S FL Galloping Gardeners 2007-10-22

Art, that salvia is beautiful. I love that color. : )
~Lucy

I had a sage that looked that one years ago, I think it was called Bog Sage, Salvia uglinosa. I couldn't find it in Plant Files. I lost it during one of the dry spells in the spring. The baby blue color is gorgeous!
Cathy

Hi All,
Molly, I took another picture of the true blue salvia and rotated it so you could see if the stem is long and skinny enough. Due it's growth and flowering I would guess I picked it up this spring at one of the central Florida attractions either with Val or a trip with DW. In another day or so I should get blooming of Narrowleaf silkgrass, Pityopsis graminifolia.

Here is the picture of the true blue color salvia.

Art

I had to leave early this morning so I didn't get my posts finished. I have an usual picture today. This is from my Cherries Jubilee Alamanda. For the first time since I have had this plant it made a seed pod that I guess is unusual, but more unusual it the seed pod itself.

Below is a picture followed by another post with another picture so you can really see how big it is. This shot is kinda from the back part of the seed pod so you can see the leaves around the base of the pod.

Art

This is a second shot of the seed pod. I cut it off while trimming the bush for the Friday bulk yard trash pickup. I didn't realize it was there until I picked the cut branches off the deck. In this picture I have it next to and slightly forward of Alamanda flowers. This is just to show you how big the seed pod is.

I looked around the bush for a second pod, but couldn't find another. Now that i know it's making seeds I will look for more.

Art

Art,

That is exactly the blue salvia I have. I love it. It keeps growing and blooming with very little attention.

Molly
:^)))

Hi Molly,
I too like the color. Not too many true blue flowers in my yard. Always nice to have another one. Who knows, I could have gotten this salvia from you.

Two more pictures from yesterday. This one is Rice button Aster, Symphyotrichum dumosum. I have had it for at least two years now. It came from my bog just down the street. It's been in bloom for about two weeks now. I have two of these. This one is on the N fence area by my Strongbark in full sun. The other is by the East wall in mostly shade. It too is blooming just as strong and just about the same size as this plant, so I would say it does equally well in shade or sun.

Art

BTW, very nice rain last night and this morning here. Just about 1 1/2 inches. I won't have to turn on the irrigation system in the morning, except for about five minutes to help keep the pipes clean. So much bacteria in the water if I don't run it once a week the bacteria is so thick it will dry into a hard film that will clog sprinkler heads.

Last picture from yesterday. This is a bad one, but the only one of a half dozen that shows what I was trying to photograph. This is one of those irridescent bees. The last shot I had of one i posted here was blue. This one is green, but it's a very poor shot. The saving grace is you can make out it's irridescent green color. It's inside the red circle suspended in flight.

Art

Afternoon everyone,
Late yesterday afternoon while preparing to clean my pool, I discovered a bee flapping like crazy in the water. He had, like many others, flew into the pool and was stuck. I grabbed a piece of branch and he climbed on it and was rescued. I deposited him on the pool rail for a picture...you see it turned out to be one of those green iridescent bees.

I just looked it up a few minutes ago and it's a Augochlora pura, one of the better polinators that is especially fond of firebush plants.

For a change I have a decent picture of one of these fine looking, brightly colored bees.

Enjoy,

Art

They are quite beautiful bees, aren't they? We have them here, too.

Sylvain.

Hi All,
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Are we still on for the 11/27 GT to Palm Hammock? I sure hope so.

Art, great creature pics. Here is a picture of my Cherries Jubilee. As you can see it's doing great.
Thank you so much.

Lizette

OOPS! I forgot the picture.

BTW,

Hre are some bugs that are driving my DS nuts in Rochester. He says he thinks that they are fruit flies. Any other guesses?

Palm Hammock on the 27th. Can't wait. What plans are we making? What time? Where? Anyone want a lift? I have space for 4 people in my car.

Sylvain.

Nancy,
They look like fruit flies to me too.

Molly, annette68 a woman I have been communicating with here on Dave's id'd the salvia as Salvia uliginosa (Brazilian Bog Sage). She is a Salvia collector after me for seeds from my pink/coral salvia occidentalis. She has taught me how and where to get the seeds from Salvia's.

Lizette, I won't be able to make your GT tomorrow. Sorry!

I have a couple of pictures of plants that began blooming just before the weekend. Of course they are difficult to photograph due to the colors. The first is Narrowleaf silkgrass Pityopsis graminifolia another native. I moved it from the nursery to under the table umbrella to take this picture this morning. It's the first of many blooms that will come out. You can barely make out the buds in the picture, but nonetheless, they are there.

