What is going on in N Flrida #6

Brandy,

If you see the white mouth---you are too close! That's why they are also called 'Cotton Mouths'. Also, Black Racer doesn't have stripes running down it's side toward the belly---moccasins do. If it has a blue tone to the skin, it's a blue racer & an endangered species.
Agree with Sandy---arrow head---poison---round---not---- with the exception of a 'Corral Snake'!!!

Snakes don't bother me, but have a healthy respect for them! My mother, on the other hand, used to flip when she saw me with one!!! Her out look on snakes were--"I don't like snakes---poison, non poison, live, or dead!" Think that about covers it.

hey brandy you going to be home tomorrow? I've been wanting to wander Plant Ranch and I can drive by your place on the way. Stop by and say hi lol I'm tired of being in the house working my butt off! lol My fingers need a chance to heal up.

Darla

There is one problem that is the young cottonmouth is not black but spotted. Check both of these pictures.
http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?source=&parkid=&searchText=&allSpecies=&shapeID=1060&lshapeID=0&curAbbr=&lastView=default&lastGroup=7&lastRegion=2211&lastFilter=4&lastShapeName=&trackType=&curRegionID=2211&size=&habitat=&fruit=&color=&sortBy=family&curFamilyID=®ionSelect=Florida®ionZIP=&curGroupID=7&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=43

here is the racer
http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?source=&parkid=&searchText=&allSpecies=&shapeID=1060&lshapeID=0&curAbbr=&lastView=default&lastGroup=7&lastRegion=&lastFilter=4&lastShapeName=&trackType=&curRegionID=2211&size=&habitat=&fruit=&color=&sortBy=family&curFamilyID=®ionSelect=Florida®ionZIP=&curGroupID=7&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=4

Bsgardens (Brandy? I'm sorry, real names and dg names are all confused for me on the FL forums..)-the cops didn't come and arrest her while still stuck in your yard? That's absolutely crazy! 16 DUIs and she still is driving? That's baloney.

Linda - if your passion flower has an aroma of warm honey when in full sun, it is probably Passiflora 'incense' which I may have given you. I always try to send a warning with these -- plant only in pots surrounded by concrete. They are the MOST invasive plant I've ever put in my garden. They have spread by underground roots more than 100 ft from the original planting site, and are still spreading, popping up at nodes all along the miles of roots. However, I may soon have my Florida nursery license to sell plants and I may make my first million dollars by selling off some of my thousands of P. 'incense' plants. LOL They are very desirable further north where hopefully they are not so invasive.

I still wish I could find a snake (hopefully non-poisonous) in my yard, but it may be that I'm too close to downtown Jacksonville for that much of nature to be present.

I think the Fox 30 news is a good route to go for the drunk driver fiasco. Beautiful Boobies (blue-footed or otherwise) are generally not enough to dissuade police officers from writing DUI tickets. It may be that she has some connections with someone important enough in local politics or (more likely) the police force that gives her a free pass on the "do not ticket" list. Whatever twinge of guilt you may feel for playing snitch can be righteously and justifiably offset by the lives you may save by getting this felon off the roads.

Jeremy

My passion flower didn't survive this winter. It is about all I lost so I guess I can't complain at this point.

No snakes Jeremy (well I am sure there are plenty down around the lake) but I did have a visit yesterday from some little diggers. How many can I send to everyone?

No thank you.

LOL Sandy, that is my thought also but there they were at the edge of my carport and I am not sure how to safely get rid of them. I don't mind their living somewhere else but they play havoc in my beds. Cute but destructive!!!

Baby armadillo's, are they not the cuttest. We have a family that lives under a big rock on the side. The dogs love it when the babies get in the back yard, funny thing is, the armadillos could care less. That just gets the dogs even more agitated. One thing is for sure, once they get digging under the house, its horribly destructive and the solution is not pretty.

