Florida Native Gardening with Tibby

 I had never heard of this cute little plant so had not considered it for purchase or acquisition until I was shopping for other plants at Native Butterfly Flowers last year.  Tim had just gotten back with a truck load of plants and was very excited about this plant, and infected me with his enthusiasm and "Joyweed".  So I added it to my purchases that day and put it in my butterfly garden.   Of course, I immediately did some research on it and found very little information.  It was not listed in my native plant books, and I had trouble finding it on the internet until I discovered that it is actually named "Yellow Joyweed".   My search under "Joyweed" came up with Purple Joyweed, Brasilian Joyweed, and other  Alternanthera plants.  Once I found the yellow joyweed that was a Florida Native plant, I was satisfied that I had found the right plant. Here is the link where it is listed as a native Florida plant:  https://www.regionalcons...

I first became interested in this plant while perusing one of my favorite native plant books, "A Gardener's Guide to Florida's Native Plants", by Rufino Osorio.  The flowers looked very striking in the photo, and I was intrigued by the name.  One of it's common names is "Nonpareil" which is the name of one of my favorite chocolate candies.  How could I resist? It was hard to find a supplier, but I was finally able to obtain my plant from Native Butterfly Flowers in early 2021.  I eagerly planted it in the area of my yard that I have designated as my butterfly garden, as this plant is said to be a great nectar source for butterflies. Melanthera nivea   When purchased, the plant was in a one gallon pot and was probably only one foot tall.  As you see below, just over a year later, it is well over three feet tall.  It was quite out of control late last year, and had started looking very weeding and overgrown, so I cut it back to about two feet tall a...

I have both native buttonwood trees in my yard:  the Green Buttonwood is shown first.  I planted three of these in late 2020 about fifteen feet from the shoreline of the Indian River Lagoon.  They have grown about a foot or more this year.                                                                  Conocarpus erectus I also planted three Silver Buttonwood trees to the north of the Green Buttonwood trees, at around the same time.  These have not grown much and don't seem as healthy as the Green Buttonwood trees.                                                       ...

  BAY CEDAR  Suriana maritima  The photo on the left shows the bush/shrub that is about 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide.  The close up on the right shows the small yellow flowers in bloom. This has been a carefree plant since it was put in the ground a few years ago.  It has grown from a small 1 foot plant what you can see here, with little help from me.  I do try to treat my plants with compost tea and liquid seaweed occasionally, but I am pretty lax about it, so this bush may have gotten some attention from me three or four times in the past year.  I don't recall trimming it at all.         The Bay Cedar is a host plant fo the Mallow Scrub Hairstreak and Martial Scrub Hairstreak Butterflies.  I have seen many butterflies in my yard, but I haven't made a special effort to identify which ones.  That will be a new project for me to work on!!   This plant was purchased from Native Butterfly Flowers, a native plant...

I am still working out the kinks in getting this blog going - mostly the kinks in my procrastination.  I think I figured out how to upload the photos and type into the blog now, but the formatting is non-existent.  So, for now, I'm just typing in notes and adding photos that are line up in order.  No pretty typesetting or placement of photos or anything fancy, yet. My goal is to eventually concentrate on providing specific information about several different native plants - but first I will document what I have in my garden.  Although I concentrate on native plants, I do have some non-native plants that are "Florida-Friendly" as well.  I will include a few of them here in no particular order.  These photos were all taken this month.   Here is my coconut palm that was grown from a seed that washed up on the bay shore to the west of our house.  A few years ago, I was cleaning up the area along the shore and was picking up the coconut and discovered ...