Beyond the Garden Gate
Most Recent Posts
June 17, 2025Comfrey
Symphytum officinale
Native Milkweed
Asclepius perennis
Wax Mallow
Malvaviscus drummondii
Big Leaf Coneflower
Rudbeckia maxima
Jackobina
Justica carnea
Mexican Cigar Plant
Cuphea ignea […]
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June 8, 2025The heat is here and so are the butterflies! I’m seeing monarchs, fritillaries, sulphers, skippers, plus various swallowtails —pipevine, eastern black, spicebush and giant swallowtails.
I’m also seeing lots of predator insects. (The other name for predator insects is “beneficial insects”.) Assassin bugs and paper wasps are very prevalent, and dragonflies are patrolling. Lizards and toads and frogs are also on the hunt for a meal of unsuspecting insects.
Predators of all species are doing “their job”, but sometimes it seems like the pollinators don’t have a chance. Especially butterfly eggs, as they are deposited on a leaf with no way to avoid a predator. (I am watching a giant swallowtail lay eggs on my satsuma as I type.) Of course, we want the “bad bugs” to be eaten but not the butterflies!!
I have learned so much from butterfly gardening. After opening The Garden Gate as a native plant nursery, to my surprise, butterfly gardening became the largest part of our business for the 19 years that we were open. I would often worry about having enough “host” plants for the butterflies to lay their eggs. Every species of butterfly has a particular plant or family of plants that it can lay eggs on, and that their caterpillars can eat.
I would particularly worry about milkweed for the monarchs. In the very early spring, we would root or seed about 200 or more milkweed plants. Along the milkweed already growing, we would have about 300 milkweed plants on the premises. But we had few to no monarchs coming in to lay eggs. Customers and GG employees would begin to worry that all the monarchs had died over the winter, that we had lost our beloved butterflies.
It is true that butterfly populations have drastically decreased in the past two decades. And it is also true that nature provides a balance for every species. Every living species needs other living species to survive, and butterflies are part of that cycle. Some monarch eggs survive predation in early spring and go through their life cycle. Each adult female butterfly might lay as many as a thousand eggs. Within a month, those eggs will hatch, grow, then lay their eggs, each time increasing the population. The balance will shift and the monarch population will overtake the predator population. By late summer, we were always out of milkweed plants to sell and to feed our own butterflies. One balance restored and another out-of-balance!
Meanwhile, insects other than butterflies will become food sources for the predators. (This includes the insects we wish were removed from our gardens!) If we wait long enough, nature does the work!
Out in the garden, there are a few strawberries still ripening, but the thornless blackberries have stopped producing berries. The birds and squirrels got a lot of the crop, but there were enough of the large berries for everybody. Often there are more berries in the fall, on new growth. This blackberry “vine” is well worth finding a place to plant. It can grow upright with very little space needed. My plant is held up by a trellis and grew close to 8’ high this year.
The rabbit-eye blueberries are ripening too, and are very tasty! But the very best tasting blueberries are from the Darrow’s blueberry. Darrow’s blueberry is a native evergreen shrub that produces lots of small blueberries (beloved by birds, so you have to be vigilant to get the berries!). These small shrubs are great as landscape plants in sun to part shade.
My vegetable garden is producing lots of cucumbers and beans. The okra is growing — and the zipper peas planted at the base have germinated. Sunflowers are coming up, and there are still peas and butterbeans to plant. Seminole squash is on my list to plant. This vining plant will climb or sprawl. The fruit looks like a small pumpkin.
Gourds can still be planted — they love the heat. We planted gourds on the arbor in the children’s garden at the Garden Gate in September. By the time we opened for the first time (on October 1st, 1997), the arbor was covered with leaves and there were small gourds growing.
There are so many types to grow, including birdhouse gourds, snake gourds, apple gourds, and luffas.
