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Recent Entries to this Blog Subject: Wasp Spray
Posted: 29 Jun 2010
The Moose are loose.
Posted: 15 Jun 2010
A Panoramic Tour of Our Garden - June 2010 - Warts & All
Posted: 04 Jun 2010
Exotic Plant from Region 10
Posted: 24 May 2010
You can tell it is May in Alabama
Posted: 24 May 2010

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Accidental Gardener's Blog




Exotic Plant from Region 10

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 5:19 pm

My wife attended an Arts & Crafts Fair in Palm Beach FL last fall. She came home with four plumeria sticks and stuck them into a large pot with a mixture peat moss, perlite and sand and told me not water them. The sticks had a different dot of paint on each one; red, yellow, pink and white.
We placed the pot in our sun room and ignored it. Sometime in March she told me to add a little water to the pot but very little.

We started watering these sticks on a weekly basis and at the beginning of May we placed them on the patio.

Yesterday the yellow stem had a bloom and I found it a very captivating flower and wanted to share it with you.




Plumeria Bloom ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )





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You can tell it is May in Alabama

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 12:43 pm

A few days ago I received a very frantic call from my neighbor; there was a snake in her swimming pool and her husband was on a camping trip. 'Are you afraid of snakes'? she asked. I grabbed my snake grabber and a flat faced hoe and went over to investigate.


Yup, that's a snake in the pool alright ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )

I have a grabber that people use to grab things down from the shelf with. It is really easy to grab a snake when it is on the ground but very difficult when they or suspended in water. It took a number of tries and I had to wait for the water moccasin to come up for air each time. But I finally got it unto the ground and used the hoe to put it out of its misery.








Snagging the snake ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )






It's harmless now ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )

Then last evening I was walking through the garden pulling weeds as I went and coming out of the purple martin house was this:




Snake in the bird house ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )

Only this snake was already dead. He had swallowed a martin and the girth of the bird would not allow the snake to get out of the small hole. He was stuck and with the 94 degree temp. died of heat exposure.

Oh, the joys of living on a lake in beautiful downtown Alabama.



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Things to do in the dark days of Winter - Plan for Spring

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 5:00 am

I have no idea how it happened but the links I had attached to this blog were missing so I added them again.

Now is the time to get ready for spring. Get your ideas and plans all in a row so you are ready to go after the thaw.
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/seasonal/spring-beauty-garden-plans/?sssdmh=dm17.417778&esrc=nwgn28_10&email=940709895


Have you ever used wildflowers? Plants that are native to your area will grow best in your garden.
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/gardening-by-region/regional-gardening/top-native-plants-for-your-region/?sssdmh=dm17.417778&esrc=nwgn28_10&email=940709895

Now is the time to plan for that landscaping project you want to start in the spring:
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/dramatic/garden-planideas/?sssdmh=dm17.417778&esrc=nwgn28_10&email=940709895

Remember, regardless of where you live, gardening is a 12 month a year endeavor and adventure. So much to do and only 365 days in which to do it. You better get started.

Last edited: Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:29 am

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Getting Adjusted To My Greenhouse

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:34 pm

A few weeks ago my brother-in-law, who has an incredibly busy schedule, drove down from Birmingham to run an electrical line to my new greenhouse. Since I am one of the millions of handymen who do not go near electricity I was totally dependent on his expertise. It was getting critical as the temperature kept dropping lower and lower as we got deeper into December. Naturally I was very anxious to get my heater installed to protect my plants that are wintering in there. He installed a ground fault interrupter box in my shed to protect the line from overloading. I was thrilled when we flipped the switch and the heater came on.

Greenhouse ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )

That night as the temperature continued to drop and he had returned to Birmingham, I checked the greenhouse and found that the GFI had tripped and all power was off. I reset the switch and the heater started up again. This happened again the second and the third nights too. I began checking the circuit three and four times a day and made some adjustments to the heater. It has a setting for 1500 and 1300 watts so I turned it down to the lower wattage. However, it again tripped out that night too. However, without any further adjustment it remained on the following night. That was over a week ago and it has not tripped since. I am holding my breath and 'knocking on wood 'that it remains that way. I still check it two or three times a night, just to be safe. First to the shed to check the switch and then to the greenhouse to check the temp.

Last night the temperature outside was 27F or -3C but 65F, 24C inside the greenhouse. In my visits to the greenhouse I was so consumed by the heater and what the temperature was that I did not take time to really look at the flowers. Yesterday I did take that time and was amazed at how beautiful everything is holding up. While it may be the depths of December outside it is still Summer in the greenhouse even if I still check the circuit in the middle of the night.


Begonia in Greenhouse ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


Boston Fern ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


Coleus & New Guenea Impatens cuttings ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


Begonia in Frog Planter ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


Older Coleus Cuttings ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


Foxtail Fern ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )





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Elaeagnus - Not the Best Plant If You Like Neat & Orderly.

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:32 pm

Elaeagnus by definition is used to: Enhance an evergreen scene with a single silvery specimen or plant in mass for a windbreak, bank cover, barrier hedge or fast growing 'wall' to screen unsightly views. Can be groomed into formal hedging, but will contribute an elegant uncultivated feel to naturalistic gardens if grown without shearing.

When we moved in this plant along our front privacy fence was already out of control. The previous owners never touched it as it grew to heights of 20 feet along this 60' fence. By this summer it looked like this.
( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


I want to get it under control this spring but had to wait until the hundreds of birds that found summer roosts in its dense branches had moved on. Last week I hired a yardman to cut it back and cart off the severed branches and that was not an easy task to say the least. Today that same area looks like this:

( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )


I like the new clean look of my front yard and will be working on additional landscaping this spring.

My challenge now is to keep these prolific growing shrubs under control so they will look like this:


( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )





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Crepe Myrtles: You Can't Be A Tree So You Must Be A Weed!

Category: Things That Grow In My Garden | Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 5:03 am


Crepe Myrtle Weed :-) ( photo / image / picture from Accidental Gardener's Garden )

If you are a tree that blooms and then dump your billions of rotting petals upon the ground and cover everything and anything below you - you just may be a weed.

If someone actually has to keep peeling off your bark on a regular basis and you do not die - you just may be a weed.

If someone can cut off ALL your limbs in February and not only don't you die but you actually grow them back by June - you just may be a weed.

If you keep sprouting suckers and branches where suckers and branches are not suppose to grow - you just may be a weed.

If you cannot be removed cut down or dug out of the ground and burned and you still send up new replacement shoots in the spring - you just may be a weed.

I know that up North we would have no problem classifying you as an undesirable plant - thus a weed. A real tree cannot survive what is done to you day in and day out.

What you are is the luckiest weed in the yard because you actually have these good people fooled into thinking you are a real tree. And they are very willing to pay good money at an expensive nursery to purchase you; when all they have to do is remove a sucker that is growing below ground level and plant you wherever they want you to grow. Full sun, shade, good soil, bad soil it just does not matter. My Southern belle wife does it all the time.

We have three of you growing right now. I have never watered, fed or nurtured any of you. While many real plants around you that were watered, fed and nurtured have died and are long forgotten, all three of you crepe myrtles are just thriving. Go figure!

Now, repeat after me, I am not a real tree, I am a weed. Albeit a beautiful weed seven to ten days out of the year.






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