Greetings Growers & Lovers of Green Things

The Tropical Grower welcomes you to the online version of Our Garden. Check out our What’s Bloomn’ slideshow featuring last week’s flowers, cruz the latest topics at the Blog Page for information, enjoy the Photos, or just check out what’s happening this week in Garden Dirt. While we are Growing Tropical, growing is for everyone, and we’re here to share the green.

Garden Dirt

August 17, 2026

We’re Watering

Let me see: middle of August, technically the Rainy Season (June-Nov).  We live below the tropical growing line.  Pretty sure we didn’t move.  So, where’s all the rain?  You know, the afternoon showers and thunderstorms we have every year.  It’s all the Rain and above-freezing temps that makes Growing Tropical possible.  It’s hot, but we haven’t had any rain in about a week and we’re starting to question our own name: The Tropical Grower.  LOL!  And, we’re watering.

**Heavy Sigh.  If you haven’t heard me mention how much I dislike hauling around our super heavy hose, this may be your 1st time here.  LOL!  We have hose made out of recycled tires.  It’s required.  Some of the irrigation hoses are just heavy duty, but those are buried.  We’re particularly hard on hoses, both from the beating sun and use.  My Mom just tried one of those heavy duty expandable hoses.  It lasted 3 weeks.  LOL!  And as much as I don’t mind pulling it across the yard once, multiple moves, even just moving the sprinkler, all over the acre is taxing.  It didn’t help we also did some clearing last week.  Rubber band arms.  LOL!  Seriously, I was sore.

Unfortunately, we’re going to have to continue watering until mid-week.  I don’t recall the dust and upper-level high pressure restricting the storms this long, but that’s where we’re at.  It’s a Growers responsibility to give their plants what they want, and they don’t want this at all.  So, sprinkling it is, heavy hose and all.  I do like the sprinkler.  It sounds nice, and you can walk right through it to cool off.  LOL!  Perks. If you just need a little irrigation, try : How to Set Up Simple Irrigation.

Around Our Garden

Because we did an early morning sprinkling rotation, it severely limited the other activities in Our Garden last week.  Dang.  And even with the sprinkler cooling everything down a bit, it was hot and humid.  So, we hid a bit between the sprinkler moves.  There are several cooler areas in Our Garden: in the very back, at the base of the tall pines along the eastern border, in the tunnel under the Cage Match, or on the undeveloped area in the woods.  Woo-Hoo!  Reprieve from the heat. 

So, we opened up a much needed 2nd entrance into the woods, weeded, and made Mulch.  In the back along the fence, I have piles of sticks.  Last year, we cleared Pepper Bush and Scrub Oak, broke down the branches, and stacked sticks along the fence to chip later.  It’s easier if the sticks are dry and not fresh.  But instead of chipping, we decided to make stick mulch.  It’s heavy, lasts longer than the chip and keeps the sand in place.  Great for the dry detention and berm.  Because it was stacked the same direction, it was as easy as slipping the JawSaw in and cutting sections.  Placing the Stick Mulch was lots hotter.  Dang.  We broke down all but one of the stick piles.  It’s good to get things cleaned up a bit.

In a surprise find, not a good one, the ants are building mounts in the Golden Dewdrop branches, apparently over scale bugs, to protect and immobilize them while they harvest their slime.  Yuck.  So, we washed all that craziness off.  We were going to treat it, but I saw the Asian Lady Beetles.  Don’t want to kill those.  So, we’re going to see if they’ll clear the scale bugs out.  Fingers Crossed.

Butterfly House

Don’t get too excited.  We did have a Butterfly emerge, but He was super independent.  Wanted nothing to do with us, and immediately flew off as soon as it was outside.  Dang.  Yep, that’s a big lip you’re reading between the lines.  LOL!  

Butterfly #3 was another boy with a distinct line of yellow dots.  Every time anyone got close to the Butterfly House, he flew around and tried to get away.  Since we didn’t want to stress him out while he was drying his wings, we stayed away.  I took 4 fuzzy photos inside the Butterfly House.  Boo-Hiss.  And even though I had my hand covering him, He immediately flew out and off as soon as we got outside.  We caught a glimpse of him clearing the back trees, and he was gone.  A little bit of a disappointment after all the plants and poop, but interesting how different they all have been.

Harvest

A few Key Limes were collected early in the week, but as the Rains let up, so did the Harvest.  The tree held on to its precious fruit.  It’s okay.  We got many early, and we’re still using those up.  If we run out, we’ll pick a few, but we prefer to let them fall when they’re ready.

The nursery on the other hand looks so amazing!  Beautiful new baby plants sprouting up a storm.  At least there’s a storm somewhere.  LOL!  The new Bok Choy, Celery, and Red Cabbage seeds sprouted immediately and are right behind everything else.  We’re probably going to have to start moving everything to bigger pots this week.  A good problem to have.

Flowers

The Golden Dewdrops captured the Feature this week.  Despite the ants farming scale bugs, it’s blooming like crazy, attracting all the Butterflies fluttering through Our Garden.  While visiting the Butterfly House in Dallas, I decided we needed one.  It’s a flowering hearty vine, like the Bougainvillea, without the thorns.  Woo-Hoo!  But best of all, it has dozens of long trailing tendrils filled with tiny purple flowers.  And, this one the kids picked out and gave me without knowing how much I wanted one.  It just looks like something I would love.  LOL!

The Giant Elephant Ear Philodendron started popping out the 2 foot tall white lily flowers.  We love these.  So big.  The Buttercup bush is filled with flowers and Skipper Butterflies.  Because the Skippers are brown people often mistake them for moths, but up close, they have lots of color.  So pretty on the golden flowers.  And, we got another round of My Great Grandma’s Easter Lilies.  Woo-Hoo!  Enjoy!

Check out What’s Bloomn’ slideshow for more flowers or visit Garden Dirt Diary to catch up on what’s been going on around Our Garden.