Adventures in Gardening

It was a busy week, or a busy weekend! Adventures were had.

If you follow my facebook you'll already have an idea. To sum it up:

I had a really nice visit with my high school friend Kristi and her mom! I drove to Sarasota and met them at a local oyster bar. The food was really good and the company was even better :)



After our meal they insisted on doing what I wanted to do, so I dragged them over to a plant nursery to look at plants!
I saw a really nice Myer lemon in a hanging basket, but it was pretty expensive so I reluctantly let it go.
I asked at the front about a passion fruit vine or vanilla plant, but they (not surprisingly) didn't have either.

After parting ways with Kristi I had a little adventure!

Let me preface by saying that I have a little thing I like to call my "hipster sense". It came in pretty handy on the circus for finding farmers markets, unique restaurants, and thrift stores in the year or so before I could afford wifi on the train. But in fact, I think my "hipster sense" is a little piece of my mother's soul that whispers, "Meggie, look at that!" or "Meggie, go this way!" in order to bring me to things and places she would have absolutely loved.

Anyway: after visiting my friend Kristi, I found some signage for Crowley Nursery & Gardens and felt that little "psst! Meggie!" in the back of my heart. I followed the signs as the road turned to gravel and then to dirt, barely wide enough for my car. And at the end of that trail I discovered a secret garden paradise in the middle of the woods.

Kathy Crowley found me gaping near the fruit trees and guided me through this plant archway into her incredible nursery, a 30-year labor of love. She has a massive variety of plants, from commonplace garden varieties to tropical wonders like the Jaboticaba tree. Her nursery gets tons of butterfly visitors; 23 different species of butterfly have spent time on her property! Needless to say I was floored by this beautiful place. (And I could practically hear my mother's soul squee-ing over it too haha)

I also found the passion fruit vine and vanilla orchid that I'd been looking for! Got them home...NOW what do I do?!?
Wish me luck with these beautiful and challenging plants!

We don't have a yard per se...I honestly wasn't expecting to ever actually find these plants!
When I got them home I did panic a little...where would I put them? They'd have to go outside the pool deck. What if something ate them, or the HOA lawn service weed-whacked them down?

The vanilla, surprisingly, induced less panic than the passion vine. It's an orchid, and orchids do pretty well indoors. If I have to I can keep it inside until I know where to place it.
The passion on the other hand is time sensitive. It's a very active and fast-growing vine that needs lots of space and a large surface area to climb. So I decided to focus on that first.

Imagine poor Jameson's surprise when I came home with two huge plants! Eeeek! Luckily he's a pretty understanding dude :)

The next day I spent a significant amount of time prepping the ground near the fence at the back of our house. I cleared out all the weeds, loosened the soil (which was really just sand) and dug a big deep hole right next to the fence. I filled in some fertilized gardening soil and packed it around the passion fruit root ball, then covered it with the original sand/soil and some dead leaves for mulch. I tied the vines in place on the fence...soon they shouldn't need to be guided. So far so good!


I was still worried about landscaping getting my plant, so I designed a little "DON'T CUT" sign. Pics of that later.

The vanilla came inside for now because it's supposed to get cold tonight.
When it's warmer, I'll plant it at the base of a tree so it can climb and we will see how it does.

Other than that, my garden is doing well with more tomatoes and such.
I don't have more time to post, so that's all for now!