The luffa “sponges” are actually the inside of a gourd. Their skins are papery when dried and easily peel off to reveal the spongey inside full of black seeds. What fun to grow. especially if you have kids or grandkids around. An improvised teepee made with sticks or stalks of bamboo, can support luffa vines. The kids can play inside the teepee, then collect the seeds when ready.
Now that school is out for the summer, gardening with children is an opportunity to play and explore. It is fun to have scavenger hunts, make fairy gardens, plant or harvest fruit and veggies. Taking the time to experience the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the garden with children is so valuable. Reading about nature is good, experiencing nature is amazing, and sharing nature is priceless.
In general, kids see better than their elders. I often find out that I have missed something in front of my nose! I was with my grandchildren on a canopy walk at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens many years ago. I can usually recognize plants and bugs pretty easily from a lifetime spent outside. But on the canopy walk, my grandson would ask me “What’s this bug?” “What’s that bug?” and I didn’t know the answer. I discovered that the insects in the canopy are different from the insects on the ground level.
The most important thing I learned from that trip was that nature grows in layers. In nature, nothing much grows by itself: where there are trees, there are also shrubs, and grasses and herbaceous plants, their root systems growing around and through each other to hold the soil and the plants in place. Above ground, the trees shade the plants beneath and cool the soil, keeping everything alive. There is a built-in resiliency for each ecosystem.
(My grandson, Ben, is now an entomologist. Now I ask him, “What bug is this?” We are planning to feature “Ben and Bugs” on this website, with information about the insects that we encounter in our gardens. Stay tuned!)
An example from our own ecosystem is the built-in resilience for humidity. Because of our proximity to the Gulf and to our bay systems, the evaporating water fills our air as humidity. For people, the humidity level contributes to discomfort. For plants, heat and humidity can contribute to disease or other unhealthy conditions. Excess water on the leaves can give diseases the perfect conditions to grow. Bacterial, wilts, and fungus diseases begin to flourish in our gardens when the weather is humid.
It is actually perfect that we have such well-drained soils. Plants take up water through the roots, and release the water through the foliage. And it is harder to release the water when the air is already holding so much water in the form of humidity. Some plants might look like they are dying of thirst, when actually they are drowning from being unable to release the water in the already soggy air. Because our soils drain so quickly, plants can take up what they need without excess.
This is especially true for plants with fuzzy leaves such as lamb’s ears, wooly mullein, certain black-eyed Susans. The fuzzy leaves allow moisture to collect, and diseases to proliferate. One of my favorite plants as a child was wooly mullein. Mullein isn’t frequently used as a garden plant in our area, but it is still common along the highways.
As a child, I would collect the large wooly leaves to use as “wall-to-wall carpet” in my “forts”, or in my fairy gardens. This beautiful plant has large, blue-green, fuzzy leaves, and is a stand-out in a garden. I brought a wooly mullein home from Atlanta this past fall. I haven’t yet planted it, but I plan to put it in my un-irrigated, sunny front bed. If it can grow on the interstate, it ought to have a good chance growing there.
Tomato leaves are textured enough to catch water on humid days. One of the best ways to prevent diseases in tomato plants and other fuzzy leaf plants is to make sure there is enough room between the plants for good air circulation. This allows the leaves to more readily dry out, before diseases can grow. My major crop of tomatoes is planted in October, just before the cooler weather starts. There are two reasons to do this. The first is to prevent the diseases, the second is that old fashioned varieties will reliably set fruit only when the night time temperatures are below 70 degrees. This means that I have to be prepared to cover tomato plants if a freeze is predicted.
Watering practices can also promote or prevent plant diseases. Watering early in the morning (or before dawn) allows the water to reach the roots. Less water is lost to evaporation at that time of day. Watering the ground beneath the plant will also let the water go directly to the root system, and is more efficient than watering the foliage, or spraying from afar..
As we settle into summer, the garden colors grow more vibrant. The bee-attracting blue flowers of spring are giving way to brighter yellow and reds to attract more butterflies and other pollinators. Many species of Rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans) begin to bloom. In my garden, there are four species of Rudbeckia.
