I wanted to show you a few more pictures of my pond garden. This is a garden I’ve really struggled to get right. Rob and I built the pond in 2010, and I’ve been working on the surrounding garden ever since. The garden is contained …
In October 2017 Rob and I started developing our latest garden bed—a large curving area under the giant pecan tree in the backyard. For years this new bed looked rather awkward and scrawny, with lots of bare spots and weedy spots, but recently it’s had …
In 2010, Rob and I dug a little goldfish pond in our backyard and surrounded it with a picket fence that we stained dark green. Since the first day of its existence, the pond has been a big success. Very soon it was brimming with tadpoles, frogs, snails, and dragonfly nymphs—so much life! But the garden around it was just kind of jungly and crazy and not all that pretty.
So, finally, in 2018 I decided to revamp the whole thing. In October of that year, I had just finished building a new stone path all the way around the pond when Hurricane Michael struck. A gigantic pine tree, as wide as an elephant, fell across the garden. It smashed the picket fence and crushed dozens of plants.
It took four months to remove the fallen giant, and another six months after that to rebuild and repaint the fence. But even a year after the hurricane, the garden still looked kind of damaged and broken.
When Covid hit in March 2020, my office shut down and I started working from home. Without my daily commute (which was 45 minutes each way), I had extra time for yard work—and I made improving the pond garden my top project. I mulched the whole area with wood chips and planted coonties, beautyberry, lady ferns, autumn ferns, and Shi-Shi Gashira sasanquas. I added birdbaths and statues, along with blue-glazed pots of annuals (caladiums in summer and cyclamen in winter). I expanded the stone path around the pond and kept it carefully swept.
In the evenings, as soon as my workday had ended, I’d head right out and open the dark-green gate. I’d kneel among the ferns and patiently weed. Or maybe I’d rearrange the seashells and stones around the water’s edge. I’d sweep the path and talk to the trees (lol), an old habit from childhood.
During this difficult year, the pond garden has given me so much to look forward to and be interested in—new fish hatching, tadpoles getting their legs. . . . It keeps me busy because I always have plants to water and weeds to pull. And I’m never lonely there, with the fish and dragonflies and mockingbirds and box turtles and (of course) my tree friends to keep me company. Gardening really is the best kind of therapy.
The pond is between the two chairs and the bench, but you can’t really see it because of all the ferns around it:
I always try to leave some space in my yard for pokeweeds that pop up, from seeds sown by the birds. This year I have one by the picnic table, one by the arch that leads into the vegetable garden, and one by the bird …
One of my favorite trees in our yard is the American holly (Ilex opaca). There’s a big one, maybe 50 feet tall, growing near the pond, just outside the picket fence. Right now it’s dropping its yellow leaves, replacing them with fresh green ones. I …
I wanted to take a minute to tell you about one of my favorite garden plants, Turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii). It’s a perennial, semi-woody shrub that gets to be about 4 feet high and wide, and I’ve planted it all around the barn, in light shade.
I like Turk’s cap because it blooms throughout our long, hot Florida summer, which can be a dead and dreary time in the garden, sort of miserable and not very colorful—unless you’re growing Turk’s caps, that is. The flower is the brightest red, and never fully opens, remaining bud-like instead (and turban-shaped). The curving petals wrap around a long, red, protruding stamen.
Turk’s cap is a great hummingbird attractor, which is probably the main reason I snatch it up every time I see it at the nurseries. Since June we’ve had ruby throats zooming around the yard, zipping from flower to flower. It’s so neat to look out the window and see one hovering, sipping—all silvery, and flashing in the sun.
Turk’s cap blooms pretty much all summer, and when the flowers are done, there are shiny, candy-apple red fruits to look forward to in fall. The fruits remind me of tiny cherries or cherry tomatoes and are gobbled up by cardinals and mockingbirds. People can eat them too, I’ve read, but I haven’t tried them yet. I’m sure I will this fall—because my gardening books make them sound quite tempting, crisp and apple-flavored.
Around these parts, Turk’s cap freezes back in winter. During the cold months, all you’ll see of it are some silvery sticks. But it comes back reliably in spring. The broad, velvety leaves are profuse and heart-shaped. Turk’s cap isn’t too fussy when it comes to light conditions, but I like it best in a little shade since the leaves tend to fade and yellow a bit in full sun.
Turk’s cap isn’t native to Florida (it is native to Texas). However, it’s usually included on Florida-friendly plant lists because it’s drought tolerant and low maintenance. There’s no need to fertilize or baby it.
Here’s a pretty neat picture of one of our black swallowtail caterpillars. Right now these little guys are all over our yard, chowing down on our bronze fennel plants. I just love how chubby and baby-like they are—so sympathetic, so cute, in my opinion. I’m …
