March....really?

I seemed to have spent the winter in limbo somewhere.  I know I didn't do much gardening except to plant some Thai peppers.  I received a call from my favorite nursery, South Brevard Nursery, in November (I think) asking if I was still interested in Thai peppers.  I had left a request with them last spring!  I rushed to their location in W. Melbourne and took home four tall, rather straggly plants.  But they all had peppers or flowers on them.  Jim has been enjoying their unique taste ever since.  I thought we might lose them twice when night temperatures were forecast to go below 40 degrees (a no-no according to the nursery people) but I covered them up and they were not affected.  Last week I noticed new flowers on the plants, so we're hoping they will continue to grow.  The only hitch in that could be this weekend.  Another cold front is swinging through Florida and again temperatures in Palm Bay are forecast below 40.  It's a waiting game.

I usually try to plant my tomatoes the end of February or early March but will wait another week or two for warmer days and nights.  My biggest concern these days is where to plant them.  I'm afraid my regular garden needs a rest from tomatoes and I'm not sure where else I can put them.  I'm thinking of the area next to our bedroom on the south side (where the boat and car used to be stored) but I still have the problem of no sprinklers in that area.  If I do go there, I may try redirecting the closest sprinkler head to that area, plus put a soaker attachment on the hose to use twice a week.  We'll see.

Our weather has been so crazy with its ups and downs week by week and even day by day.  I was sure my flowering plants would suffer, but was I wrong! 

 

This is the azalea in front of the house, the first to start blooming, and it's now fully covered in huge pink blossoms.

 

For the first time in many years, all my azaleas are blooming at the same time, and in my side garden in the back yard, all the bushes are blooming together!

 

 

From the back corner, the snow bushes are begging for a pruning they have grown so tall; a ti plant beautifully red; a salmon red azalea; dwarf powder puffs; India hawthorne at left with white flowers; pink azalea along the fence; pink knockout rose on left; another hawthorne in front.  You might note a skinny trunk in back which is the holly tree, growing tall but not very wide, and the wider trunk in front at right which is the ash, wider spread to provide shade for those azaleas. 

 

I have nothing to report or show of my magnolia other than it is still alive and seems to be growing, but very slowly.  I haven't given up on it yet.

 

My rose bushes in the front yard didn't mind the weather changes and have bloomed all season.  So did the ixoras, even the new ones I planted last year. 

 

So you can see there hasn't been much to do for the past 4-5 months.  But now it is back to weeding marathons because the weeds have loved the warmer temperatures. 

 

More later, when there is more to tell.