Open Greenhouse & Plant Swap, Saturday, May 7, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 602 Ronele Drive, Brandon, FL 33511
The yard is alive with the sounds of birds, bees and butterflies!
And the most swarmed plants are super-easy to propagate. We have plenty of blanket flower seeds – there is still time to plant them this spring for the butterflies and bees they attract. And the elderberry is beyond amazing! Birds had planted some seeds that came up in the shade and we didn’t know we had them until they burst into bloom when everything else around them froze back. We have enough that you can dig up runners that already are rooted. (Yep, it’s the same elderberry that’s used for wine, gummy bears and pies, it’s native to Florida and grows like a weed.)
My awesome sister is coming and bringing an assortment of plumeria cuttings and luffa sponges that people requested last month. They’re easy to grow from seeds if she runs out of fruit early.
We have citronella plants and bromeliads left over from last month’s swap, and I found some sad looking passionflower in the greenhouse that really needs a good home soon. (The original fruit came from Tanja Vidovek, they’re amazingly productive vines besides attracting butterflies.)
We still have volunteer Everglades tomato plants for another month until they get so big they won’t transplant well. This is one of the most prolific tomatoes you can grow in Florida – they’re tiny but they pack an amazing flavor in a very small package. (The plants get big though!)
The native wild coffee needs trimming again – it’s a gorgeous plant with glossy green leaves, white flowers bees love and then red berries for the birds. It’s super-easy to root this time of year. We’re cutting the flowering maple way back too. It’s a hummingbird favorite that the freeze didn’t faze, so we’ll be taking our own cuttings and sharing them with friends. We’d been told it didn’t root well from cuttings but some customers say it does.
The spiderwort — one of my favorite wildflowers despite its name — was slightly dinged but it’s coming back strong in places where it would have otherwise been in more shade than it likes.
Other you-dig plants in the yarden this month:
Surinam cherry seedlings
Lady palms, a slow-growing hedge that’s tough as can be once it’s started
Crinum lilies
Monkey grass
Native wild violets
Yellow walking iris
Pagoda plants that froze back to the ground but are coming back beautifully
Native cannas froze to the ground but they’re coming back
Papalo seedlings are starting to sprout. They taste like cilantro but they’re practically weeds and grow all summer long so they’re perfect for summer salsas!
Cuttings
Ever-bearing mulberries, slightly dinged in the cold but covered in fruit now. One of the most fun parts of Open Greenhouse is seeing kids eat these fruits straight from the tree. They root easily and should fruit again later this year even on a tiny plant.
Sweet almonds are thriving and will be covered in bees soon.
Dark blue salvia and lavender or red firespike. There’s one big red firespike you can take as a you-dig.
Jacob’s ladder is one of the few things we grow that doesn’t benefit wildlife, but it’s an attractive plant that works beautifully in a pot
Seeds
Everglade tomatoes
Luffa
Blackberry lily, another native that came through the cold with blooms
Cosmos, the big plants froze back but the volunteer seedlings are still thriving
Amaranth is an ancient grain with leaves used as callaloo on tropical islands. It’s an attractive plant too with coloring that looks like coleus. The original seeds came from Jungle Jay in at Beacon Community Garden and they reseed nicely every year.
Tropical milkweed
Native goldenrod
A nice selection of miscellaneous seeds that were gifted to us last month
If you’re planting a garden this spring, we have a nice pile of hardwood mulch and lots of bamboos to use as stakes.