And How Does My Garden Grow ?

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

I've been playing hooky from my online web presence...no Etsy...no twitter...felt great!

John and I did some gardening, planted a Bougainvillea and started a small veggie garden, a couple of heritage tomato plants and some bell peppers, aka sweet peppers...would like to get some herbs, but not today.

Had planted some Candy Tuft seeds back in February, thought that spring was right around the corner, didn't realize how far around the corner it really was...even for south Florida ! Poor seedlings sprouted but had to remain indoors until signs of frost were past, several weeks later. By that time the sprouts had grown lanky and sported only a few sparse leaves. When finally planted I wouldn't have given them much chance of becoming attractive plantings but as you can see from the above photo they survived and are now lush with perky bouquets of white blossoms. I have my fingers crossed for the bougainvillea. We had planted a very tropical, brightly colored croton called a Dread Locks or a Jamaican, due to the spiraling coils of long foliage, unfortunately it, being tropical, required constant watering and last summer our rainy season did not comply. I was forever dragging out the garden hose and eventually, between the sporadic deep watering and a bad case of mealy bugs the Dread Locks succumbed ! Now, months latter we've planted a pretty, bright bougainvillea in its place. Since bougainvillea aren't as reliant upon moisture I'm hoping that it will fair well and grow into a lovely specimen.

It was a beautiful day for planting and puttering in the garden.