NE FLA Gardening Brigade part 3

Qwilter--How long will you be here?? Just that week? or is that the week you are coming down? We will have a mini get-together and we could have it here at my house if that would be convenient with others. We can decide a date once we have your schedule sorted out. Hope you get septic tank done OK.

Jeremy---where are you lurking??? Let us know how you are doing!

Linda

Linda, thanks for the well wishes for my test, I am going to positive that the outcome will be good. If I could drop about 100lbs., probably wouldn't need all these tests. LOL

Sorry to hear about your Craigslist experience, there are some real stinkers who reside in this world.

I hope everyone else is doing good, I know there have been several bumps in the road for a few of you, and hopefully you are all riding smoothly now.

Merry Christmas to all,

Shirley

I've always been "big boned". I was in the Army for 20 years and only "made weight" 2 times. So every couple months I was either caliper tested or measured and calculated to see if I was FAT. Well, I was always way under my body fat allotment, but still........... it was that stigma.

Now I've been retired 10 years (I enlisted when I was 2!!!) and have managed to stay in shape until my knee problems this past spring (I have arthritis and have already had 3 scopes of that knee). I went from working out 4X week to sitting for 4 months. Needless to say, I added some weight. And it took another couple months before I could get back to putting any stress on the knee.

Now it's the holidays and I cannot resist a homemade cookie!!!!! But I am back to hitting the gym a few times a week and all the cookies at home are not within easy reach.

My Step D is getting married in July so I have till then to loose @30 lbs. So after the holiday rush & good food I will get really serious and look good for that wedding.

I will be out of town starting next week until after Christmas

Qwilter,

Try Sparkpeople.com! I lost 33 pounds since I joined in August. I wrote a thread about it in the chat 100 today.

Happy Holidays all!! I wil be going to ATlanta this weekend amd possible theCarolinas to find snow to show the kidlets!

I looked at Sparklepeople but then got bombarded with all sorts of email from them. Found the site very confusing. I can do this on my own. Just a matter of will power and dragging myself to the gym at 0530.

Qwilter I wish you good luck in losing the weight! I feel so much better and I still want to loose 30-40 lbs more. So I have to ask are you a quilter or is that just a play on something else? I'm a quilter so I was curious.

Yes I do indeed quilt. Been quilting for @17 years. Learned doing Hawaiian applique when I was stationed in HI. Now I do a bit of everything. Broke down earlier this year and bought a HQ16. When I "retire" to FL, I plan to move my quilting business down there with me. Do you frequent the sewing thread? You should head over there & join a block swap.
Attached is the sewing studio I have in FL. I can't wait to move down & use it.

Has anyone ever seen these frilly poinsettas before?
This is the yellow one

ooopppssss wrong pic

This message was edited Dec 19, 2008 7:52 PM

OK, yellow poinsetta

I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe holidays

I will be out of town for a few days.

Sandy

Hi Everyone! I let my subscription expire since I wasn't able to get online. I have lots of reading to do to get caught up!

Anywho...

I hope you all have a nice Holiday!

Michelle

Welcome back NFLg! and Merry Christmas to all!

Jeremy

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!

Merry Christmas right back at you! I hope you had a wonderful day. Now we have New Year's Eve to look forward to! Its also my Anniversary. It will be 18 years. Time flies when you're having fun! lol

I got a gift card for Lowes for Christmas and I'm going to hit the garden section! I'm SO looking forward to a new front yard

I started my cacti/succulent garden today. No where near finished I need some more plants (but don't we all) lol. I made is out on an old tortoise enclosure I had. A childrens wadign pool with about 50 holes in is for drainage that I used a 1.5" spade bit to make.
i have my large aloe collection(no id on variety), opurtunia (from the old tortoise enclosure) and varoues succulents and small cacti. I have some stone slabs in there too for looks and once it is all planted I will add river pebbles. I sunck the pool half way into the ground and I am planting bushes along the outside to make it blend in more. I contemplated making it another bog garden but it would take a fortune to fill it with peat/sand not to mention the plants.

Any good cacti sales going on?

I should have lots of divisions of cacti and succulents to share in the springtime, ChubbyD. This will be the second winter inside the plastic enclosure for some of them, so I expect them to be multiplying soon. I now have a total of about 100 of them from what I had from the Lowe's cull pack bargains a few years ago and the horde of them I bought a few months back for 25 to 50 cents each when Lowe's was getting rid of them to make room for Christmas stuff. I will be happy to share all that make babies.

