Now, two weeks later, I feel sheepish because I've been playing hooky! And it's been GREAT! I'm trying to talk myself into calling it a garden "field trip", but in truth, my time last week was spent playing! I traveled to the "Sunshine State" of Florida on the Gulf coast....
While entranced by the cadence of the waves crashing on the shore day and night, that was not the only FL feature I savored. I have a new appreciation for my garden blog friends from this grow zone!! Your flora is hypnotic - Hibiscus stops me in my tracks and I weep openly when I see Bougainvillea! It's all just breathtaking... If you have a chance. visit Deb at http://deborahsgarden.blogspot.com/, Kimberly at http://deborahsgarden.blogspot.com/ and Meems at http://hoeandshovel.blogspot.com/. Their blogs capture the journey of gardening in the sunny state of FL and link to other great references and blog sites in tropical gardening.
In my travels last week, while I did not visit key locations like Busch Gardens, I did get to see some FL landscaping in its most fundamental sense -- in commercial real estate. Some was rudimentary, and then other was really eye-catching. Here are a few snapshots I took with my little cell phone camera (which I continue to appreciate more and more!)
On a small shopping excursion (and if you know me - I'm not a big shopper), the landscaping across the street caught my eye. So while my gal pals were browsing through the chotchkes in the local gift shop, I dodged two-way traffic to take these pictures...
The first thing that caught my eye was the seashell mulch. It was striking! Then there was the Fountain grass - it appeared that the landscape designer embraced the 'less is more' design concept. Each plant became it's own 'superstar', drawing you eye around the garden - as much with blank space as with plant material.
Some of my other favorites included...
And....
It was a fantastic vacation, extremely relaxing! Believe it or not, I did have a piece of me happy to return home from this tropical paradise. I'm refreshed and ready to jump back in the saddle - in my garden. I was delighted to see the Rose Mallow has bloom buds the size of walnuts, just ripe to burst -- now that it's protected from those persistent furry little beasts (my nemesis - the bunnies).
...now if I can just get the sand out of my shoes....
