Snotfruit and Other Delights

The counter at the Miami Fruit and Spice Park was stacked with a menagerie of bizarre fruit from the imagination of Dr. Seuss himself, and it was all ours for the sampling. "Would you like to try some black sapote?" The attendant asked. My wife and I were presented with Popsicle sticks smeared with what appeared to have come off of her shoe after an unfortunate dog walking incident. We ate the stool samples (sorry, I couldn't resist) and felt the pasty deep brown cream on our tongues before we tasted an earthy chocolate flavor so savory that it couldn't have possibly come from a fruit.

I'm Giving Away Two Custom Drawings!

In celebration of my new Gardenillustration.com portfolio page, I'm giving away two drawings of the plant of your choice! All you have to do is share this post via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. and leave a comment telling me what plant you would like for me to draw. Roses? You bet! Bromeliads? You betcha! You can enter as many times as you want before the deadline on March 10th, 7pm EST.

A Kid in a Flower Factory at Costa Farms

Remember the childhood exhilaration of opening a fresh box of crayons and seeing forty eight hues of possibility laid out before you? That's how my wife chose to describe the feeling she got when we wandered into Costa Farms' remarkable trial gardens, and I couldn't agree more. The Costa Farms trial gardens have recently expanded to two gorgeous acres filled with long rows of plants in testing mode along with idea gardens that show off some of the most creative ways to color outside the lines and show off your colors.

Rainforest Drop All Stars and a New Look

The blog looks different, doesn't it? I'll cover that at the end of the post, but first I have some fun photos to share. Remember those neat rainforest drops that I made over a year ago? Here's an update on not only my own creations, but those of my good friends as well. Doreen Howard is the garden blogger for Old Farmer's Almanac who was kind enough to send me a progress report on a drop I sent her last year. Chris George is a fellow bromeliad addict with his own decidedly more exciting take on my recipe, complete with a blooming Vriesea bromeliad!

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.