The most spectacular of these (and my favorite!) blooms are on the Big Leaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) and the Shining Coneflower (Rudbeckia nitida). Native to the prairie states, these species rarely self-seed here, but they can be easily divided. Both species have large leaves that form a clump at the base, and both send up a flower stalk 3’ to 4’ tall. A dark 2” cone rises above the bright yellow drooping petals.
The Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) is not as tall, but will easily reach 2’ -3’ tall, with many stems bearing small flowers. Brown-eyed Susans are annuals but they freely re-seed, forming a large “drift” of color.
As for the plants commonly called “black-eyed Susan” — not all species are created equal. Rudbeckia hirta has large daisy-shaped flowers, and usually grows as an annual for us. But because this species also has fuzzy leaves, it is susceptible to the fungus diseases.
Rudbeckia fulgida is a very reliable black-eyed Susan. It is long blooming and showy in the garden, and a very hardy perennial. This black-eyed Susan species will also form a basal rosette that can be easily divided, and will re-seed.
Another native that freely re-seeds is our native Ruellia. This native perennial is related to a plant that many of you are familiar with — Mexican Petunia (Ruellia simplex). The Mexican Petunia is an upright plant with purple trumpet blooms, and spreads quickly from the root. Because of its rapid spread, Mexican petunia is included on Florida’s list of invasive exotic plants. (Invasive exotic plants are deemed to cause environmental damage to native ecosystems).
The native Ruellia caroliniensis (sometimes called Carolina wild petunia) has lavender trumpet shaped blooms that open in the morning and fall in the afternoon. It is a shorter, thicker plant than the Mexican petunia, but almost as aggressive, spreading from seed rather than by root. Native Ruellia grows in sun or shade in well-drained soil. This plant also serves as a host plant for Buckeye butterflies, a butterfly that uses several different plant families as hosts for its caterpillars.
Carolina petunia goes dormant in the winter but blooms for three seasons. When they pop up from seed, it is often in a spot where I had not planned to plant them! But I usually leave them in place, since they always bring color, and I want to host all the butterflies I can get. Sometimes I pot them up for other gardeners. This summer, I plan to thickly plant them in a mostly shady area. Hopefully they will fill the space with color and butterflies (and I won’t have to mow!)
Black-eyed Susans, Carolina petunia, and other plants that attract pollinators are colorful and beautiful this time of year. But beyond the beauty, the life brought into the garden is fascinating to watch. If your space is limited, adding these plants to your space in a container will bring the bees and the butterflies! […]
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May 19, 2025Guest author: Vaughan
There are many reasons why it’s a joy to live in this northwest corner of Florida, but the topic we’ll focus on today is wetlands. In this area, (as well as most of Florida), the water table is very high, providing lots of wet areas. There are a number of parks in this region that feature wetlands. It’s especially enjoyable to visit them in the spring when biting insects are at a minimum and flowers are just emerging.
The two parks we’ll cover today are Yellow River Marsh Reserve State Park near Garcon Point in Florida and The Nature Conservancy’s Splinter Hill Bog near Bay Minette in Alabama.
Each park provides an environment where specialized plants thrive, including those that are carnivorous. We’re fortunate to have a variety of carnivorous plants, some indigenous only to our region.
Carnivorous plants have various means of capturing food (primarily insects). One of the most beautiful is the pitcher plant. The white-topped pitcher plant is native to our area. It attracts its prey with intoxicating fragrances. Once the prey enters the pitcher, hairs pointing downward prevent it from crawling out. At the base of the pitcher is a sticky liquid which gradually digests its prey.
This photo was taken in mid-March, and one can see the beautiful petals on the red flower, which had recently emerged from the ground. After pollination the petals fall off.
Another wetland resident is the sundew, which captures insects on its sticky leaves.
Other types of carnivorous plants that we can see in our region are butterworts and bladderworts. Butterworts use sticky leaves to capture insects, while bladderworts employ a floating bladder.