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy! As always you are very gererous! I am hoping to find some sweet deals like you did. I saw a beuatiful cactus at Target today but $15 seemed a bit expensive to me. I REALLY want the one they have at the Range of the Jaguar , the twisty one.

I was never able to get an I.D. for the "cyclone" twister cacti at ROJ at the zoo. It was one even the zoo horticulturist at the zoo that does the potted plants had never been able to identify. By somewhat of happenstance, I now have two fairly good digital cameras (bought cheap on eBay and Craig's List), so I may be able to return to the zoo in early January and get a photo of the twisty cactus to post on the DG Plant and Tree I.D. Forum and/or in Cacti and Succulents Forum. I don't dare allow a piece of the cactus to break off and drop into my pocket by accident, but those sort of freak mishaps have been known to occur. LOL

Jeremy

I just happened to land on this website from an unrelated Google search. Most of the things shown in the photos of "Flora of Bermuda" (not native plants, but native and introduced species) will grow here in Jacksonville. I'm growing a lot of them. Some of them need winter protection, but will do well in the warm months.

http://www.calflora.net/floraofbermuda/

I just thought you might like to drool for a while and add some more things to your wish list. I can provided cuttings or divisions for many of the plants (once the warm weather comes and when I am no longer tethered to the wound vacuum machine, which is healing up my surgery VERY quickly!)

(edited to add: note that there are two pages of photos and info on the website, click on Page 2 down in the far right corner to see the second page)

Jeremy

This message was edited Dec 27, 2008 5:40 PM

Merry Christmas!

Jeremy, I am glad you are out of the hospital now. I hope you are feeling a bit better.

A get together in Jan. sounds great.. just let me know. Someone email me at my reg email if I am not on here then. School will be back in session.

Michelle.Williams (at) unf.edu

My girls got a play house for christmas from Grandpa. He worked hard building this thing.. I am SOO excited! The girls will have something to keep them busy in the yard when I am trying to do my own thing and best of all.. I will get to add new plants! They can't have a princess house without flowers all around it! I now know where I want to plant my "prized" hydrangea.. prized to me b/c I drooled over it forever before breaking down to buy it.

I am also working on the landscape at my girl's daycare. I am excited about that too. I will have to post before and after pics.

cute little house.

Nice playhouse! Did he build it on site or haul it in as a surprise. Window boxes with flowers and some landscaping around the foundation are definitely required! LOL

Jeremy

Anyone have a Pomogranate tree? Was wondering how they do in the area. I'd like to plant a couple.

I'm trying them here and they seem to be doing well -- no fruit yet, but the shrubs are growing. Wal-Mart recently was selling some dwarf pomegranates about 1 ft high, full of blooms and some with fruit on them already. I don't know if they still have them. I didn't buy one (waiting to see if the price comes down! LOL) I'm also growing kiwi fruit with the same results as the pomegranate (nice shrubs, no fruit).

Jeremy

The airport mall Lowe's has the oddly flowered fluffy ruffled poinsettias for about $3 each (75% off the retail price of $14.99). The regular poinsettias are $1 each. There may also be a couple of the 'Endless Summer' hydrangeas for $2.50 (I got the best of the 3 available, but the others are in good condition).

Jeremy

Thanks Jeremy. I'm going to give them a try. I love Poms and they are pricey in the stores. I remembered over the weekend that we have a juicer (that got put away a couple years back) that I'm going to dust off and start using. Spurred on by a Jack lalane infomercial I saw Sun AM.

Well, unlike everyone else I know, I'm off to work today. I have 14 hours I have to work before 1 Jan. Most of my friends are gov't employees and have use-or-loose vacation time so are off. It's going to be a long 14 hours!!!!

It was great when I worked for the City of Jacksonville in Air Pollution Control (I was eventually the enforcement officer that drafted Citations and Compliance Plans and helped get rid of most of the odors in Jacksonville during the Hazouri administration). After being employed by the city for about 10 years, I was able to take the entire time off from a few days before Christmas until after January 1. We didn't have the use-it-or-loose it policy for leave time, but I seldom took sick leave or vacation time and thus had plenty of leave time for extended holidays.

I also love pomegranates and am very happy at this time of year when the fruit is available in grocery stores here. They are usually priced around $2 for large fruit that last me about a week of scraping out the seeds and adding them to salads or yogurt or just eating them straight from the fruit. Someone at one time had posted an easy method to separate the seeds from the pulp by putting the pomegranate seeds in a bowl of water or running water? I would hate to lose any of the juice, however, and don't mind eating a little pulp to get all the juice and seeds from the rind.

It just occurred to me that the plants might grow from the seeds in the grocery store fruit. I have a pomegranate waiting to be cut, so I will try planting some seeds (if I can bear to give up eating them - LOL).

