Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Day 2 of Shooting

Yesterday went really well. Here's a short recap. We did two segments on protecting the waterfront (fertilizer selection and spreader differences, and segments on butterfly container gardening, herbs in the garden, and mimosas. We also did a segment on building bat houses and bats as insect control. We visited the big UF bat house (more than 150,000 bats!) and I got bat gauna on me. Overall, a very successful day. Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures since I was busy most of the day. I'll try to do better today.

I'm really excited about today's scheduled shooting. We should be doing segments on making a tire planter, creating your own succulent dish, tub gardening, caring for house plants, and probably one more. I'm really excited about the tub gardening one - I think it's really cool and something I can do at home. I'll keep you posted!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Shooting Starts Today!


Kanapaha
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

We start shooting today and we may do a piece on crinum rust. Here's an example of it. Walter (the host from Georgia) wasn't as familiar with crinum rust, but I'm sure one of our Florida horticulturists will be able to help him out!

The crinum garden at Kanapaha is pretty good. It's a large area with several different cultivars of crinum. Not many were in bloom right now, but they're still pretty - rust and everything! If I learn how to treat rust today, I'll add to the post.

Friday, May 9, 2008

The Zen of Lizards



Another Kanapaha photo that Erin took. I really liked it.

Exciting News for the Florida Gardening Community!

University of Florida and University of Georgia will be working together to produce a gardening TV show! It will begin airing in 2009, but we're going to be shooting some segments next week. We'll be highlighting some of our specialists and special Florida stuff as well as doing Georgia stuff and general stuff. I can't tell you too much right now, but I'll document the filming for everyone next week.

In anticipation of the film crew arriving next week, we did a site visit to Kanapaha Botanical Gardens to to take pictures for the producer. Kanapaha looks great at the moment. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. You can see the rest at our Flickr site.

I love gazebos and Kanapaha has a bunch of them.


The herb garden looks amazing right now. They've got someone volunteering out there full time. He's made some really big improvements to it.


Kim took this picture. Isn't it great?


I can tell you that Felder Rushing may be one of our guests this time. And, in his honor, I'm showing you a picture of the bottle tree at Kanapaha.


Oh, and between now and next Tuesday, I have to find Felder a tire that does this? Do you know what for?

The New Planter

Here is the famous coleus that everyone wants a cutting from. I'm getting ready to plant them in the pretty lime green planter. The coleus aren't looking their best. They dry out so fast when they're not planted.


I've got the potting soil in the pot.


Placed the plants.


Filling the soil in.


The finished planter!


And the best part is...it's a self-watering container!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Gnome Found a Home!

Under the elephant ears. Welcome to the garden, gnome. Now, he needs a name.

My New Front Garden

My sister, Erin, is the new commercial horticulture agent in Jacksonville. Luckily for me, she's pretty handy with landscape design. I've been letting my free plants sit for more than a week because I never know where to put plants so that they look nice. She was here on Saturday for a graduation party for the other sister, Alli, and was nice enough to place plants for me. I've now got a nice, filled in bed. I planted lots of zinnia and lantana, some geraniums, and a few duranta and elephant ears. I also had a few extra plants such as sweet potato vine, basil, vincas, and some other stuff. I also have two hibiscus and a mandevilla that I planted in pots. I wasn't sure where I wanted to put those.

Here's the front bed with mostly zinnias in it. The elephant ears also went in here. There are two varieties of elephant ears. One is a black magic, maybe? The plants aren't labeled great when we get them, so I usually have to have one of the horticulturists help me identify them. You can also see the amaryllis planted close to the porch. It's also on the other side of the porch. Most of those bulbs are free from Tom's neighbor. I love free plants.


This is the lantana bed. I had planted lantana last year (again freebies!) that had frozen back. They've come back nicely and we've planted the many other different colored lantanas around them. You can also see the Japanese magnolia that's leafed out nicely.


This is the side of the house garden. It looks like there are mostly geraniums planted here, but there's also duranta and plumbago. The small crape myrtle was from my mom's yard last year. And, we planted vinca underneath it. Notice that we didn't put anything too close to the fence. This is preventive Tebow planting so that he can't reach through and eat it.


I'm very happy with the way these have turned out. And, greatly appreciate having all the help from family and friends who have much more gardening experience than I. They're pretty patient with me and tell me the same things every year at the same time. Thanks guys!