In addition to carnivorous plants there are other interesting flora, for example, wooly sunbonnets and several types of orchids. Both the parks use controlled burns to keep the special plants from becoming overgrown, and the predominant tree is longleaf pine.
Here is information about the two parks:
Yellow River Marsh Reserve State ParkDickerson Rd. at Garcon Point Rd.Milton, FL 32583Open daily, 8 am to sundownNo facilitiesSplinter Hill BogNature ConservancyCounty Rd 47Bay Minette, AL 36507Open daily, dawn to dusk No facilities […]
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May 11, 2025Coralbean
Erythrina herbacea
Twinflower
Linnaea borealis
Simpson’s stopper
Myrcianthes fragrans
Sparkleberry
Vaccinium arboreum […]
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May 6, 2025“Secret Garden” Tour – May 31st!
Happy May to all! It seems warm for May, but the basil is happy! Basil loves heat, and grows like crazy. Most of our culinary basil is genetically prompted to bloom, attract pollinators, and produce seeds when the temperature is warm. As the seed matures and falls, the plant’s “job” is done and it will wither and die. But take heart, there is still more pesto to come!
One of the connections between gardeners and plants is the timing and the distribution of seeds. As long as it is warm weather, gardeners can cut the basil blooms (dead-head) off the plant, so that it will keep producing leaves and then new blooms. That means summer-long pesto.
My favorite pesto recipe comes from Southern Herb Growing, a book written by mother and daughter, Madeline Hill and Gwen Barclay.
1/2 cup olive oil
2 (or more) garlic cloves
2 cups basil leaves, hard packed
1/2 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup lightly toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup grated romano or parmesan cheese, grated
Put all ingredients in blender or food processor, and puree. I change this basic recipe a lot! In the winter, I substitute kale for the basil — yum! And I almost always use pecans instead of pine nuts. Other herbs and leafy greens can be used for pesto such as rosemary or cilantro.
There is one species of basil that doesn’t require dead-heading. This variety is “African Blue Basil”. This basil isn’t my favorite to eat, but I hardily recommend it as one of the best available plants to attract pollinators. African Blue Basil is a hybrid basil, and can’t produce seeds, so it is propagated from cuttings. Its continual blooming is very helpful in a veggie garden. African blue basil is a tender perennial. If it is protected during freezing weather, it will continue to grow.
Adding herbs to your landscape is an easy and beautiful way to enjoy sensory experiences. The fragrance, taste, and touch of these plants can take us back in time, as herbs have been used by humans for millennia. Most herbs have ancient meanings. Rosemary, for example, is known as the herb of remembrance. My personal favorite legend about rosemary is the old saying “the woman who has rosemary planted by the front door is the head of the household”. I have several!
Most herbs are easy to grow in containers, too. These days, many gardeners have less space to garden or grow, but we can take advantage of growing in pots. Herbs can be planted together in a pot or planter (hanging baskets work too!) or underplanted. (I like to use variegated lemon thyme under a citrus tree in a large pot).
Sun to partial shade is the best to light to grow herbs. Most like well-drained soil, even in a container. Mint is often the exception — mint usually likes moist soil and doesn’t mind the shade.
If you are interested in learning more about growing and using herbs, please join us on Wed., May 14, at 10 AM. The Ho and Hum Garden Club will be hosting a presentation on herb gardening:
Herb Gardening May 14, at 10:00 AM
Hoe and Hum Garden Club St Francis Episcopal Church Gulf Breeze, Fla
Add some “spice” to your garden! Herbs can add beauty and interest, fragrance and flavor to your garden, and be useful as medicines or repellants. Herbs can be grown in ground or in containers. Join us to learn which herbs grow well in our area, and how to use them. We will discuss where, when and how to plant them.