Scouts Honor

Yes Pam, they are cute but I agree about the destructiveness. Had them in my yard at Gainesville. I had planted a rather large bed of impatiens (100) only to go out the next morning and discover they were all dug up. Not a pretty sight!! I was told to put castor oil around the ground and it will deter them. I did once and this is the first time I have seen any in 4 years. Not sure if that is what did it or not but aleast I was 'diller free for a while.

Beautiful daylily!!! Give my love to Tracey--miss you both.

Yesterday the demon child was outside playing, I went out to check up on him and about that time a white car stopped and a lay jumped out yelling "your dog is attacking a armadillo"
I quickly told her no he was playing with his toy, Has any one every heard of a blue armadillo?

Armadillos were the bane of our existence in maintaining the zoo gardens when I worked there. The armadillos would dig under the pine straw mulch and fling it everywhere, dig big sandy holes that had to be filled in daily (once they locate a den spot, they don't want to give it up), and dig out plants in their search for grub worms and other delicacies to eat. Each morning at 7 AM, our first duty as garden caretakers at the zoo was to do the "Armadillo Shuffle," a lively dance that involves shifting pine straw and sand with your feet.

Marion, it's funny how the armadillos in your photo look more like crinkled tin sculptures. Certainly gives me some ideas for creative output....

Sandy, perhaps the concerned lady thought that Andre had already bruised the armadillo beyond recognition. LOL (or she lives in an alternate universe where all armadillos are blue -- I've visited that place a few times. LOL)

Jeremy

You have caused me to look at the armadillos in an entirely new light--crinkled tin sculptures. LOL The one standing up just wanted to come closer and closer. Never realized they could stand like that but then I hadn't given it much thought.

I truly don't want to hurt them but I also do not want my plants dug up. Hummm wondering if I shut the gate between my yard and the neighbors if they will stay over in his yard? He would never know as his yard is in a much more nature state than mine.

Blue armadillos? Surely she knew better--not!!

I hadn't noticed the standing armadillo in the photo until you mentioned it! Very funny! If the earthworms and grubworms are fatter and more plentiful on your side of the fence, the armadillos will most likely dig under the gate to get at the smorgasbord (or will dig under the gate just to spite your attempts to keep them out LOL)

Jeremy

Geez Jeremy, thanks for information. Not what I wanted to hear. Well anyways, there is a brick path leading to the gate so at least I can give it a try. LOL

Isn't the standing one weird looking?

So what I saw the several days ago in my neighbors yard was a black racer.

Darla .... We will be home tommorow late afternoon today =D & should be home tommorow... Call me around 5to 6 ... or we can get together tommorow.

I don't mind snakes either ... I prefer them out side and in the GH ... not inside ... not since we had a hungry boa get loose ... and with a house full of cats ... I'm just glad we found it before it found the cats ... lol The snakes seem just as frightened / startled (SP) of me as I am ... =D I just have always been told to move slowly and avoid direct eye contact.

I agree ... 16 DUI's and wasn't arrested. Channel fox 30 wants to do a story on her ... But now that my neighbor has realized that people who leave her house drunk if the drunk person kills someone or themselves in an accident she can go down for manslaughter ... She has been hesitant to have her friend who likes to drink over... Nope the cops did't arrest her! They sat there until the tow truck came to get her car out. (which they didn;t do becaz she was drunk) They were afraid that Stu (my hubby) would do something to her car. LMAO ... Of course the thought came to my mind ... hmmm my dad has a corvette similar to this one and I know he could use some parts ... lol ... But of course I wouldn't actually do that... lol
I think your right Jeremy.... Its now up to Stu to respond to the person at the news station.

Armadillos ... I have seen them in national sytate & local parks and on the side of the road ... but haven't had any dealings with them. Our biggest nemisis ... are raccons, oppsums and squirels ,... I know people love squirels ... but they eat everything ... I keep finding 1/2 eaten MAgnolia flower buds laying on the ground ... they have eaten all the fruit out of our neighbors japanese plum ... they have even eaten / chewed through wires in one of he cars we use to have... They dig up my flowrs in the planters and in ground so they can store their nuts .... They are a thorn in Stu's side ... They love tulip flowers and many other plants & flowers to munch on ... hmmm.... ::sigh::


Brandy

Shot in the dark here. Maybe someone can help me.