Jeremy

Jeremy

I am home and the epi still has some blooms on it so I will get better pictures tomorrow but here is one

Welcome back home, Sandy. It is a beautiful epi!

Jeremy

Thank you

Hi all,

Thanks Jeremy, He actually did both. He built the floor and walls in pieces then when he got here he put them all together and then built the roof and put shingles on it.

My mom is visiting from AL. She is looking for some bambo. I know they grow like crazy here. Do you know of a place in Jacksonville that has them cheap?

There are two types of bamboo - clumping and running. The clumpers won't send out runners and will stay basically where you plant them, spreading gradually in the immediate area of the parent plant. The runners will pop up around the parent plant and continue to spread. To find out if your bamboo is a clumper or a runner, feel the stems -- if there is a groove running vertically on the stems, it is a runner, if no groove, it is a clumper. My poem I use to remember which is which is: "If it's got a groove, it's gonna' move." LOL Also, bamboo in the Bambusa genus is a clumper.

I have Black Bamboo to share (Phyllostachys nigra http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1793/). The stems (actually called "corms") start out green, but turn ebony black as the bamboo grows taller and ages. It is a runner, but not excessively invasive. I don't mind it spreading because it can sell for up to $100 - $150 on some websites! (but I have it for free if your mom wants some). I just dug up and potted a division about 8 ft high and I think it will survive (currently going through leaf drop from the shock), and there are other runners I can dig up.

Clumping bamboo can be propagated much like any other plant -- cut a length of the stem (corm) so that you have 2 - 4 nodes (where the branches and leaves emerge). Cut off the lower branches at the stem and pot up the stem so that at least 2 nodes are beneath the soil surface, add some rooting hormone (gel type may work best, but the powder type will do), keep the soil consistently moist without being soggy in a shady spot. It may take a month or two for the stems to root, but they can grow fairly quickly after they get some roots going.

You are most likely going to find bamboo for sale at this time of year at nurseries like Trad's on San Jose or Gecko on Phillips Hiway or some of the tree farms or other nurseries more geared toward large landscape plantings. Be prepared for sticker shock if the bamboo are large specimens. If you know anyone with running bamboo and don't mind growing the running type, you can just take divisions by digging up the runners (like I do with my Black Bamboo). I have a few other bamboo species here I may be able to share also. Get in touch with me while your mom is in Jax. I know a bamboo enthusiast/expert that lives out Hecksher Drive going toward Amelia Island. He will give away bamboo of some species that he has when there is more of it than he wants (like me, he wants one of each species of plants, but doesn't want a landscaped planting) -- his only requirement is that you dig up the bamboo yourself. We might be able to get a group together and go out to his place for a field trip. He loves talking about all things bamboo.

Jeremy

Black bamboo!!!! Freaking awesome!!

Wow! I didn't even know that there was a black bamboo! If you have extra I would love it. Let me know what times/days are good for you and I can pick it up. If I have anything you like, let me know and I will share. And the price is why I was asking if anywhere sold it cheap b/c she has been looking in mail order magazines and it was expensive.

And a field trip sounds great too. I love seeing new plants and learning about them. My mom is leaving Friday AM so I know she wouldn't be able to come then. Maybe the next time she comes we can try some sort of field trip b/c I know she would enjoy it.

I will shoot you a D-Mail w/ my phone # and regular email address so you can call me or email me. I am not able to get on Dave's as much as I would like.

Michelle

Hi, Michelle. I live basically on the way to the airport (if your mom is flying out tomorrow and it is not too early) I'm about 1 mile off I-95 at Exit 357 - Edgewood Ave. N. You are welcome to bring your mom and come by on your way for her departure if that is convenient for you. I should be home all day. Otherwise, I will be here most upcoming days except for a few followup doctor appointments. Just let me know what would be a convenient time for you.

It is amazing what some of the catalog companies and websites want to charge for bamboo. Knowing how easy bamboo is to propagate and how quickly it grows, I really don't understand how they justify such high prices. I think I got my black bamboo several years ago from an eBay auction for about $20 as opposed to the $150 that White Flower Farms was charging for the same size plant.

With a bit of planning, our NE Fla Gardening Brigade group could go to the bamboo growers garden. He has some amazing plants and is willing to share some of the bamboo (bring your own shovel). His wife is also a gardener and between the two of them, they have a great collection of plants.

Happy New Year to all!

Jeremy

How about a new thread to start 2009................................

We've moved here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/938483/

This message was edited Jan 1, 2009 7:22 AM