The best booth at TPIE

Fairchild Botanical Garden 143
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Kerry's orchids had the most amazing booth at TPIE. It was very contemporary and clean. The lighting was great and the sales people were really interactive and knowledgeable. From a communications/marketing point of view, they did an awesome job of displaying their merchandise and cool products (which they had lots of). Kudos to Kerry's!

Stingray plant

Fairchild Botanical Garden 140
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

This was my favorite plant of the day -- Alocasia 'Sting Ray'. It looked just like a stingray. It's part of the Hort Couture marketing campaign. The advertisements were amazing.

TPIE & flower arrangements

Fairchild Botanical Garden 167
Originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute

Last week, Kim and I went down to the Tropical Plant Industry Expo (TPIE) in Ft. Lauderdale. We also took my sister, Alli. She's graduating in the spring and was job shopping.

We took lots of pictures while there. The FNGLA annual convention is going to be at The Breakers in June. The Breakers had several flower arrangements there on display. I really liked this one. I think Kim said it had ginger in it, but I'm not sure.

'Christmas Rose'

'Christmas Rose', originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

This is one of the varieties I bought. I went with more traditional colors this year. This one is really unusual and I like the way the bracts seem to form flowers.

Christmas Cactus

Christmas Cactus, originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

This was the color Christmas cactus I got. I think I bought a purple one last year, but since it's not blooming I don't really remember.

Poinsettia Field Day

Poinsettias 2007 041, originally uploaded by Gardening in a Minute.

Today was the UF Poinsettia Open House. I arrived at 8 am and it was already crazy. I bought 3 poinsettias for myself, 2 for mother-in-law, and a Christmas cactus (since I didn't get my to bloom this year).

I also took a lot of pictures and practiced with the macro lens. This was one of the best shots I got. The lighting looks really good. White poinsettias are not my favorite, but they were very pretty today.

Strep Throat, Thanksgiving, and Everything In Between

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but I have good excuses. First, I got strep throat and was out of the office for a week. And, then Thanksgiving kinda snuck up on me and I was on vacation for a week. But, I have been gardening in those few moments here and there.

Here's a picture of the garden growing nicely. The lttuce have taken off. This is really an experiment year for me - trying to figure out what I can grow and what I like to grow. Lettuce and greens do well, I'll have to stick with them.


I've expanded my garden into some old containers we had. This is a mineral block container for cattle that we've repurposed. My husband drilled wholes in the bottom of it for drainage and filled it with composted horse manure. I planted the grape tomatoes that I started from seed in it. I think the manure maybe too dense and doesn't allow drainage. The plants don't seem to be growing. We'll see. I may paint the container next summer to give it a little color for the garden.


I added some bare root strawberry plants. I lost a few in the first cold snap of the season, but since they come 25 in a bundle for $5, it wasn't too big a deal.


Here is the squash. I love growing squash. They do great and it's one of my favorite vegetables. I was hand pollinating for awhile, but the bees have discovered my squash patch and so I no longer need to hand pollinate. I picked my first crop out of there this weekend and made a squash casserole. It was yummy.


Also in my squash patch was the giant pumpkin that my dad brought me. The key word here being was. I killed it with the first freeze. I didn't cover it. Totally my fault. Unfortunately, my dad came up the day after the freeze and all he got to see were the mushy remains of the pumpkin plant.