Flowering Florida in Our Yard

     After several painting posts, it is time to greet late spring/early summer with photos of flowering bushes and plants in our yard. Thanks to my master gardener husband, both the yard just around the house and our small "wild" back area near a creek are rich with color and variety in every season.

     These photos are all recent--except the white flowering fringe tree, which was from an earlier year. This year the same tree was less showy. The side yard azalea outdid itself in blooming, although the plant remains fairly small. The blue-eyed grass has already bloomed several times and keeps on giving.You see part of the border it makes in front of our home and also a close-up of the little flowers it produces.

     Here's hoping your spring has been pleasant and flowery. Thank you to all of you who continue to check in periodically even though my blogging has slowed down. I am hoping to post a bit more often in the next couple of months.

A Walk in the Jacksonville Arboretum

     On a warm winter day last week, my husband, Maggie the super dog, and I enjoyed a magical afternoon walk on the trails at the Jacksonville Arboretum. This delightful preserve, reclaimed from the edge of a former waste dump, has been creatively transformed into a multi-use park and education center. Husband Mark, a master gardener and member of the area Native Plant Society, participated in that transformation, along with many other tireless volunteers. They cleaned up trash, cleared and leveled trails, labeled some trees and plants, and selectively planted others--carefully adding only true native specimens (plants that would have greeted the first European visitors to Florida centuries ago). The 120 acre arboretum is notable for housing several distinct ecological zones in an accessible, walkable whole. 

     We hiked the easy lake trail and then ventured onto another trail above a ravine, where several streams flowed through the area. The experience was fun (doggie delight adds a wonderful dimension), refreshing, and renewing. Although we were within the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida, it felt like a faraway adventure into forests, scrub land, and meadows. I was particularly grateful to be able to walk for over an hour and a half--exercise that would have been difficult and painful before my recent total right hip replacement. It feels miraculous to consider further exploration and gradually greater walking distances in this amazing coastal North Florida region. And, of course, I took a number of reference photos for future paintings, so stay tuned for what that might bring.





    For more information about the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens, the web site is here. Other than that, the photos can complete the story of a wonderful day.
















Question of the day: What are some of your favorite walks or hikes near home?

Summer Means Butterflies--In Our Yard and in Mandarin Gardens

Now and then, I repeat a post from a couple of years ago. We have enjoyed a busy butterfly and hummingbird year again, and I thought you might enjoy seeing the lovely 
creatures from this September
2010 post. I have not rewritten it, so the description is of a "date" from back then. The Mandarin Gardens butterfly garden on the south side of Jacksonville, Florida is as lovely and as active as ever. If you live in the area, I encourage you to stop in for some quiet contemplation, surrounded by beauty.

A couple of weeks ago, my master gardener husband suggested a unique "date" to see butterflies at the Mandarin Gardens demonstration garden on Jacksonville's south side, his favorite place to volunteer. Because our weather continues to be fairly hot, we opted for a morning visit and then breakfast out afterwards. It was fantastic, just sitting quietly among the flowers and watching the butterflies and other pollinators work their magic. I resisted pulling out the camera for awhile in order to soak it in--then took on the challenge of capturing photos of very active butterflies. I'll keep the photos small, but you can always click on them to enlarge (sometimes a second click will give you an even closer view).

Master gardener that he is, Mark has also developed our yard into a haven for butterflies and hummingbirds, so I will share some photos from our yard as well as from Mandarin Gardens. According to my field guide, the photos taken at Mandarin Gardens show a Gulf Fritillary (orange with just a few black markings--seen on both yellow and lavender flowers) and a Long-tailed Skipper (brownish one on a bright orange flower).

   The monarchs are just beginning to grace our yard on their way to Mexico; I took the monarch photos this morning. This one looks like a male because of the black spot on a vein of each hind wing. Although I can't always tell a Monarch from a Viceroy as they fly by, I know the Monarchs have been up north for awhile because the milkweed Mark plants for their caterpillars to eat has grown very tall rather than being stripped down to nothing (the yellow flowering plants shown alone in a photo above--very different from what I called milkweed as a child in Michigan). The black Palamedes Swallowtail photos were also taken in our yard, earlier in the summer.

Question of the day: Aren't butterflies amazing--beautiful and captivating in a special way and also so helpful to plant life?

Still Here

I am sorry for my absence from writing and visiting blogs for the last couple of weeks. It has been an extremely busy time--mostly in a good way.

I hope to have a more extensive new post ready for you soon, but wanted to say hello in the meantime. The photo shows a view of our beloved St. John's River, this time from the wide lawn of a Victorian home whose owners hosted one of Mark's Master Gardener events a couple of weeks ago. It is a lovely, characteristically Jacksonville, Florida view. Life is definitely too short for painting all the beauty in our area!

Savoring--Butterflies, At Mandarin Gardens and In Our Yard

A couple of weeks ago, my master gardener husband suggested a unique "date" to see the butterflies at the Mandarin Gardens demonstration garden on Jacksonville's south side, his favorite place to volunteer. Because our weather continues to be fairly hot, we opted for a morning visit and then breakfast out afterwards. It was fantastic, just sitting quietly among the flowers and watching the butterflies and other pollinators work their magic. I resisted pulling out the camera for awhile in order to soak it in--then took on the challenge of capturing photos of very active butterflies. I'll keep the photos small, but you can always click on them to enlarge (sometimes a second click will give you an even closer view).

Master gardener that he is, Mark has also developed our yard into a haven for butterflies and hummingbirds, so I will share some photos from our yard as well as from Mandarin Gardens. According to my field guide, the photos taken at Mandarin Gardens show a Gulf Fritillary (orange with just a few black markings--seen on both yellow and lavender flowers) and a Long-tailed Skipper (brownish one on a bright orange flower).

The monarchs are just beginning to grace our yard on their way to Mexico; I took these monarch photos this morning. This one looks like a male because of the black spot on a vein of each hind wing. Although I can't always tell a Monarch from a Viceroy as they fly by, I know the Monarchs have been up north for awhile because the milkweed Mark plants for their caterpillars to eat has grown very tall rather than being stripped down to nothing (the yellow flowering plants shown alone in a photo above--very different from what I called milkweed as a child in Michigan). The black Palamedes Swallowtail photos were also taken in our yard, earlier in the summer.

Question of the day: Aren't butterflies amazing--beautiful and captivating in a special way and also so helpful to plant life?