Godspeed Atlantis!

The launch of the space shuttle Atlantis as seen from my back yard this morning.

UPDATE Thr, September 21: After listening to the news last night, I went to bed expecting to be awakened early this morning by the sonic booms of a returning Atlantis. But it came in from the south and all was quite this morning. Glad they made it back safely.

UPDATE: Apparently, others WAY south heard the sonic booms.

The Stink Bug

This weekend in Mount Dora: an art car show featuring highly (and permanently) decorated cars. This afternoon I had a customer drive up in one of the entries. At first glance Goldenrod artist Carolyn Stapleton's VW Bug looks like it's been covered with light and dark pieces of bamboo in patterns that are similar to marquetry. But on closer inspection, it's not wood, it's CIGARETTE BUTTS!! Carolyn's car, named The Stink Bug, features thousands of brown and cream cigarette butts attached with silicone adhesive in patterns that include the phrase "stop in the name of lungs" on the top and "stinkbug.com", her website , on the back.

I hadn't planned to go to the show, but now that I've seen Carolyn's car I really have to see the others. Since the show hours on Saturday and Sunday coincide with my store hours, I'll just have to open a bit late on Sunday. I'll take my camera and have more pictures Sunday night.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #6

I haven't posted for several days. My old monitor has been getting slowly darker and darker until it had reached a point where I could hardly read anything and trying to adjust the brightness and color on Photoshop had become impossible. It was one of those incremental things like gaining weight where you suddenly think to yourself "I think I've gained weight" only to weigh yourself and discover that you've gained 20 pounds little by little over months without realizing it. Anyway, it lasted a long time, that Gateway 2000 monitor that came with my first computer in 1994. In fact, I liked it so much that when I purchased a new computer several years ago, I kept the old monitor because I really loved the screen. So remembering that I had seen one just like it at the Bible School Thrift Shop down the street some time ago, I paid them a visit and ta-da I have my same monitor. It's not as pristine on the outside as my old one but it has the same great screen and best of all: $10. Obviously I'm not one of those people that needs the latest gadgets.

So now on to the last garden of the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour. The floppy disc gave up the first few pictures but then started making weird noises, so I only have a few pictures:


The front yard was nice and shady with a perfectly placed vintage iron garden bench...

which the painter had also found interesting.

The backyard of this downtown Mount Dora house was a tropical jungle

with a huge fish pond

and lots of fish.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #5

The fifth garden on the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour was very different from a lot of Florida gardens as it included an extensive vegetable garden. Having an herb farm, I run across a number of vegetable gardeners, but overall, vegetable gardening is not nearly as popular in Florida as it is in many other parts of the country.




Two views of the organic vegetable and herb garden.


An intriguing greenhouse which the program said was made from recycled materials.


Another sky vine. These vines work best on an overhang where the flowers can gracefully drop down.


An arbor filled with bottle gourds.


A cute birdbath with a smiling snail. Must have just eaten a big helping of vegetables.


This was my favorite element in this garden: pots of herbs on vintage classical pedestals edging the deck.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #3

I said earlier that garden #2 was my favorite, but I think maybe THIS is my favorite. I love the energy and creativeness of #2, but I think this garden (and cottage house) is the one I would love to live in day to day.


The perfect cottage entrance.


We were greeted by Betty Boop…


and a basket of flowers. I love the skyvine, seen frequently around Mount Dora.


Mosaic stepping stones…


with an herbal theme!


The writing was on the wall along with ivy and a window box.


We got to see not just the garden, but the house, too. Here's a wonderful blue and white porch. Such soft colors and the sunlight coming through the windows - sublime. Wouldn’t you just love to curl up here with a book?


Another artist had been painting across the street.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #4

Garden #4 (I’m out of order and will do #3 tomorrow) on the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour was a backyard in the downtown area with several nice sculptural pieces in a yard designed for kids.


One of the more striking plants was this luminous grass displayed in an old pot.


A nice fish pond with water lilies.


A big wooden emu tucked among the ferns holds a hanging pot of petunias.


Boy, and I thought my yard had some big lizards.


Two colorful funky sculptures.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #2

The second garden on last year’s garden tour was my favorite. I love collages made with found objects and that’s exactly what this garden is. Found objects, plants, and artwork that in most hands would just be a yard full of kitsch, but in the hands of the right person becomes a whimsical work of art.


An old stove surrounded by plants and glass becomes a gardening altar.


Another painter set up in this garden


A number of humorous vignettes including this convention of frogs seen through a veil of hanging glass discs.


An encouragement to just BE






More views of the garden. No grass to mow, just mulched pathways winding through nicely shaded areas of plants and art.


One last look back as we leave.

Garden Gloves and a Cat

A cute story about a cat who steals gardening gloves from around the neighborhood.

