It's not easy being green

During the first week of December, the humans in this house brought the plant containers into their house.  One of them happened to be the bromelid home of a green tree frog.  This poor little frog has been living in the tube of a bromelid now for almost two months.  He is terrified to move; the humans are constantly peering at him and taking photos using bright flashing lights.  Fortunately, one of the humans regularly adds fresh water to his home.  Food is getting scarce but at least its warm.  Hopefully, he will survive until the humans bring the plants back outside in the spring.  It isn't easy being a green tree frog living in a human house.

The catalogs are here!

One of my favorite gardening activities in January is perusing the seed catalogs that magically appear in my mailbox. 

This year, I have received three of them so far.

The new one is R.H. Shumway's Illustrated Garden Guide (www.rhshumway.com). This catalog is laid out like an old-fashioned Sears and Roebuck catalog.   It is printed on newsprint, the descriptions are written like magazine articles and the illustrations are hand drawn sketches.  I've never ordered anything from them before but their prices seem competitive and shipping is reasonable.  The old timey style gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling that makes me want to try them out.

Burgess Seed & Plant Company (www.eBurgess.com or www.DirectGardening.com) is the old standard.  I remember looking at this catalog when it arrived at my home as a child.  I love Burgess because they always throw in some free seeds or bulbs and they have sales, which appeals to my bargain hunter soul.  Their prices are also very good but their shipping is higher ($9.99 per order).

My favorite seed catalog is Pinetree Garden Seeds (www.superseeds.com).  They have all the varieties I like to plant and I'm able to purchase small quantities for my small garden spaces.  They also have the least expensive shipping charges of the three companies. 

Even though I order all my seed on-line, I love to do my shopping with the paper catalogs.  Two important things to consider while dreaming about mouth watering vegetables and traffic stopping floral displays:  these seed companies are all based in northern states and (bless their hearts) they have no idea how gardening is different in the south;  they grow their test plants in optimal environments so their results are always going to look much better than mine. 

It's time to go shopping for 2016!  So many seeds . . .

God's Christmas trees

Christmas is over, the decorations are packed away and the gloomy weather in central Alabama seems to produce nothing but gray skies and dark days. 

But have you noticed the holly bushes and trees all over town?  They are gloriously bright with glossy deep green leaves and the most abundant crop of rich red berries I have ever seen. 

Apparently our summer and fall weather was perfect for the production of holly berries--moderate heat and plenty of rainfall.

According to British folklore, (where our holly bushes originated) an abundant crop of holly berries signals a cold, long winter. 

I prefer to rejoice in God's gift of Christmas trees that keep on giving right through a dark, gloomy and wet holiday.

Christmas colors

One of the nicest benefits of living in the south at Christmas time is the amazing greenery available for decorations.  Every year I fill my home with fresh greens in glorious shades and textures, mingled with bright red holly berries and huge pine cones from my southern long leaf pine.   These baskets will last three to four weeks, filling our home with the colors and fragrance of the outdoors the entire holiday season.

We've moved

The USDA has revised its official Plant Hardiness Zone Map using more accurate data and my backyard has now been officially moved from zone 7b to zone 8a.  If you've been reading my blog you know that I have always considered my backyard to be on the border between the two zones because I have had pretty good success with growing plants that are considered hardy for zone 8a.

There are some interesting changes with the new map.  One is that they used 30 years of data rather than just 15 years of data on the previous map, which creates a more accurate picture of cold hardiness.   Agricultural scientists now know that weather patterns cycle over 10-15 year periods of time so using a broader scope of data created a more accurate picture of  temperature patterns.

New technology also allowed for more detailed evaluation within zones.  You can actually request the hardiness zone for your zip code on the USDA website (planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/Default.aspx) to find the hardiness zone for your own backyard.  This is a wonderful feature because there are often geographical considerations that may affect the hardiness just in your specific location.

I enjoy my new location.  Check out the website to find out if you have moved too.

(Almost) everyone loves pumpkin

I don't grow pumpkins but we always purchase one to decorate our front yard in the fall.  When Thanksgiving rolls around, my grandchildren help me smash the pumpkin on the driveway so we can use it for our holiday feast.

This year's pumpkin was huge.  I roasted two cups of pumpkin seeds and froze 15 cups of pumpkin puree to make pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I've read that pumpkin is a good food source for our sulcata tortoise so I set some aside for Mordecai.  He "said" it tastes fabulous.

I've also read that horses enjoy raw pumpkin as a treat so my granddaughter, Olivia, and I took some chunks of pumpkin to the barn for Lily.  Lily took one bite and spit it out on the ground.  The other horses more than happy to eat her pumpkin.

I made two big pumpkin pies for our Thanksgiving feast today.  The humans in our family will heap on the whipped cream and make short work of devouring them.

There is nothing more fun than a good pumpkin!

Tropical sunset

Just when fall was beginning to fade,  the gloxinia on my back deck burst into brilliant orange.  I have two pots of gloxinia given to me by two different friends.  They require consistent watering all summer long and I sometimes wonder if these little nondescript plants are worth the effort.   However, when those cold, damp, dreary days of late autumn started to feel a little depressing, the almost neon orange blaze of these blossoms made my day.

It took some research to discover that my gloxinia are a variety that is well named as Bolivian Sunset!   While it is definitely an exotic tropical, some growers claim that with good mulch, these plants function well as perennials in Zone 8.   This spring, I plan to divide one of my pots in order to plant some of it in the ground (in a location close to my hose, of course).  They claim that given the opportunity to spread its roots in the ground, the blooms are so dense that they hide the foliage. 

Meanwhile, I've carried my little tropical sunset indoors to enjoy.