Select Page
Bleeding Heart

Bleeding Heart

The delicate beauty of bleeding heart vine belies its fast growth habit. It’s one of the best fast growing vines for covering an arbor, pergola or chain link fence. This vine blooms on and off all year – more in milder weather – with frilly clusters...
Watermelon

Watermelon

Florida has a great climate for growing watermelon, and is actually a leading producer for the nation. While it’s generally considered a summer fruit, growers in Florida are lucky enough to be able to plant watermelon for harvest in the winter as well. In fact,...
String Bean

String Bean

Bush or snap beans are a popular plant for the Florida vegetable garden. They’re easy to grow, even in poor soil. As the name implies, bush beans grow on a bush that is able to stand unsupported, unlike pole beans. Bush beans can be either snap beans (formerly...
Barbados Cherry

Barbados Cherry

Barbados cherry produces cherries throughout Florida’s hot summer months. Small pink flowers appear periodically from April to October and are followed about one month later by bright red, sweet and tangy, 1-inch fruits which are extremely high in vitamin C....
Cucumber

Cucumber

As our spring garden gets turned over to rest until fall, the warm season garden is starting to grow. The cukes are spreading their tendrils and small yellow flowers portend a good harvest. Bees are needed to transfer pollen from male to female blossoms. Unless there...
Rain Lily

Rain Lily

Rain lily is a bulb with delicate blossoms that seem to bloom miraculously after the rain. True to their name, our rain lilies came up this week after this year’s first rain showers. Rain lilies occur naturally in slope forests, moist flatwoods, river swamps and...
White Bird of Paradise

White Bird of Paradise

Nothing says tropical like white bird of paradise, with its enormous leaves, upright stems and exotic flowers. The unique white bird grows in a clumping form and needs a large area in which to spread out and unfurl its big leaves. The plant blossoms on and off during...
Purple Morning Glory

Purple Morning Glory

Morning glories are annual climbers with slender stems, heart-shaped leaves, and trumpet-shaped flowers. They have a beautiful shape before they unfold in the sun and romantic tendrils that lend old-fashioned charm. This morning glory vine blooms in an empty lot on...
Orange Geiger

Orange Geiger

This dense, rounded, evergreen native tree grows slowly to a height of 25 feet with an equal spread and can develop a trunk 12 inches thick. The large, 7-inch-long, stiff, dark green leaves are rough and hairy, feeling much like sandpaper. Appearing throughout the...
Crown of Thorns

Crown of Thorns

Crown of thorns likes it hot, dry and sunny – making it a perfect plant for spots where nothing else wants to grow. One of South Florida’s most drought-tolerant plants, it flowers nearly year round. Like many succulents, this plant’s stems contain a...
Mexican Sunflower

Mexican Sunflower

The bright Mexican Sunflower is now showing its color throughout Sarasota. The large yellow flowers cover the upper areas of the plant and invite numerous insects to stop by for some nourishing nectar. Listed by UF|IFAS as a butterfly and honeybee attractor, this...
Shady Lady Black Olive

Shady Lady Black Olive

The exquisite Shady Lady black olive tree, with its lush layers of tiny leaves on zigzagged stems, is one of the most beautiful South Florida trees. It’s covered with tiny yellow-beige flowers in spring, giving the tree the look of a pale brown sugar frosting....