite plants for bringing a real tropical look to my landscaping, and I have dozens of them around two large Live Oaks in my front yard, and others around palm trees and in pots. The variety seems almost endless.
I love them not just for their looks, but because they survive storms, droughts and cold spells and just keep merrily blooming and reproducing. Once in awhile I have to get my long leather gloves and go clean out some of the dead mother plants, separate some of the pups, and pull down some rambunctious ones that are climbing my oak trees, a look I don't like.
I love the fact that many of my friends thin theirs out frequently and I can pick up more.
But every Southern gardener probably knows all this about bromeliads, and also is no doubt well aware of the mosquito breeding potential of most varieties. Obviously, if you have a plant designed like a vase with a built-in water tank in the center of its rosette-shaped leaves, it is no surprise that mosquito larvae are likely to breed there. This is especially true when you live in an area with a whole season full of tropical downpours, not to mention in-ground sprinklers to take up the slack.
But recently there has been more than the usual concerns about bromeliads as suitable garden plants because of the current panic over the Zika virus in this region.
I read an editorial in the Miami Herald not too long ago saying that homeowners should be encouraged to get rid of sources of standing water, including water-holding plants.
It seems a little bizarre that in this land of canals, bird baths, lakes, ponds and other "water features," that anyone should worry about the water-retaining capabilities of a few small plants.
I doubt if there will be an all out movement to rip out bromeliads and tear native Tillandsias off of trees where they form naturally, but if you are concerned about the mosquito issue, there is something you can do.
Murray Corman, a director of the Rare Fruit and Vegetable Council of Broward County, and a recent speaker at the Parkland Garden Club, advised bromeliad lovers to periodically spray horticultural oil over their bromeliads. He also suggested, for smaller bromeliad collections, buying Mosquito Bits or breaking up Mosquito Dunks--biological mosquito controls sold at any big box hardware store--and tossing them into your bromeliads' water tanks.
An even simpler home-grown method involves mixing a teaspoon of liquid dish detergent and a teaspoon of salad oil in one quart of water, and spraying into the vase of your bromeliads.
It may take away a little bit from the carefree label that usually goes with bromeliads, but if the virus does become a problem here, it is certainly preferable to getting rid of all your plants.
Send any questions are comments to christinewj6380@gmail.com.
By The Plant Lady
Hedges used to be such a no-brainer in South Florida: ficus, ficus, and more ficus. But that was before the Whitefly nearly decimated these landscaping landmarks of the tropics, and left many of us, well, hedgeless.
Now that this fact--no more ficus--has become an accepted part of life over the last few years, it is interesting to see what plants are emerging as the most popular replacement hedges.
I see three taking over: Areca Palms, Clusia and Podocarpus.
Lets start with what I consider the worst choice for a long row of hedges: Areca palms, also known as yellow butterfly palm.
I have seen a lot of these planted in my suburb recently. In a couple cases, home owners have planted these soon-to-be-towering, sloppy-looking palms across the front yard, or alongside the house to block off the view from the street.
I have to wonder how much these people know about Areca palms. They can be dramatic as a single specimen. And when first planted, they look fine: about three or four feet tall, green and nicely shaped. But they won't keep any of those characteristics for long.
As a hedge, I just feel they are overwhelming and unattractive. Across the back property line, if you have a lot of property, okay--but surrounding the entire front yard? What were they thinking? Privacy, I am sure.
Areca palms grow very fast, and they can reach 35 feet high or higher here, with a spread of 10 feet across for each multi-trunked tree. The leaves are typically yellowish green, and with direct sun, or poor soil (hello, this is South Florida), many of the fronds will turn yellow. Older fronds turn grey, and weather that is especially cold or especially hot or dry will make the tips turn brown. Unless fertilized regularly--about three times a year--their fronds get speckled and chlorotic due to nutritional deficiencies. Also, the fronds extend to the ground. Not a lot to recommend them, except for that privacy thing.
It is possible to neaten them up, a little, by thinning out some of the suckers at the bottom--they grow up in clusters--or trimming off the discolored fronds or brown tips, or getting rid of lower leaves to show the banded trunks. But such maintenance is a major job, a lot more work than just grabbing a saw and squaring off a row of ficus. As a result, few people seem to bother, and their yards soon look like an unkempt jungle.
Next in the hedge sweepstakes is the Clusia. Often called a native, though that is sometimes debated, it too can be fast growing. Clusia Rosea or Clusia Guttifera can grow into trees, and need regular pruning to keep them manageable as a hedge. But it is not hard work and can be done with a clippers. There is a dwarf variety called Clusia Rosea Nana that is probably a better choice, if you can find it.
Clusias, with their big, succulent, bright green leaves, make a very full, attractive hedge. However, they have invasive roots, and are not a good choice around a swimming pool or septic field.
Finally, we have the lovely Podocarpus. They grow tall--as high as 30 feet to 40 feet--and form columns. They can be considered slow growers, by Florida standards, but will grow faster in full sun. They make a beautiful hedge, and do need to be trimmed, but it is an occasional chore. The roots are not generally considered a problem.
They do tend to be expensive and a three gallon pot can go for as much as $35 to $40 dollars, though you can find them on sale at garden centers.
They don't take a lot of care, but they don't like their feet to be wet. I have seen them planted in low lying areas where heavy rains produced standing water, and they did not fare well.
After I paid to have 200 ficus removed along the side of my property, I had a bad taste for planting long rows of the same plants, all vulnerable to the same voracious predator, such as the Whitefly. I put in a row of about a dozen Podocarpus, then some crotons and a small Bottle Palm, then a row of about a dozen Clusia. I am happy with the results. The rest of the area is still under construction, but consists mostly of small flowering trees and bushes.
Questions are comments are welcome at christinewj6380@gmail.com.
By The Plant Lady
I don't like to admit it, but I have had two absolutely terrible years growing tomatoes.
The first one was not really my fault. Some critters discovered my plants, which were tucked nicely into Earth Boxes (earthbox.com), and took huge bites out of them before they even started to turn red. Every morning I would go out and find another one devoured.
I wasn't sure what it was exactly that was enjoying the fruit of my labor, but a friend, Rusty Hayes, who owns Runway Growers in Ft. Lauderdale, and who is a champion tomato grower at home and not about to put up with such nonsense, set traps. He caught a rat and an oppossum. Ugh.
I decided a big part of my problem must be a trellis I had my handyman build as a support. It was like a highway to heaven for the neighborhood critters, who apparently climbed up easily and sat comfortably while they munched.
Not happy with going to so much trouble to feed these pesky undesireables, I pulled my tomatoes out early. Some time later, I came across this
homemade recipe, from one of the growers at the Coral Springs Farmers market, for
making tomatoes critter-proof. Although it does sound suspiciously like the
largely unsuccessful concoctions used to keep iguanas away, it is worth a try.
Take
three haberno peppers, and chop them up in a food processor. Put them in a
gallon of water, cut up some onions and add, boil it, cool it and then let it sit for a
few days. Put it in your sprayer and coat the plants when the fruit starts to
appear and once a week after that. Hopefully your tomatoes won't taste like tacos. I never got a chance to try it, because the next year, I had shoulder surgery, and skipped growing tomatoes altogether.
So we've gone two years without a homegrown tomato and when this October rolled around, I was raring to go.
I went over to a favorite nursery and got a Better Boy plant and a Beefsteak plant and some Sweet Million cherry tomatoes. I got fresh potting soil for my earth boxes, new organic tomato fertilizer and Dolomite lime to prevent blossom end rot.
Instead of the disastrous trellis of two years before, I went back to a type of support I first saw at Mounts Botanical Garden of Palm Beach County when I attended a seminar on vegetable growing. My yard guy built a frame, consisting of two eight foot lengths of 2x4-inch posts pounded into the ground and spaced about the length of two earth boxes apart. They were connected by a single wooden rail across the top. The earthboxes were tucked inside the frame and as the tomatoes grew, I tied gardening twine to the overhead rail, and attached it to the vines with tomato clips, available through any gardening catalog. I was so eager to get a good crop, I even had my sprinklers diverted so the tomatoes would not be as susceptible to fungus, the curse of South Florida tomato growers, from the overhead watering.
But then it started to rain. And it rained and rained, despite the fact this is our "dry season." I think the water got inside the covers on my Earthboxes--you have to cut openings big enough to plant your tomatoes through the plastic covers--and the soil was continually damp, not to mention the leaves were always wet. My tomatoes grew quickly, but just as quickly, the signs of browning on the lower leaves indicated that fungus had gotten a foothold.
To add insult to injury, the temperatures were still in the 80s at night--tomatoes need temps from 65 to 70 at night. As a result, the plants were stingy about setting blossoms.
Here is probably where I made my biggest mistake. Instead of buying a copper-based fungicide that had to be mixed with water and applied with a sprayer at regular intervals to fight the steady spread of crunchy brown leaves, I bought a bottle of commercial organic fungicide for vegetables that screwed onto my hose. It was 100 percent ineffective. Since then, I have found copper fungicide in a hand-held spray bottle, but that too might be a lot of work for four large tomato plants.
