Florida's Native Coontie Cycads - Gardener's Tales

 Are we there yet!!!

   How many times, us gardeners with unabated anticipation and have to take 

got to peek on some planted seeds?

Lets see a raise of those green thumbed hands. 

   Twice, in nearly two weeks now, I have it in head to as when my seedlings should sprout.

I only have a vague sense these rather large seeds, fatter than a winter plum pit. Winter being

that they are from across the southern hemisphere and almost as disappointing as the forlorned

winter tomato that deservedly at it's best, some varying degrees of red and that's it. 

These cycad seeds were harvested while walking home from a grocery store, at the dark

of night and announced themselves with a bright flash of pulpy orange. It helped that I was 

close to a road intersection where there was a street light and just happened to have been looking 

down?  Keep in mind I had made a couple of these treks in the dark within days if not a week 

and only now noticed them at the time of they're gathering.

 

   Jumped on the internet and found out how to get these seeds into propagation mode. Don the

rubber gloves, use a sharp object to rid this seed of it's succulent coating, well succulent to some

non human. I bet if I dug deeper on the internet if only to find that these might be edible, not that

 I am suggesting that they are. Surely there has to have been some other human who was the first 

to test these out and may or may not have lived to tell about it.

   A rather lengthy process and stopped at about six of seven seeds.  The remaining unmolested 

seeds sat there for I don't know how much time before stripping some more seeds for when that 

day when that little gardener's voice in my head that gives me a task when to put these seeds in a 

medium and beneficial environment for it's propagation. Not too dry, nor too wet, you get the idea,

the Goldilocks zone.

    This man made mini habitat, conducive to encouraging these seeds into being a fully productive 

biological specimen.  Carrying on the time honored tradition of encouraging and coaxing  some of 

our natives to thrive in this urban environment I call a garden paradise. 

    So low and behold and lets welcome these teeny tiny and did I say little bursts of life? That I can

only hope they well grasp this human endeavor that invites them to live and thrive no matter the 

challenges. After all it is a native and might have a slight edge either way, regardless of the 

human interventions that more often than not, that get in their way no matter the intentions.

 

Well Into The Season - Gardener's Tales

                MyFlorida season has not only sprung and the competition is furious.

                The competitions are no game other than, what will remain at the proverbial 

finish line. A never ending competition, no medals, although the prize may be it's next

meal.        Take for instance...

                 Yesterday's witness to a baby Mockingbird chick getting snatched from it's nest 

by eithera Cackle or Starling more than twice the size of the defending Mockingbirds.  As the 

black bird made off with it's catch, not two but four Mockingbirds gave a futile chase.

                  This happened just days after discouraging a stray cat from making a snack of,

you guessed it, a Mocking bird chick. It's that time of the year.

 

                  There's nothing natural about my yard collection other than it's in abundance

and they to have to compete to.  Many are in pots and have to rely on this human to meet their

water needs, the most basic and during our dry season too.  This morning's attention getter

was a kitchen scrap cum propagated and now going into seed with it's rather nondescript four

petaled yellow flowers, as it's calling card.  This constant gardener does what this naturally 

curious gardener does and takes a whiff of said welcoming blanket to all those pollinators, me 

not being one of them ofcourse and wow wow wow.  Was not expecting a bouquet of fragrance 

that's going to give the competition a run for it's roses.  There was already an army of tiny black

aphids sucking the life juices from this life specimen.  No doubt there is plenty where those juices 

came from to help produce and broadcast this plants come hither ye pollinators perfume.  All the 

while two other orchids hanging close by that have thier fragrance amplified by a million. By

the way these orchids this year have been host to several sizes of hornets, who knew.

That just goes to show me there is and will be something new to see by just stepping out of 

doors, out of our always changing misperceptions and just what ever it is that makes up our

inner world and that will always be our Season.  The season to wonder.

p.s. Imagined in your mind what this yellow flowering kitchen munchkin might look like.

Venturing Out Into The Familiar - Gardener's Tales

    Stepping out into my yard, be it just to take out some refuse from my kitchen pail or perhaps 

with last night's intention still lodged in my brain to find a better location for a potted specimen.

The encounters one comes upon with a free and open mind to welcome what one might not

have ever anticipated and yet it is still familiar.

                            Take it in and enjoy what your life brings you every moment.