Lavender planted on 4/4/2012

I managed to get the lavender into the ground today after work.  I had picked up 3 2-gallon pots at the local home improvement store of a variety that claims to be a Florida variety of lavender and I had 2 of the Provence plants left that still needed to be transplanted into the ground.  I gave them a little extra room so they could spread out as they grow.  I love lavender.  I recently took out a vase of lavender from my garden in Chicago that is from 11 years ago.  Would you believe it still smells really lovely?  I was amazed!  Lavender is used in cooking and crafts.  It's not just pretty in the garden and fragrant to walk past in the yard or in a vase on your table.  Lavender dries great just by tying together in bunches and hanging upside down in a cool dark-ish place like the basement laundry room or garage.   

Florida Lavender

French Provence Lavender

Since I have no basement in here in Florida, I now hang in a back bedroom that is not used frequently.  The idea is to put somewhere where it won't be disturbed much.  Lavender likes full sun, good drainage and it seems to do pretty well.  They have average watering needs and do not do well if you let them go too long without water.  They prefer a sandy soil.  If you have clay soil, add sand to give it the sandy texture it prefers.   I water every other day when temperatures are in the 70s to mid 80s and every day when the temperatures are mids 80s and above.  There are some varieties that do well in shade as well.  There are 3 types of lavender: English (zones 5-8) Spanish (zones 7b-10b) and French (zones 8a-10b).    The Provence lavender I chose is a special French lavender grown for making perfume.  You can see the difference between the two different lavenders I'm growing in the photos above.  Maybe we can try making some essential lavender oil from the French Provence lavender.   If you are interested in this, I have a link for that. Everything lavender has everything you could possibly want to know about lavender.  I was really captivated by their site.  I admit that I'm enough of a lavender nut that when I went to the south of France I sought out the lavender fields.  I searched and searched until I was able to find a supplier of the French Provence lavender for my home garden and I am happy to have 4 plants now planted in it.  

So anyway, we have this little experiment going on now.  Two of the French Provence lavender plants are inside the lanai and two are outside the lanai planted on an South- Southeastern exposure.  We'll keep our eyes peeled on them and see what happens to the plants and take note of the differences.  

I thought that my seeds were not doing anything at all and was ready to go buy plants.  I noticed this week that I was wrong AGAIN.  

Parsley plants 4/4/2012 

Take a look at the photo and you'll see the parsley is actually starting to come in.  It's just me being impatient.  This is a problem I often face, not waiting long enough.    I also found a little basil seed must have blown from my basil plants last year and taken hold this spring  in the planter of dill or something strange that I cannot explain. I discovered a single basil plant growing.  I picked it out and carefully moved it to a safe place where it has plenty of room to grow.  This is where it comes in really handy to know what your plants look like as opposed to weeds.  This way you don't accidentally pull a viable plant versus a weed.  I also got the plumeria 

Basil 4/4/2012

slips planted.  I received instructions with the slips but I am never comfortable with just instructions like that.  I always search the internet too.  I found a wonderful website with a tremendous amount of good info on plumeria plants and used the instructions they had for planting mine.  The one thing I did differently was that I did not use rooting hormone.  I didn't have any on hand and so I had to do without.  I have some on order so I'll have it on hand next time I really need it.  However, I did follow all the other instructions they had posted.  I also cut out the photo of each type of plumeria and put it in plastic and put it with the matching slip.  They said it will take 90 days for the plumeria to take root.  I'm wondering how impatient me is going to deal with this.  I check my budding orchid several times a day just to see if there's any change.  :)  I have a feeling it's going to be a very long 90 days.  Wish me luck.

Newly planted plumeria slips 4/4/2012

French Lavender
Eeeeee!  I'm so excited! My French Provence Lavender arrived today.  I ordered 4 plants in 4 inch pots.  This delivery was the fastest post I think I ever got and it came in a box marked perishable filled with those little Styrofoam peanuts.  The pots had tape over the soil to keep it moist.  These plants, though not flowering yet, are extra fragrant and as soon as I cut the tape and opened the flaps, the aroma wafted out and wriggled its way up to my nose and tickled my senses.  I can't wait until the weekend comes and I have the time to plant them.  I'll have to search Google and see if they'll be safe from the deer or if I'll have to make room in the cramped quarters on the lanai for them.   For people that know me well, they are probably laughing about now because they realize this is the 4th time I'm trying to grow lavender in Florida.  Every time before it has died on me.  This time I did a little more research and chose to search for the species that suited the zone I now live in.  When I lived in zone 5, it did so well, I couldn't kill it. 

Avocado - February 23, 2012

Avocado Grown by Seed
Have you ever grown a potato in a glass of water?  How about an avocado?  As a grandma to two 3-year old grandsons and a brand new grandson, I've been helping the older ones learn the love of playing in the dirt and growing things.  You saw what happened when we planted bean seeds.  It took two tries but that is how we learn.  We also ate an avocado and then washed the seed that was left after we finished enjoying the fruit.  After that, we stuck three toothpicks into the seed at equal distances around the center to help balance it and hold it on the rim of a plastic cup.  We balanced it on the rim of the cup and then filled the cup with water to cover about 1/3 of the bottom of the seed.  We kept changing the water to keep it from getting murky and rotten.  Some days it looked like it evaporated and we just added a bit more water to keep it covering about 1/3 of the seed.  After awhile, roots began to form.  When the root system looked fairly strong and the toothpicks caved in, we planted the avocado seed in soil.  It's been about 6 months now and we're starting to get some woody covering beginning to form on the stem.  In other words, we are getting a tree beginning to form!!