Finding Winter Color for Florida

You wouldn't know it by the drab dead grass and weeds lining most of our streets, but winter in Florida has unexpected magical surprises in store. Camellia blooms, oranges and bright displays of cool season annuals can turn any depressing scene into a winter wonderland! I was blown away by the creative use of winter color and evergreen foliage at my favorite garden center, so I decided to take some shots with my cell phone camera and take you along for the ride.

Colored Pencil Botanical Illustrations

It's time for Sketch a Plant Sunday! Without a doubt, my favorite medium for rendering plants is the colored pencil since you can combine the look of a painting with the convenience and detail of a pencil. You can take them anywhere without a mess, so it's easy to take them into the garden or on a nature trail for plein air renderings of your favorite plants. Lately I've been preoccupied with a few projects, and one of which requires me to draw plants. I won't say what the drawings are for, but they've been an excellent excuse to see the world through the eyes of an artist again.

The World is Your Garden

A garden follows you wherever you go. It branches out to the soil of friends and neighbors in the form of cuttings and divisions, and when you leave your own patch of soil it also follows, uprooted and shaken up, but ready to start life anew under any circumstances. In 2008 I planted 'the rainforest garden' for my mother, who had lost her ability to walk after complications of a brain stem stroke, a broken back and other ailments. The garden started as a humble patch of soggy dirt against the fence, but quickly grew into something wonderful.

How to Grow Turmeric

I'm not sure why turmeric isn't more popular, considering that growing your own, Thai food and DIY projects are all the rage. Curcuma longa is a tropical rhizome with an intriguing past that looks just as great in the garden as it tastes on the table. The whole plant is edible; the roots are boiled, dried and ground up to produce turmeric powder, the leaves make a wrap for steamed fish, and even the flowers can be eaten as an exotically beautiful vegetable, like lettuce with a kick. Oh, and did I mention that impersonating turmeric is a crime in India?

The Five Dollar Butter Dish Terrarium

The butter dish was five dollars, and the moss was collected for free from an abandoned parking lot. The Hatiora cuttings were taken from my balcony, and the white piece of coral was just found on the beach, also a freebie. The whole project cost me five dollars and only took about a minute to make, but the end result is in my opinion, a miniature work of art. Here's how I did it.

Better Garden Photography with Cell Phones

Okay, so I lied. I’m adding another part to this photography series, specifically for those shooting with a ‘point and shoot’ camera or a cell phone. Great photography is not about having the latest and greatest high resolution digital SLR camera out there; it’s about being creative and involved in your world, using the camera as your voice. Besides, the technology has improved dramatically in a very short period of time, making it hard for most people to distinguish between photos taken with a $100 camera vs. a $1000 dollar one.

Teabag Seed Packets and a Teapot Terrarium

I say it's high time that we gardeners had a tea party, Rainforest Garden style. Serving your friends some tea and cookies is always great, but why not let them gaze at a teapot terrarium as a centerpiece, or send them home with DIY seed packets disguised as tea bags? If entertaining friends isn't your thing, skip shopping this year and give your friends and family homemade seedbags for the holidays! They're cheap, easy and very, very fun. Here's how to make your own:

Learning to Take Better Garden Photos, Part 1

You'll notice that the title isn't 'How to Take Better Garden Photos.' It's about 'Learning to Take Better Garden Photos' because like most of you, I'm still learning! My recent trip to the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens was not all about the animals, or even the plants: I spent my time learning ways to take better photos with crisper details, better exposure and more creative composition. In part one of three, I focus on how to make the most of your equipment for great garden shots. Next I'll cover techniques before moving on to composition.

Tropicanna Black

I like to think of the Tropicannas as a trilogy of summer smash hit movies filled with action, drama and catchy titles. Tesselaar is the Australian based production studio where stars are born before being marketed to the masses with catchy names and full color plant tags. The most recent installment to this trilogy of blockbusters is deliciously dark, edgy and even has a surprise twist ending! The purple flower spikes erupt in a fiery explosion so intense that… oh, did I spoil the ending for you?

Fall is Full of Flowers

While much of the country is closely checking their forecasts for the next helpings of snow and frost, fall in Florida is a gardener's dream. We don't get to enjoy the blazing colors of fall leaves, but we Florida gardeners are also too entranced by the still burgeoning blooms to really complain. It's bittersweet knowing that a frost will blot out the color within months, but now is the time to be thankful; to celebrate a second spring of garden color.