Confessions of a Grandma

Oh, well, I missed the super bowl.  Mike has even less interest in football than I do.  I usually know what teams are playing although even that went by me this year.  I tuned in for Downton Abbey though. It was a gorgeous day here on the Florida west coast—cooler than it has been and I took advantage with a great bike ride. I noticed this trail off the neighborhood road I was pedaling along so I went down to explore.  I could hear traffic.  This little park is very near the overly commercial strip of Route 41 and very near the large shopping center in South Venice, but it looked like a slice of rural Florida. I spotted an egret and a little blue heron along the creek shores.   Neither one was at all interested in having its picture taken. I also saw a chenille plant, but the picture did not come out or I deleted it accidentally.  This is a Brazilian pepper plant that has become, like so many species of both flora and fauna, a Florida in...

I made a trip to a local plant nursery .  Two extremely helpful women helped me to identify the plants in my yard, gave me the Sarasota County Extension service phone number, and steered me to a web site with plenty of information about taking care of the yard. This may be the slow season here as far as tourism, but it is a great time for customer service.  I am glad we get to do the big shopping time instead of during the winter months. Frangipani flowers (a bit spent)--they have a lovely scent. The tree looks like dead sticks in the winter, though.  These white flowers smell so much like an orange blossom that I was guessing it was some kind of mock orange.  The woman at the nursery called it an orange jasmine.  On the net, I found out it is also called a tea tree.  The smell is wonderful (and I thought of you, Arkansas Patti). These are seeds on a crape myrtle, which blooms in summer and shed leaves in the winter. What Florida yard would...