Art

The second picture this morning is another native, a Skyblue clustervine, Jacquemontia pentanthos. Terrible picture 'cause I can't move this one into more favorable conditions for photographing. Perhaps in the future when more blooms become available in a more favorable position I can have a better shot, or when I finally learn all the tricks to operating this camera. You would think after almost three years I would know all it's features and how to properly take pictures with it, but I am sorry to say I don't. The camera will probably be worn out by the time I figure out how to use it.
The flowers are a very nice light to medium true blue color. The shot was taken close to dawn.

Art

I'd love to join you tomorrow if you are still planning to go to Palm Hammock.

I have a banana shrub bearing fruit right now. I have 2 pups and only need one. I've never removed one of these, and dont want to harm it, so you can dig it up for your garden should you care to!

Plans for tomorrow's outing are still up in the air as far as time, place, etc. I am confident all will be resolved today.

Sylvain.

I am off to Chicago to see my DD and to have our 9th annual Christmas party. Guess who does the cooking??

If she gives me time to on-line, I will keep up...otherwise, see you next Monday.

H&K

Unfortunately it looks like we will have to postpone our GT scheduled for tomorrow, but let's schedule it for next week instead. How about either the 5th or the 6th of next week. What works best for everyone?

That sounds great for me, for I will be home by then. Thanks guys.

Nancy, Have a great time in Chicago and we will go to Palm Hammock when you get back.

Thanks Lizette, either day sounds good to me. Nancy, it'll be great that you can go too.
Have a good trip and enjoy being pampered!

Lizette, that Allamanda looks beautiful. A MG gave me one a couple of months ago, but it hasn't done much yet. Did yours take a long time before flowering? I used it to replace my Mandevilla that croaked after all the rains that we had in October.

My front garden is coming along, I finally got my cap rocks in place (Xmas present from my DH). Yesterday, I worked in the front putting the majority of the plants in place. I have the front end by the driveway to finish and that's been a problem area for me. I've had like 8 different combination of plants since I moved here and I've never been happy with any of them. I'm not sure what can go there that will take the mixed light conditions that I have. Any ideas from anyone? My requirements are that it must be low maintenance, and not too tall (3'max). It must take shade during the winter and full sun most of the day in summer. Those are tough conditions, I know.....

Val, Here are some pictures of the jasmine I was telling you about. Do you think it's pink jasmine?

Here is another picture.

And one more.

Lizette, are the buds pink before they open? If they are, then it's Pink Jasmine (Jasminium polyanthum). The flowers of Pink are white though, yours seem to have a pink tinge. Yours could be True Jasmine, Jasminium officinale grandiflorum. That one has a touch of pink inside the flower.

'morning all,
This morning I did some experimenting with my camera. I read several pages on the types of photography settings the camera has built in. I found one that worked well taking pictures of my experimental plant today, the Skyblue clustervine, Jacquemontia pentanthos Fla native, the same plant I had attempted to capture in my posted picture yesterday morning.

I used a Program Automatic Exposure mode. This mode sets the aperture as priority to suit the brightness of the subject then adjusts the shutter speed to match vs an averaging of both using the Auto setting, which is my normal setting.

The results were very good. I had no problem capturing the true blue of the flowers in their natural setting, since I could not move them to a more favorable setting as I can do with nursery plants. Most of the time I would prefer to take pictures in the field as the opportunity permits. This mode may solve my problems in taking red, yellow, white and blue flower pictures.

Manuals are a wonderful thing, too bad it took over two years for me to finally start reading my camera manual. My next experiment will be with the Shutter Speed Priority mode. Perhaps I will be able to get better butterfly pictures with this mode.

The plant is ready to go nuts with blooms as the buds in the picture show. The difference between yesterday and today is, like wow lots more blooms in just one day.

Art

Art, it's great that you finally got around to reading your camera's owner's manual. As a rule, guys aren't big on owner's manuals. However, I don't believe that selecting a mode that priorizes either lens aperture or speed speed will solve taking pictures of blue, white, red, yellow and white flowers. That's not the kind of situation these settings do. But then again, I may be totally wrong.

I would hit the book again and look into something called a "white balance" on your camera because it can't always render off results with every colour of the rainbow. I gather that you're happy with what it did for you and that's great. However, I think you'll be better served by finding and adjusting the white balance.

When I first got my Olympus, all of a sudden, every picture needed colour balance, brightness and contrast adjustments. By mistake and without noticing, I had changed the white balance setting from AUTO to +4 (whatever that +4 means). Everything turned out wonky. Give it a try, Art. See what happens. What have you got to lose?

Sylvain.

Sylvain,
Good point. It's mentioned in a chapter by itself. Looks complicated, but it's something else I will look into when I have more time to experiment. This morning's experiment worked, not to say others won't work, but of the three methods I tried this morning, this setting of the aperture as priority to suit the brightness of the subject worked best.