Back in the days when I lived in Lauderhill, FL, one of my gardening friends gave me a rooted cutting of passiflora coccinea, a red passionflower that grows and grows and grows. It produced fire-engine-red blooms on an almost continual basis and wonder of wonders, the caterpillars left it alone.

I have had 2 beautiful vines eaten to the ground in so many years. In exchange, I have a native passionflower (NOID) that produces a pretty, simple purplish pink flower and the caterpillars leave that one alone, too. I would send you a cutting of that one for a cutting of the coccinea, or any other passionflower that the caterpillars would leave alone.

Many thanks.
Sylvain.

I haven't seen any armadillos on my place but I know they live out here.

I also don't have any tree rats on my place, and they also live out here......but I do have a pair of treasured fox squirrels that live on the vacant woods across the road.

My fox squirrel story.......

Right after I moved here I planted many things and was told to use an alfalfa tea to help them get rooted. Well, we figured lets just put some alfalfa pellets in the hole before putting the plants in. That way, when it rains they will slowly dissolve for the plant. Good idea.

Except a few days later I am looking at the plants I had put along the driveway and several of them were out of the ground. I thought I was absent minded and forgot to plant them, but there were too many for me to forget. Well, I figured out the fox squirrels had come to dine.

They were very neat about it, just dug the plants, laid them down and ate the pellets.

I decided to give them something more enticing. I had my son cut down a dead tree and separate the part with a hole in the middle of the trunk. I sat that piece down over behind the small fish pond, covered the top with a pine disk, some spanish moss and put pellets in the hollow.

After that I never had a problem with my plants again.

I'm being evil again .... May 15,2010 - 36th Annual North Florida Daylily Society Annual Daylily Show
http://nfdaylily.home.comcast.net/~nfdaylily/pdf/2010%20-%2036th%20Annual%20NFDS%20Show.pdf
5/15 1-5 pm North Florida Daylily Society Orange Park Masonic Lodge #267
511 Kingsley Avenue
Orange Park FL Curtis Godell
curtisgoodell@comcast.net

I just have to share this since everyone has been showing their dayliles =D
The above is all the information that I have sofar. If anyone else knows anything about it ... please let me know =D I know I'd love to go to this ... =D

.....Ps I'm blaming this one on Sandy =D She sent the link to daylilies in the last thread and I was looking at the links .. and I saw the calender of events ... lol



What a great idea Molly =D


Brandy


This message was edited May 12, 2010 4:11 PM

This message was edited May 12, 2010 4:17 PM

The club Im in, Swuanee Valley Daylily Club, is having its daylily show the next weekend, in Lake City, at the mall. Stop on by. I wont have any in the show...not by a long shot lol, but will be 'clerking' for one of the judges.

Spacecoast Modern Symetry

I have never ever seen an armadillo stand up

That fox squirell is so cute I have been trying to decide if it is a stuffed animal or its real.

This message was edited May 12, 2010 3:37 PM

Is this the one?
5/22 1-6 pm The Suwannee Valley Daylily Society Lake City Mall
Lake City FL Ottis Houston
386-752-4654
comahoust@bellsouth.com


For all you daylily lovers ... here is the current calender of events I have up ... just added a bunch of the daylily shows ...
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1093205/

If ya know of anything going on that I have missed please let me know =D

This message was edited May 12, 2010 5:04 PM

It is alive

Sylvain I have one, wish it would go away.. I will see if I can dig part of it up and send it to you. Just please keep it in a pot.

Sandy

I can't promise anything about potting it, but I'll try. Do you want a cutting of my native passionflower? I'll D-mail you my address.

Thanks so much.
Sylvain.

No need as I have about 6 or 7 passies.

