Florida gardening

[AgapeBible]

Hi, I've been having trouble gardening in Florida. It's warm here, Spring is here, the weather is nice. But I have a lot of work to do. Mainly I need to rake up the leaves. My Dad likes to mow over the fallen leaves with the lawn mower. We have a live oak tree in the front yard, and a live oak tree in the back yard, which makes for a lot of leaves, but some nice shade too. My mom has hung some stag horn ferns on the trees with cables and nails. I think it must be bad for the trees, but they seem ok, the ferns have gotten big. i have a puny passion flower vine and puny, little roses, on the chain link fence, I water them and am trying to get them to grow healthier. I have been getting up weeds and watering, I think what really needs to be done is getting up the fallen leaves.

There are some pretty flowers, hibiscus flowers bloom very good, and the wisteria blooms lovely in spring.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Chopped up leaves add a lot of nutrients to the soil.

 

[Humble me Lord]

Hello Agapebible,
I'm wondering if they are getting enough sun or nutrients causing them to be "puny".
You could get some composted cow manure, it comes in bags at the garden center. Then mix that and chopped up leaves and work that into the soil around the base of your plants.
You can also get organic or chemical based fertilizers especially for roses, and spring is a good time to fertilize roses.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Hello Agapebible,
I'm wondering if they are getting enough sun or nutrients causing them to be "puny".
You could get some composted cow manure, it comes in bags at the garden center. Then mix that and chopped up leaves and work that into the soil around the base of your plants.
You can also get organic or chemical based fertilizers especially for roses, and spring is a good time to fertilize roses.

Sounds like you are well informed about garden matters....

 

[Humble me Lord]

Just have learned a lot. I have always had a garden and grown a lot of my own vegetables.

 

[Humble me Lord]

Too bad this poster has not returned since posing the question

 

[AgapeBible]

Thank you so much. Thank you especially, Humble me Lord. I will try using the mowed up leaves and raked up leaves as mulch. i need to learn to make a correct compost heap, I did it wrong and had a bunch of weeds grow up and a big mess. i should look up Florida gardening sites. I might have some gardening books. There may be some cow manure in the garage. A problem is there are some big leaves on the bottom of the vines from a tree with big leaves, an orchid tree, I'll have to get up those big leaves. I'll have to schedule a day to do garden work. The beauty of nature, flowers, trees, butterflies, birds... it shows the Lord's great creativity, artistry, magnificent work of his hands, how can anyone see beautiful creation and be an atheist, intelligent design is plain to see.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Hi, I've been having trouble gardening in Florida. It's warm here, Spring is here, the weather is nice. But I have a lot of work to do. Mainly I need to rake up the leaves. My Dad likes to mow over the fallen leaves with the lawn mower. We have a live oak tree in the front yard, and a live oak tree in the back yard, which makes for a lot of leaves, but some nice shade too. My mom has hung some stag horn ferns on the trees with cables and nails. I think it must be bad for the trees, but they seem ok, the ferns have gotten big. i have a puny passion flower vine and puny, little roses, on the chain link fence, I water them and am trying to get them to grow healthier. I have been getting up weeds and watering, I think what really needs to be done is getting up the fallen leaves.

There are some pretty flowers, hibiscus flowers bloom very good, and the wisteria blooms lovely in spring.

It must be very absorbing to get to know a garden well and watch the changes through the seasons.

I think you guys down there in Florida are kind of sub-tropical with the climate; very different from up here!

 

[~Anastasia~]

Hi, I've been having trouble gardening in Florida. It's warm here, Spring is here, the weather is nice. But I have a lot of work to do. Mainly I need to rake up the leaves. My Dad likes to mow over the fallen leaves with the lawn mower. We have a live oak tree in the front yard, and a live oak tree in the back yard, which makes for a lot of leaves, but some nice shade too. My mom has hung some stag horn ferns on the trees with cables and nails. I think it must be bad for the trees, but they seem ok, the ferns have gotten big. i have a puny passion flower vine and puny, little roses, on the chain link fence, I water them and am trying to get them to grow healthier. I have been getting up weeds and watering, I think what really needs to be done is getting up the fallen leaves.

There are some pretty flowers, hibiscus flowers bloom very good, and the wisteria blooms lovely in spring.

I hope you're further south than I and won't be impacted by this cold weather. So many of my plants have been growing since early Feb with all the nice weather, now we have two nights of frost/near hard freeze. I just got in from trying to cover everything that can't be brought in but I have more beds than blankets and nothing big enough for some bushes or the fruit trees.

As far as roses, do you have the right type? Many kinds can't handle the humidity we have here. I do best with shrub roses, ramblers, and an occasional mini that turns out to be the right kind takes off.

My wisteria died (was a start I was trying to establish. The squirrels didn't help!). And even my hibiscus froze last year, but I bought it on sale out of bloom - Won't do that again because the flowers were not attractive like almost all hibiscus are.

I might have to try hanging staghorns from one of my trees. Sounds nice.

We have I think 5 live oaks but will probably cut one down as it's not that healthy and is in a bad spot. Nothing much grows under them except moss. I'm trying to establish some pachomia and once my hostas start needing dividing plan to put some of them there too. And I have a large ground fern I may put pieces of it there. Cast iron usually is foolproof in deep shade but I just don't like it that much.

I had a start of a Passion flower too but it died. Kind of disappointed - a lady advertised plants for sale and I'd always wanted one. She was charging only a few dollars - a little cheaper than the stores so I said I'd come get one. When I got there, it was just a cutting she had taken off her vine and stuck in a pot. But her house looked so poor I didn't have the heart to turn it down so I brought it home and tried to take care of it. Not the right time of year though so it died.

Have you tried plumbago if you like wisteria? It has pretty blue flowers and it's pretty much indestructible in Florida. And if your other vines aren't doing well, have you considered alamanda or diplandenia? They look different (not near as fancy as Passion flower) but grow well in most of Florida. I want a pink diplandenia. Last year I could find only reddish ones for sale.