Before long, my vines were full of fungus, and by this time, the caterpillars and horn worms started showing up. Thanks to the weather and the skimpiness of my plants, it wasn't even worth getting out the Dipel (a dust) or Thuricide (a spray that needs to be mixed with water). These are BT products, which stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally-occurring
bacteria that makes caterpillars sick when they eat it. It is considered one of the safest natural pesticides you
can use. But--and here's the problem--you have to repeat it every time it rains.
For all my enthusiasm and labor, I only got a few bowls of cherry tomatoes, and that was it. Several avid tomato growing friends have reported only slightly better results.
However, I wasn't ready to give up quite that easily. After I removed the horrible skimpy brown plants, I replaced one of them with a new one, just in time for our marathon cold snaps. Tomatoes may like cooler temps at night, but not in the 40s and 50s, and the days were not ideal either: mostly grey and below the optimal 75 to 85 degree range.
Although some friends reported success with tomatoes planted in pots or boxes set in screened in porches, I have decided the weather was just not conducive to growing backyard tomatoes this year. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
By The Plant Lady
Roses are one of the most popular flowers in the world, and they've been a symbol of love and romance for centuries.
But they are a terrific challenge to grow in South Florida. That's not to say you can't do it, just that it will take almost constant coddling. First, you need to buy grafted roses that are on rootstock that can survive Florida's harsh conditions--poor sandy soil, a year round growing season, and nematodes, which are microscopic worms that eat roots. The Florida-friendly varieties are Rosa fortuniana, Dr. Huey, and Rosa Multiflora. Anything else may start off fine, but is unlikely to last.
Even roses suited for Florida are needy: You have to amend your soil 12 inches deep, water several times a week during dry periods, fertilize frequently and trim and prune often. Oh, and you will need to spray for fungi (black spot and powdery mildew) and insects as often as once a week. Is it worth it?
That depends on how much you like roses, and how much maintenance you are willing to put up with. Also, your tolerance for chemicals has to factor into the equation. Remember, roses are not the only beautiful flowers you can grow in South Florida, and most of the others are much less demanding, even orchids.
But there are a couple easier ways to get your rose fix. You can hunt down Old Garden Roses at nurseries that offer them or get cuttings from friends. OGRs are otherwise known as heirloom or antique roses and were first cultivated here in the mid-1800s. The flowers are not as big and flashy, but they bloom a lot and seemingly grow themselves, and you won't have to make a career out of tending them.
Another solution is Knock Out Roses. These shrub roses were introduced in 2000 and are popular throughout the country, because they bloom profusely and don't take a lot of care. In South Florida they bloom year round. Although the University of Florida advises that they have "good heat and humidity tolerance that allows them to grow through Zone 9," you will find them doing well right here in Zone 10 and the label actually promises that they will thrive up to Zone 11 (The Keys).
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They are extremely popular because they are more disease resistant than most roses, especially when it comes to black spot. But while they do give rose growers relief from the the always annoying black spot plague, that doesn't mean they are bullet-proof.
The University of Florida states that Knock Out Roses are, like all cultivated roses, susceptible to powdery mildew. This causes the leaves to eventually turn brown and crunchy. On its Gardening Solutions website, it states they can also fall victim to Cercospora, a leaf spot fungus.
I have five Knock Out roses, and they do indeed get brown crunchy leaves on occasion and maybe some leaf spot too. No big deal. Snip, snip and it's gone.
I have had Don Juan climbing roses on rosa fortuniana stock, and the problems with Knock Out Roses pale in comparison. I eventually got tired of feeding, spraying and watering the Don Juans, which were always thick with black spot, despite all my efforts, and I got rid of them.
I do very little to my Knock Out Roses, other than give them some Knock Out Rose fertilizer a couple times a year, pick off some dead leaves, and deadhead. (Don't believe the literature that claims they are self-pruning. Mine are not.) I have never sprayed them.
Of course, in my opinion, the individual Knock Out Rose bloom, even the "double" Knock Out Rose, which I have, is not anywhere near as spectacular as the typical hybrid tea rose. But they bloom a lot, and as the bushes get more shrub-like, they make a dramatic statement. The flowers, though relatively small and short-lived, are brightly colored and cheerful. After our recent cold spurts, I had some of the prettiest blooms yet.
They look best planted next to each other in a hedge-like formation. They don't grow all that fast, and it make take several years to get those massive bushy displays shown on the labels.
But I like Knock Out Roses because they help fulfill my Midwestern yearning for roses, without causing me a lot of trouble.
For more on the planting and care of Knock Out Roses, put University of Florida Gardening Solutions and Knock Out Roses in your browser.
A Keeper.