Sandy

Brandy, You didn't say how big your snake is, but unless he's much over two feet, he could be a Brown Snake. (Don't you love that name?) Many colors including reddish-brown, but all have "two parallel rows of small dark spots bordering an indistinct wide light back stripe." Belly paler with small black dots along the edges. From Maine to the FL Keys, five sub-species, including a Florida. Storeria dekayi victa. We used to call them Dekay snakes.
I'm lucky to live where armadillos can't do much harm. I have a picture of two half-grown babies sniffing my feet--they feel like warm plastic. The funniest thing is when they run. They come up on surprisingly long legs, tail straight out behind, and they're pretty speedy. And they EAT FIRE ANTS.

I have an armadillo (at least one) visiting my yard in the night because I see the little nose holes, but so far, no damage and I haven't sited one. They must be brave little things to come in a fenced yard where 7 dogs and 2 cats live, though usually only one or two dogs are out at night.

TDream, would you like some more armadillos? I can't live to far from where you are. LOL

As for the armadillo standing up.... remember that standing on two legs was the evolutionary leap that humans made as the first step toward becoming the dominant species on Earth. Can we foresee a future where armadillos rule the world???!!! LOL

The fox squirrels are amazing, Molly! I didn't know such creatures existed! It's great that you found a compromise to allow peaceful cohabitation with them.

All my snake stories are, amazingly, from my days in NYC. There was a pet store, Exotic Aquatics, that sold snakes and other critters on the corner near my apartment in Greenwich Village. The shopkeepers kept the snakes in small aquariums covered by a flimsy piece of screen with a rock on top. The snakes escaped on a frequent basis and naturally found their way to the little oasis I had created by restoring an old turn of the century patio garden behind our apartment building. The snakes could live happily there with water available from the fish pond and, of course, there was plenty of food due to the abundance of rats and mice that lived off the municipal garbage along with some gourmet treats from the French bakery and Italian pizza restaurant that abutted the garden. It's hard to believe I had to constantly contend with snakes in Manhattan but don't have a single one in my garden in Florida!

Jeremy

Jeremy, now that is a scary thought indeed. Armadillos ruling the world? LOL

My yard man came this morning and while we were trimming back the azaleas, we found 2 really large holes and he thinks the little ones might be in one of them. I can not believe the size of the holes!!

Also saw the black squirrels today. They haven't been around as much lately as the other ones. Startled me at first as I was sure what they were but then, again, they are so pretty.

here are a few pictures of the snake ... Its all curled up ... but its a good 3 to 4 footer ... long and slinder ..

Looks like a racer to me. Very good snake to have.

Sandy

Hi, Sylvain. Do you know which species of native passion vine that you have? Here's a list of the passion vines that the USF Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants considers native:

Passiflora incarnata http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1189/
Passiflora lutea http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/58221/
Passiflora multiflora (endangered) http://www.florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=3979 (view gallery)
Passiflora pallens (endangered) http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/76560/ http://www.florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=602 (view photo gallery link)
Passiflora sexflora (endangered) http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/189247/
Passiflora suberosa http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1197/

It's odd that P. caerulea (Hardy Passion Vine) is not included at all in the Atlas database, but I guess no one has yet reported it as growing somewhere in Florida. But it is not native (comes from Argentina/Brazil).

In any case, I have the red-flowering Grape Leaf Passiflora vitifolia ( http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1195/ ) which the butterfly caterpillars don't seem to eat (as with your former red-flowering P. coccinea which they don't find enticing). I could send you some P. vitifolia (no trade needed, but I would like any one of the above native passion vines if you care to send it). P. vitifolia is not at all invasive. I wish it would spread more, but it has remained as one single plant for about 6 years. It vines, however, reach up to about 25 feet and bifurcate frequently so that it can cover a trellis easily in one season. It does die back to the ground in freezing weather. I've never grown P. coccinea so I'm not sure if it dies back or not.

