Royal

I also took a picture of the other gloxinias that are blooming on the balcony. These are a really nice deep purple with white edges and look all fuzzy like the red ones.

Keen

My first begonia bloomed today. It looks lovely and I hope there are many more to follow. Unfortunately I've been having a lot of trouble with stem rot due to the extremely high humidity here. It has cause the loss of at least two begonias unless they are able to send out a new shoot, which I'm totally doubtful of.

Butter

A few more plants on my balcony have bloomed a bit. There is a pale yellow calla with a tiny bit of pink/orange on the edges. Kind of reminds me of the Peace rose that my mom likes.




And some beautiful red gloxinia which I like because of the contrast between the red and the white and the fact that it looks so velvety and soft. I also planted some other gloxinias but one of them hasn't bloomed yet and the third doesn't seem to be doing very well at all.

Date

My walks are getting fewer and farther between as the temperature rises. I'm currently getting up around 7:00 to beat the heat, but it's catching up with me. Here are a couple of palm trees I noticed the other day.

You see a lot of palms down here are aren't coconut palms, so here is one that actually is a coconut palm with coconuts to prove it.


And the other is a different kind of palm with the cool cross-hatch bark. It has some ferns growing out of it that I thought looked pretty sweet.

Where are the reindeer?

In the program I assist with sometimes at the nature center we talk a bit about lichen. Usually we talk about it in the hardwood hammock habitat, but here is some growing on a tree along my route.

Ahoy

I have my first bloom on the deck! It is from a calla lilly, but so far it isn't the color I thought it was going to be. We will have to see if it changes as it matures. It was supposed to be one of these, but it is currently a lot more purple with only a hint of very pale yellow (almost white) along the edges. It's still very pretty though!

Succulent

I found this neat little garden in front of a house I walk by. I never really notice it before, but I love the cactus! Although I would have designed the garden a bit different, but who knows? Maybe it's relatively new and will look different once it has had time to mature.

Snap

I think this is a gumbo limbo tree.



Sometimes the gumbo limbo is known as the tourist tree because the bark is always red and peeling.

Beware

On my walk I saw this tree in full poof.


The poofs were pretty and there were a bajillion of them.


It was fairly early in the day so the sun was coming through the poofy tree and I took this picture. Maybe you can find a poofy tree and take a picture too!


But be careful, poofs eat kites...and possibly babies.

Bray

A long time ago Roland gave me a present. It was sweetest day, I think, and he got me a potted plant called a burro's tail (or lamb's tail, or donkey's tail). I really liked it, it was different and very thoughtful. Unfortunately it is a rather delicate plant and didn't survive all the moving around I did back then (pretty much every year at that point). I wish I could find another one, but I haven't had any luck at all.

Pointy

Today, near the same place I saw that cool bicolored plant I saw some sort of euphorbia. It's probably a crown of thorns, but it sure looks wicked. I wouldn't want to have to weed around that bad boy.

It's ALIVE

Good news! It's not dead yet either! It turns out that the poor little teeny tiny dead lookin' tree was just dormant. I think it might be a cypress, which is one of the few conifers that drop their needles.

I know it would have been funny

Like most of the plants down here I don't know what this shrub is, but it's pretty. I would guess that it should have been trimmed more and kept at a smaller size (which also probably would have kept is a little fuller) so as not to overwhelm the tree lawn, but the contrast of the leaves and flowers is nice.

Better

I think I was right. This type of tree looks better with a blue sky background, although this isn't the same specimen used in the other photograph. More contrast I suppose, and because yellow and blue are complimentary. Perhaps the other photo would look interesting in black and white...or are the yellow of the tree and gray of the sky too close in density? I also like the splash of green in the corner of this picture.

Pop

I saw a cool plant on the way to the dog park the other day. I was part of some landscaping in front of a gated community. I really liked the contrast between the older red foliage and the new bright green leaves.


I still don't dig red mulch though. Plus in this case it actually detracts from the plant. If the mulch was, well, dirt colored the red leaves would then contrast with the ground making a more striking display.

Aware

People have been commenting (on my blog and on the phone) that they enjoy seeing the area where we live. This (and a hand-me-down pocket sized camera from my parents) has encouraged me to take more pictures and post them here for those people to enjoy. I've also noticed that having the camera and thinking about taking pictures has helped me get my eyes off the sidewalk in front of my feet and looking around...



...well most of the time.


The first picture is just a median along the road I generally walk along in the mornings, although It's getting to the time of year when I just can't do it anymore. The second picture is of a butterfly wing that was on the sidewalk. A little weird because, clearly, some butterfly somewhere isn't doing very well, but the contrast struck me.

Overcast

Being spring here in Flordia a lot of the trees are in bloom. Here is another cool one that is near our building at the complex.


I thought the shape of this tree was interesting too. I don't know if they trimmed it at a crucial point or if there used to be another tree above it, but it does that near 90 degree turn there in the middle.


