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More and more butterflies are appearing in front of my lens; I doubt that’s because there are in fact more butterflies in my yard. It’s much more likely that this phenomenon is the result of my camera lens being pointed outdoors more and more frequently as the north wind continues to keep the weather nice [...] [...] We’ve had some cold and dry weather so far this young spring—daytime highs in the 60s, with humidity in the 40% range. (To all those outside Florida or south Texas, neither of those numbers sounds like cold or dry, but hey—it’s all relative, right?) We’ve also had our first full moon of spring very early [...] [...] 
Alligator flag is a very common sight to birders in Palm Beach County, because it appears in abundance at two of our favorite wetland areas: the boardwalks at Wakodahatchee and Green Cay (where I’ll be leading a birdwalk this Saturday). Thalia geniculata, as it’s known to botanists, is a a tall (up to 10 ft [...] [...] 
Last winter I ordered some seed from a Florida native wildflower nursery to spread in the bare patches in the front (I got rid of a bunch of turf grass with the idea of having a nice wildflower bed instead). I ordered sunshine mimosa (Mimosa strigillosa), Indian Blanketflower (Gaillardia pulchella), and four other species that [...] [...] 
The Saturday before Mother’s Day, I took Grammy and the boys up to Meadow Beauty Nursery in Lake Worth. Mom (Grammy) has a little sandyard that she wants to fill in with something pretty, so we went a-lookin’, and I decided that I needed some ground cover to fill in under my Bahama Strongbark. It [...] [...] 
The word florida in Spanish means “flowery.” So what better way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in south Florida than with a celebration of my local flowers? Well, unfortunately, this year’s crop from the flowering trees has been pretty slow. My tabebuia tree didn’t give us anything like the golden explosion it gave last year. [...] [...] 
Whenever you go shopping (at least, whenever I go shopping; maybe you’re different) you seem to come home with more than you set to out to get. For instance, last month I went to my favorite native plant nursery (Mesozoic Landscapes in Lake Worth) to pick up a new tree (a Bahama Strongbark to replace [...] [...] 
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the impending demise of the Royal Poinciana in our front yard. Well, since then I’ve seen a few more of the branches leafing out, and yesterday I saw an actual flower: This lone blossom is all that the tree has been able to put forth so far, [...] [...] 
Because of its warm, wet climate, South Florida is a welcoming environment for many tropical plants. I’ve written about a few of the flowering trees that have been introduced here, among them the gloriously yellow-flowered Tabebuia and the spectacular orange Royal Poinciana. The poinciana has a simply spectacular bloom a few times a year, blazing [...] [...] 
Well, if there was any doubt about why every time I removed some of the scale insects from my plants I encountered a bunch of ants, it should be cleared up now. It turns out that the ants (order Hymenoptera) really are tending the scale bugs (true bugs, usually grouped in the order Hemiptera), just [...] [...] |
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