Jeremy

Thank you sandy. Good to know. I don't mind those ... =D
I know it lives in my neighbors water meter thingy ... The JEA person found hatched snake eggs in it last october

Drunk Driver update ... Well the driver is now in complete denial that anything even happened. My neighbor who is frinds with the drunk driver ... been trying to talk to her about going into rehab ... but refuses and says nothing is wrong but is now accusing her of stealing from her when she passed out on my neighbors couch that night. & my neighbor is trying to get her family to baker act her ... but the ladies husband refuses and has had it & has now left her ... and one daughter is just like her mom and the other would love to but you need 2 family memebers to baker act someone ... so our neighbor told Stu to go ahead with the Fox 30 news thing & said that this seems like the only way she is going to get help. Aparently this lady has a high dollar lawyer who has helped her keep her lisc. & when she has been in jail has gotten ever priviledge there is to get & not having to work for it. She even was told by the court to attend drug/alcohol counseling ... She showed up there drunk and they told her she didn't need it & signed off on it. Our judicial system is messed up.
I have nothing against people who drink and get drunk... Especially when one is at home or at a friends house and know they can crash there afterwards ... I'm not normally a judgemental person ... ok maybe a little mental ... lol j/k ... lol ...

anywho .. that is my updaye on that ...

Oh Darla .... come get some of these planters .... PLlllleeaaazzzzzzzzzz ... lol
I still need to up load the pictures of them ... oh my ... If I had enough soil ... I'd have a full blown nursery there are soo many ... lol

have a good nite / weekend everyone
Brandy

This message was edited May 14, 2010 4:52 PM

Definately time for the news, Brandy!

I'll try and get there soon lol sorry brandy. Its been crazy here and I pulled the muscles in the lower back last night. If it isn't one thing its another. I'll call you first ok

Darla

I hope your back pain subsides quickly, Darla. If your garden is like mine, there is just too much to do to be laid up.

Was it you, Darla, that wanted a English Dogwood/Mock Orange (Philadelphus coronarius)? I have several seedlings coming up around my parent plant. I brought one to the Creative Concrete get-together, but you weren't there, so I passed it along (to Linda, I think?). But there are several more ready to be potted up and transplanted.

Yesterday afternoon, I pruned to the ground some of the Camphor Trees (Cinnamomum camphora), Cherry Laurels (Prunus caroliniana) and weeds that had sprouted up last year in the backyard. My goal was to get at some flats of pots of soil that were once homes for pansies when I was getting all the cull pack plants from Lowe's. I'm recycling the potting soil to pot up all the thousands of Passiflora 'incense' vines that I hope to sell as a cash crop this year, once I get my nursery license (still waiting on an as yet unscheduled inspection). In the process of emptying the hundreds of 3 inch pots of soil, I came across a long-lost pipe wrench. Why I ever placed it out there several years ago in the middle of the yard on a flat of pansies will forever remain a mystery. LOL

Jeremy

Jeremy: I believe you and I were having the english dogwood conversation and I would love a seedling but unfortunately.....I live too far away for a random trip up your way. Maybe someday.

Daves is looking dfferent. Different font and lots of underlining.

I noticed also that D-mails from the corporate office for DG (like membership renewals or gift membership subscriptions) are still signed by "Dave." I guess there will always be a "Dave" in Dave's Garden, even if it is a virtual Dave.

SandyintheG - if you can send me a D-mail to remind me of your interest in a P. coronarius, I will send you one once I get organized to review my plants-for-postage requests. Look out, N Fla Gardening Brigade, I still have my idea for "Boxing Day" planned, where everyone local (or elsewhere) will be invited to my house to help me box and mail long overdue plants. At the rate I'm going with getting things done, Boxing Day may be the traditional English holiday of the same name the day after Christmas. LOL Your only reward for your efforts will be some snacks and drinks and freedom to take cuttings from my botanical collection (but those things are offered for most garden visitors on any occasion).

Someone local, though, also wanted a P. coronarius. I think they had a different species of Philadelphus to trade??

Jeremy

Jeremy,

A little assist please on this plant? Can't remember where or when it came from. It has the leaves like the crotalaria but this one blooms purple/blue flowers. A bit fuzzy, sorry.