Our Garden

We lived in Florida for 3.5 years now. We found that we could have a lush tropical garden right in our own yard. Everything grows! When we bought the house the yard was bare. After 3.5 years of work we produced a beautiful yard.

I experimented with a lot of plants and had mixed success. I found that I could grow begonias, caladiums dusty miller, crotons , coleus, selleum, pothos and marigolds particularly well. I had poor results from impatience and pursulane. I originally started out to keep it simple and not mix in a huge number of species and varieties. But little by little as something catches our eye at the nursery, more different things found their ways into our garden.

We're building hanging baskets, mowing, planting and weeding constantly. But it is very satisfying and rewarding.

Also included in our plants are: Sago Palms , Pigmy Date Palms (Robelini) , Scheffelera (Octopus Plant), White Bird of Paradise , Bananas, Pineapple, Jasmine, Bougainvillea, Aloe, Mother's-in-Law Tongue (Snake Plant), Chinese Fan Palm , Staghorn Fern, Bird of Paradise , Dracena Marginata, Lariope, Gardenia, Hibiscus, Ti Plant, . . . . Of course, despite my efforts, there are also weeds. Unfortunately the same conditions that are so favorable to the plants I want to grow are also conducive to those I do NOT want to thrive.

	(Un)fortunately, I've fallen prey to an incurable addiction - Orchids! The good news is that they are not nearly so difficult to grow as I had imagined. In fact, it turns out that they are fairly hardy and durable plants and can endure a lot of ignorance on the part of their caregivers. But the trick is to make them bloom. That's where they truly are tempermental.
This is a photo of a Phalaenopsis orchid. At this point I have managed to limit myself to the care and feeding to 5 orchid plants: 2 Cattleyas, 1 Dendrobium and 2 Phalaenopis.

Follow this link to a page of information about some of the plants I grow as well as a list of Plant and Garden Links.

Very soon I hope to be showing the progress of our house and garden in Texas. I'll compare what works (and what does not work) in Texas with Florida.