A Return to Blogging: 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #1

Like a lot of bloggers, I got real excited when I first set up my blog but soon found it soaked up more precious time than I had expected and after only a handful of entries I stopped writing. I still like the idea, however, and am determined to give it another try.

Last November I took the Second Annual Mount Dora Garden Tour presented by the Lakes and Hills Garden Club. I took my big 2 megapixel floppy-disc-using first-generation-digital Sony Mavica camera and managed to take a few pictures at each of the 6 stops. Luckily I’ve since upgraded to a Fuji F-10 6.3 megapixel so I’m hoping pictures of subsequent trips and garden studies will be better. That’s my plan: to photograph and write about my own garden and about other nurseries, herb farms, herb shops, garden shops, herb fairs, butterfly farms, public and private gardens, herb society meetings and garden tours I visit/attend.

So to start, here was garden #1 on the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour:


This house and garden was on Sheridan Road in the Sylvan Shores area. First to greet us was a cheerful painted mailbox and you can see the Garden Club volunteers manning the ticket table in the background.


The house is named “Tudorville”. I like the idea of naming houses and they’ve made a cute sign.


Most of the gardens had an artist painting the gardens and homes. A great idea! Did they do that last year, too?


There were a number of paintings throughout the garden. This one blends right into the foliage.


Lots more paintings and a bench to sit on and contemplate.


A number of garden sculptures, too, from a traditional St Fiacre statue to funky modern flamingoes.

Stop number two tomorrow.

In the Butterfly Garden: Lantanas and Tiger Swallowtails

I love finding Tiger Swallowtails on the lantana. What spectacularly large and beautiful butterflies. I first got interested in butterfly gardening after seeing these swallowtails making frequent trips to a roadside lantana that had popped up in the corner of my property long ago. A lot of gardeners don’t like planting lantana in their yards because it reminds them of those roadside lantanas that grow like weeds by, well, by the roadside. But they’re missing out on what is probably the best butterfly nectar plant in Florida and many named cultivars are now available in colors other than the deep orange and school-bus-yellow common lantana. Several sizes are available, too, from low growing trailing lantana to ones that grow 5 feet. Frequently we carry lantanas grown into lollipop topiaries and have one planted in our own butterfly garden (replacing the one we lost last year to hurricane Jeanne). Lantanas are reported to be somewhat toxic, especially the berries, but my border collie, Maggie, finds the slightly funky smell of lantana to be irresistable and has eaten many leaves with seemingly no ill effect.

In the Butterfly Garden: Blue Plumbago

I have lots of Blue Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata) in my butterfly garden. It's one of the best flowering landscape plants in Florida: cold hardy and blooming all year round with beautiful periwinkle blue flowers. It's considered a major butterfly plant because it's a host plant for the tiny blue cassius butterfly. But lately I've been seeing many species of butterflies using it as a nectar plant as well in spite of the fact that there are many of the best nectar plants for butterflies to choose from in the garden.

Propagating Herbs

I've been spending a lot of time in my little “shade house” doing some propagating. I am happy spending hours taking cuttings as long as I have my little Fiskars scissors. These scissors are totally useless for such tasks as cutting paper or fabric but are perfect for cutting softwood and neatly and precisely trimming off leaves. Which is why it is a puzzle to me that these scissors are frequently found in office supply stores/departments or fabric stores/departments but almost never in garden stores/departments.

If you want to learn more about plant propagation and be inspired by gorgeous photos as well, pick up a copy of "Making More Plants" by Ken Druse. I have to say I learned more from this book than the Plant Propagation course I took in college. Plus the enthusiastic writing and photos offer so much more than our dry textbook ever did.

New Herb Magazine

New on the magazine racks: the premier issue of Flowers and Herbs. Rosalind Creasy is Editor as well as photographer. Rosalind is the author of The Edible Flower Garden, The Edible Herb Garden, and Herbs: Country Garden Cookbook and was the photographer for Exotic Herbs: A Compendium of Exceptional Culinary Herbs. Lots of good herb articles with super-saturated colorful pictures in this first issue:

Combining Herbs and Flowers with Flair
Lovely Luscious Lavender (with recipes)
Scented Geraniums (more recipes)
Magical Fairy Garden (makes me want one)
Plant Your First Herb Garden
Create a Magic Herb Circle
Mini Italian Herb Garden (with plants in colorful Italian tins – I love those funky planters)
Basil – Queen of the Herbs
Landscaping with herbs Made Easy
Sage Advice

All in all, as an herb lover, I liked it and it’s heavier on the herbs and lighter on the flowers than I expected when I first picked it up.

Garden Report

The aristolochia is looking good

as is the porterweed.

The Don Juan roses have never looked better, filling the arbor with the first big flush of flowers since I severely pruned them in February.

The spirea is still beautiful but starting to decline

and the purple tabebuia has only a few flowers still refusing to let go and litter the sidewalk.