It is hot and humid ~ 83 but feels like 106

 

Good morning Folks ~ It is a hot, muggy morning, right around 10:30 and just miserable out as you can see by the title of this post. We had some rain earlier, but now the sun is shining. I got a load of laundry in the machine, and hope to get it hung out and dried before afternoon thunderstorms roll in. I mowed yesterday afternoon around 4:30 and was soaked from sweating when finished.  At least there was cloud cover. I’ve more yard work to do but not today.

I took some pics on the 4th, and some this morning, the 8th.  I’ve moved potted roses over to my St. Francis garden, so that I can water them easier, and I love the new look.

Click on photos for a larger view.

Everything is growing like crazy, flowers and weeds, I’ll just show the flowers though not the weeds. Below is my front patio jungle with the main garden at the back of photo with the gazing ball.

Here is the ‘caravan’. My homemade arbor is being covered by moonflower vines and confederate jasmine vines.

A few weeks back I was having a hard time with closing the door to the caravan. Then one morning it came off the hinge.  I thought ‘what the heck now?’ I looked and the hinge pin had worked it’s way out somehow and disappeared. I found it under the step up into caravan, then had to wrangle holding the door while aligning the two parts of hinge, one on caravan and the other on the door.  Finally got it and now all is well again in that dept.  I added the mailbox which has heart cut outs on it, and the other iron piece on the left side, plus the little iron holder, that is holding a heart shaped rock. I’ve not done anymore in the inside, except to put ‘stuff’ in there, neatly in shelves and plastic drawer units.

Here is my favorite hibiscus.  The coloring is more mellow in this bloom than in blooms past, but it is still a beauty. This is ‘Hugs-n’-kisses’.

This is Tahitian Gardenia.  I just love these big wonderfully scented blooms.

This is the dwarf white orchid tree. These flowers have a nice delicate scent.

Bauhinia acuminata.

Here are some sky shots this morning. The first one is looking in a southwesterly direction.

Now this is looking south.  Stormy weather heading our way.

The next three are looking east.

Now here are some rose blooms.

‘Bon Silene’

I think this is ‘Heirloom’.

‘Knockout’ in red.

‘Maggie’ an old favorite with two blooms that I almost missed. I need to make cuttings of this rose as it is an ‘old garden rose’ and one of my favorites, and I’d hate to lose it.

This is an unknown wonderfully scented rose.

Unknown miniature.

This miniature rose is called ‘Picnic’.

This is an old-time favorite, ‘Prosperity’.

‘Louis Philippe’ known as the Florida Cracker Rose. I’ve had this rose for years and years, and it’s a cutting from my original which I had for many years.

 

Another unknown miniature.

And

‘that’s all folks’,

as Bugs Bunny used to say.

I hope you all are having a good week so far.

Count your blessings and ask God for strength to get you through rough times.

FlowerLady

Changed my favicon

Good afternoon everyone ~ Hope you are enjoying the many moments that make up your lives. Each day is a gift. May we appreciate each and every one, and grow in all good things.

My dear DH had an idea for my favicon, so I thought I would see what I could come up with, and I like it. FL stands for FlowerLady of course, and it is also the abbreviation for the state we live in. Favicons are really easy once you know what to do.

Boy oh boy did we ever get a rain last night. It had just started when I was writing my last post. It blew in from the west with strong winds, heavy rains, thunder and lightening. We had some gentler rains this morning and it is somewhat cooler than it has been.

We did our errands this morning, part of which was an eye exam for myself and the dr. said my eyeballs are healthy and she only changed my glasses prescription a little bit for reading and for astigmatism. I used my old frames as they are still in good shape, but even at that, yikes, prices must have really gone up since I last had this done. I’m glad my eyes are healthy though. That was good news.

Yesterday afternoon I worked more on my latest needlework and that felt good. I hadn’t done anything in about three weeks.

This morning I took some pictures after our nice rain last night. Below are the results.

This is Caldwell’s Pink or Pink Pet, it and Louis Philippe were the first roses I bought many, many years ago.

I am inside our screened room off the back of our cottage for the next picture of a caladium with raindrops. In the second picture, you can see the trees and screened room framing reflected in the raindrop.

Next we have a fresh bloom of the Dwarf White Orchid tree.

Here is my secret little seating area at the nw back corner of my main garden area. We bought that Victorian wire bench at a flea market many, many years ago for $10. The heart iron piece hanging above it was part of a chandelier I think we found curbside. The other painted piece is aluminum I think and another found piece. There is lattice above and Phyllis Bide roses are growing over the top from the right and I’m trying to get a morning glory type vine to grow up and over the other side. On the fence shelf is another little iron piece from an old light fixture and seashells.

Guess that’s it for now. I want to thank you all for taking the time to visit and leaving your kind comments.

I’m going to take a little break from blogging to do some things around here. Enjoy this month of August and I hope it cools down for all of you that need it, and I hope that you get rain too.

More blooms, etc.

While most of your gardens are being put to sleep, ours are just waking up from a long summer nap. This is when our gardens do their best, from now til the start of next summer. We'll see what kind of winter we have this coming year, as last year we had many 'cold' days, and lots of gardeners, myself included lost some of our plants.

I am trying to go with the flow with what will do well down here. One group of flowers that does well are the periwinkles. They are so easy, self-seeding and drought tolerant.
















Cassia is a fall bloomer that the Sulphur Butterflies love.







Caught this critter yesterday, we don't see as many as we used to since we lost a lot of our pine trees due to hurricanes and a beetle that killed many around the state.







This is a ground cover, which grows like crazy.




Dwarf White Orchid tree grown from seed, sweetly scented flowers.




The morning sun hitting this wall made me grab the camera.





Here is a closer view of this painting.




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Where flowers bloom so does hope.

Lady Bird Johnson

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Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL