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

June 8, 2026

Hard Work

Into every Growers garden really hard work falls.  Work that doesn’t result in a beautiful flower or magnificent tree.  There will be nothing to walk on or bed to admire.  Just work. Necessary work.  Like redigging the swales or dry detention because they’ve filled with dirt.  Digging overgrown water plants out of the fountain.  Or clearing brush.

It’s the function work.  The work that pushes my upper lip into that scrunchy, ick face.  LOL!  It’s also the work that makes your garden drain properly and not fill with water in storms, the work that keeps the paths clear and the fences from being pushed over.  You laugh, me too, but seriously.  Hard work.  Thankless work.  And, hopefully, work you can pay someone else to do.  LOL!  

While there is satisfaction in doing it, I’m not going to lie, I often wish I had a little help clearing the brush.  It’s super hard work, self-reliance and impressing myself aside.  Hopefully, you find a balance that makes you happy.  At the moment, I just feel sore.  Dang.

Around Our Garden

You guessed it, we cleared brush last week.  The electric company came and chopped at the False Nut Trees.  There are 4.  Let me be clear, we did not plant them along the road under the power lines.  Don’t want them there at all.  We get storms.  Regularly.  If you’ve never sat and watched tree branches beat at the electric lines going into your house for hours, we’re jealous.  It’s no fun.  After 2 years of repeatedly reporting them to the power company, they came and chopped down half of the trees.  Not 2 trees.  Half of each tree.  The other halves were pushed over our fence, away from the road.  One dead branch directly into our fence.  LOL!

Let me be very clear, the 1st big storm is going to knock over the tree, at least the big one.  The others might hang on for another round.  It’s better than the last time they came.  2 years ago they came with a chainsaw, cut at the big one’s trunk, only at the very top, and let what they cut fall back into the tree.  Then, they left.  It grew right back.  LOL!  

So, part of last week was spent cutting branches on the inside of our fence to take off a little weight.  The leaves were spread out over the giant in-place compost pile we’re working on in the yard.  It just looks a little messy.  LOL!

More Necessary Stuff

We also worked on the undeveloped lot.  Our landscaping tunnel is coming along nicely.  We made it up the entire length of the property, tunnel not complete, but at least we can get around back there.  Woo-Hoo!  We also started the summer weed fight, and there was a little stand-off with the Black Racer Snake.  We’re usually friendly, but it did not like me coming up on it for some reason, started shaking its tail.  I was merely taking a picture of the Pink Rain Lilies, which were incredible this week.  So weird.

Usually, Black Racers just freeze until we’ve passed, or slip off at lightning speeds.  The dogs can’t catch-um.  Neither can the feral cats.  At least one calls Our Garden its home, we think of it as the same one.  LOL!  They eat venomous snakes, particularly pygmy rattlers which we have in the area and used to have in the yard, until they showed up.  The Black Racers are welcome.  All other snakes beware.

Harvest

All the Florida Peaches have been Harvested, and they were delicious.  Wish we had dozens more.  We found a half mangled one on the ground and grabbed the rest off the tree.  It only took a couple more days for perfectly ripe beauties.  Woo-Hoo!  My Mom and I have been munching on them with breakfast.  Yum.  We’re going to take some cuttings and maybe do a graph.  We’re discussing.  The tree’s days are numbered.  Dang.

Yard to Table, we took Tomatoes, Broccoli and Cabbage last week.  While most of the Broccoli, Celery and Cabbage look haggard, a couple of the Broccoli and most of the Tomato plants are still looking good.  Same with the Celery.  We’ve had some dry days, often do at the start of the Rains.  Things might change this week.  Boo-Hiss.  We like having the Veggies, but the rest of the planties need the rain.

Flowers

It was so hard to choose, but the Sonia Dendrobium Orchid finally grabbed the Feature.  Very uncharacteristic of a Dendrobium, it’s only around for a short time, and we wouldn’t want you to miss it.  The sprawling white petals appear brushed at the tips in vibrant purple watercolor.  It’s hard to miss even small and tucked into the wall.  We didn’t expect it to flower at all with the move from the tree to the new orchid trellis wall, but there it was, shining in the sun.  Woo-Hoo!

Also in contention were the Pink Rain Lilies that came up everywhere glowing in the sunshine, and we got our 1st couple spikes of the Gold Coins, also dendrobium orchids of a different shape.  The 1st Purple Coneflower started to open, and for a couple of days, tiny little Barbatous Cherry Blossoms.  Woo-Hoo!  Our 1st from the new plants.  Can’t wait to see the fruit.  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.