There is a surprisingly large amount of choices and manual settings this inexpensive camera offers. But it's learning everything all over again. My previous experience with a nice Pentax SLR non digital camera for 35 years spoiled me. Everything could be controled and viewed through the eyepiece. What you saw is what you got.

This camera is a whole new ballgame. But, with all the possibilities, looking into is will be more than worthwhile. Course then I won't have the old excuse to fall back on "my camera won't do this or that, etc".

Art

Yes, there are an awful lot of features that can be turned on or off with these digital cameras. You just need to turn on the features that will help you and turn off the rest. Perseverance is the secret to success.

Good luck with all that. Let me know if I can help.
Sylvain.

The Wolf/Ritz camera store in Pompano offers a variety of camera use classes. Free if you are able to pick up the 'coupon' books at either stores. (beginners up to advanced)

The moment that I see a manual, my mind wanders to other places. I've had my Olympus for 4 years and I've no clue what it can do. The little that I've been able to figure out has been through trial and error. I'm sure that it can do many more things, but I don't think that I even have the manual anymore. My loss really, but I have manualitis adversity LOL

Sylvain, since you own an Olympus, I have some questions for you. One of the biggest complain that I have about my camera is that the batteries don;t last at all, The other is the lag between shots. It drives me bonkers. Does your do that too?
Also, if I'm using the zoom and I use the viewfinder once I download the pictures I find out that the object is totally off center even though it looked perfect through the viewfinder. These are just a few of my pet peeves with my camera, other than that I like a lot. I was used to using Nikons always, so I'll admit that I was a bit spoiled.

Yes, Val... my camera litteraly "eats" batteries. For example, when I plan to go to some place like Butterfly World, I always bring 8 batteries because with less, for a whole morning and part of an afternoon's pictures, I run a chance of being left without batteries. Luckily, I buy them 48 at a time at Costco.

Unless you own a single lens reflex camera (like Mark's), viewfinders are notorious for not framing the shot you want correctly. I never use mine. The little screen is what drains the batteries. When I think about it, I turn off the screen in between pictures. It means I have to turn it back on when I resume shooting but it does stretch the battery's life. Another battery eating feature is the flash. I always remove it when shooting in broad daylight excent when I want a bit of a fill flash to make shadows less harsh.

I'm going to see an immigration lawyer because it appears someone at INS goofed and sent my file into the wrong pile from the start. That would explain why I am having such problems getting my visa. Please, all of you, have a good thought for me around 11AM tomorrow.

Thanks.
Sylvain.

Well, I guess is an Olympus thing. I also turn it off all the time, but it frustrates me because I lose a minute each time turning it back on and so on. Mark wants to get me a new one for Christmas, but I'm undecided as to which or what type of camera I want. He wants to get me a Nikon D40X. I'll admit it would be nice, but there's some things that my camera does and the Nikon doesn't. I'm also not keen about lugging around a big heavy camera. I did that for years and it screwed up my shoulder.

Best of luck Sylvain!! I'll be thinking of you and sending good postive energy your way. I hope that you resolve this very frustrating problem you've had. Let us know how it went.

Good luck big guy...it will all work out just fine.

Art

Thank you very much for the good thoughts. If things don't fall into place soon, I really am contemplating selling everything (unbearable sadness) and moving to Costa Rica. There, only our financial statements would be checked before being allowed to live there legally in a house where I could garden to my heart's content and have a live-in maid for a few bucks a day. This is not what I want but it's a plan.

Legally... that's the operative word here. I have this feeling that I shouldn't be here, that I am doing something wrong, that I am not a whole person, that one day I'll get a letter instructing me to leave the country within 3 days and never return. I want to be legal in this country. I will not live here illegally.

I'm not a fence jumper, I don't claim refugee status, I'm not looking for a free ride, I am not a criminal, I am not a member of a questionable organization. All it caused me is grief.

Please pardon my ranting. Here's another thing I'm not: a ranting and raving lunatic.

We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, my friends, some day.
Deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome some day.

Sylvain.

Sylvain,
You really sound down. I wish there was something I could do to cheer you up. Perhaps looking at the pictures I am sending this morning will do it for you.

I found these pictures in one of my older picture folders while I was searching for something else. I thought I would send them up for the fun of it, that is if you consider figuring out what it is fun.

I won't say what or where it is until the last picture, which may or may not give you a hint, but you won't believe what it is, that's for sure.

Picture 1

Picture 2, is similar to picture 1.

Picture 3, again it's similar to 1 & 2.

If you have seen these pictures before, please don't give away what it is.

Art