This is a closer shot of the flowers. I think I would like this picture better if the sky had been clear like in the picture of the pink flowering tree.

Vert

I took this picture because the sheer green-ness of it was mesmerizing as I walked by.

Shutter

I hope ya'll like the nature pictures because I've got more. I snapped this one of some sort of bird of prey (hawk, eagle, osprey?). I thought it was cool because the sky was so clear and blue.



Update: Some help from a fellow scuba-boarder and my mystery is solved. This is vulture...probably a turkey vulture.

I also got a few of a neat tree in bloom that is along the route I normally take in the morning. I thought it was just lovely with the pink flowers and green leaves contrasting with the blue sky. I couldn't decide which picture I liked better so I'm putting in both and you can decide.

I think I'll go for a walk

I came upon this tree and from a distance I thought, dead tree.



But then I got closer and behold...it's not dead yet.

Fuzzy

These are on a tree outside our apartment building. Only one half of the tree is in bloom though. It's sort of split down the middle, maybe one side gets more direct sun? I like how they sort of cascade.

Blooooood Suuuuuuckers

I noticed this wierd palm tree parasite plant while out walking. It looks sort of like the suckers you sometimes get on roses. If it continues like this and gets very many more of the root-looking things wrapped around the tree, it could look pretty creepy.



Also note the strange little dead tree in the lower right. Poor teeny-tiny little guy.

Playing

Yay, some of my plants came! So far the balcony still looks like pictures from my last post since what came where all bulbs. I planted some gloxinia in the long planters, and some neat looking begonias and a calla in some round containers. Hopefully coming soon are some caladium that I think are gorgeous, and some herb seeds that we are going to give a go. Again I don't think we get enough sun for them, but since they are seeds, if they don't work we are only out a few dollars. I'm also trying out another seed that looked cool, but again, I have no idea if it will thrive. We will just have to wait and see. I also ordered another begonia, but I don't think that will be shipping until the middle of April.

Duct

I've joined the dark side. I'm breaking the rules. Yesterday I went out and bought a charcoal grill for Roland. I've been thinking about it for a long time and finally did it. I think we are technically not supposed to have it on our balcony, but I kind of don't care. The grills they have down around the building are 1. just that down on the ground floor 2. the kind you find in a state park and 3. really disgusting. I don't think I would eat anything that had touched them. A lot of our neighbors have grills, smokers, and whatnot on their porches so at least we aren't alone in our evil-doing. I think brats are on the menu this evening so maybe Roland will fire it up and we can test it out! I also got a cover for it (I'm at least not going to flaunt it), a mat to put under it (the person before us installed astroturf so I don't want it to melt or something), and a chimney starter. I thought about buying some grilling tools, but I figured that Dave might want to pick those out himself.

In other news some of the plants I ordered for the balcony should be arriving today. I already have some rosemary out there but that's it. I'm don't think we get enough direct sun for the rosemary, but Roland convinced me to just give it a whirl anyway. It only cost $2.50 anyhow. The rest of the porch is empty pots at the moment. Hopefully soon it will be all colorful and more like home!





Now all I need are some deck chairs. Those foldy up ones aren't so comfortable for long term sittage. Unfortunately the only ones I can find are at least $200 for a set of two. The only ones cheaper than that only come as a set of four chairs and a table, and we certainly don't have room for all that. I just want two cushy deck chairs.

Pictorial

Over Christmas my parents gave me my mom's old camera. My old camera is awesome and I still use it quite a bit, but hers was much smaller and skinnier than mine allowing me to slip it in a pocket or my purse. So this morning I took it along on my morning walk with Bleys to document some of the neat-o wildlife I see around here. This morning we saw...

A great Egret and what I thought were some white ibises but they don't have any black on the wing tips*. Also a great blue heron hiding at a bend in the canal. There also about a ba-gillion tennis balls in the water because a little upstream along this canal is a tennis center.


An female anhinga (cousin to the cormorant) also known as the darter or snake bird. It was drying it's feathers presumably after a dive this morning. The second picture is a little grainy because I was using the enhanced zoom on the camera. I was trying to show what the anhinga was perched on. It is a canadian goose decoy that people put out in the water to discourage ducks from hanging around.


Also recently, some cool art has been installed along Sportplex Drive. Two sweet metal sculptures have appeared near a school crossing.


And last buy not least I was walking along and suddenly it was like being in Animal Crossing. There was this little tiny palm tree that looks just like when you plant one in the game and it isn't full grown yet.


*Update: They are, in fact, White Ibises.

Sebastian

I recently got an email from a mail order nursery that I bought some plants from (for the house in Grand Rapids). It showcased this awesome black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra).



Alas, it wouldn't survive in the heat down here, it's wicked expensive, I have no place to plant it, and this is a running bamboo so I wouldn't plant it anyway. A better choice would be Bambusa lako. It's gorgeous though isn't it?