And speaking of herbs — I found an eastern black swallowtail caterpillar yesterday on my fennel— the first of the season. We usually think of fennel as an herb with licorice flavor or fragrance, but fennel and other members of the carrot family (like parsley or dill) are “host” plants for the Eastern black swallowtail butterfly. That means that this beautiful black and blue butterfly lays its eggs on these plants, their caterpillars hatch from the egg, then begin to eat the plant.
This caterpillar has amazing talents! When they hatch, they are a brownish color with a white splotch that looks remarkably like bird poop! This camouflage protects these butterfly babies as they grow — because who would want to eat bird poop?? This caterpillar molts four times, and each time the coloration changes. In the last two molts, the caterpillar has yellow, green, and black patterns that perfectly blend with the sunlight and shade on the plant. That makes these caterpillars hard to see on the plant (although children can spot them pretty quickly).
But camouflage is not their only defense. When swallowtail caterpillars are touched or sense danger, they react by rearing back, sending up two horn-like appendages, called osmeteria, that are bright orange or red. Osmeteria are glands (or organs) that look threatening. The osmeteria aren’t harmful but they emit a very stinky substance. If they were any larger, the smell would certainly make us back-off. All species of swallowtails have these defense mechanisms, but none of them sting or bite. In fact, none of our butterfly caterpillars will bite or sting, but some of our moth caterpillars can give painful stings. Caution before contact is the best advice.
How amazing that every species has the capacity to survive and continue through the seasons: defense mechanisms like camouflage or osmeteria to protect from predators; genetic adaptations like diapause, hibernation, or migration to survive seasonal changes of temperature and food sources; reproduction capabilities to continue the species.
The life process of butterflies from egg to adult is one of the most amazing sights in nature. The tiny cream-colored egg of the eastern black swallowtail is the size of the head of a pin. Depending on temperature, the egg will hatch in about a week. The tiny caterpillar — about an 1/8” long —will first eat the egg shell, then begin to eat the leaves of the host plant. Eating and molting for the next 10 days to a week (BTW, the caterpillars also eat the shedded skin after they molt), the caterpillar searches for a safe place to change into a chrysalis. After choosing the place, the caterpillar will attach itself there, using sticky silk. The swallowtails usually attach to a structure (a stem or leaf) catching hooks on their back legs in the silk. They add add an extra silk “rope” around the middle. Once secure, the process of change begins. The cells inside the caterpillar are changing as it pulsates and gyrates for several minutes. The old caterpillar skin will fall to the ground, and the chrysalis underneath is exposed. Swallowtail chrysalises are either green or brown, and resemble a leaf. In warm weather, the butterfly will hatch from the chrysalis in about a week. However, swallowtails that form the chrysalis in the fall are likely to stay in the chrysalis over the winter, hatching in the early spring. This process of suspended animation is called “diapause” and is similar to hibernation for mammals.
The seasons are changing in my vegetable garden. The cool weather plants are ready for harvest, and the veggies that grow in hot weather are being planted. I have been harvesting my potatoes — YUM! Nothing is quite so good as pulling a potato from the ground, immediately boiling it, then eating it. The taste is so different from a potato harvested days or weeks before. And just the fact that I can reach into the dirt and pull up a potato is amazing! If you have young children or grandchildren, be sure to plant some root crops next fall for spring harvest. Watching a child pull a radish, carrot, turnip, or potato from the ground is fun for everyone involved!
The yellow squash in the garden is really producing right now. These plants are in the cucurbit family, along with zucchini, pumpkins, melons, cucumbers, and gourds. Cucurbits have both male and female flowers. The female flowers are larger and also have the “baby” squash at the base. But this “baby” will not mature unless the flower is pollinated. The female flowers appear before the male flowers.
It sometimes appears that the plant is “sick” as the tiny squash wrinkle and wither. But actually, the flower hasn’t been pollinated – sometimes because the male flower has not yet appeared.
In recent years, many populations of our pollinating insects have declined. Loss of habitat and pesticide use can mean loss of squash for gardeners. There are too many flowers and not enough bees. Adding plants that attract pollinators throughout your garden (and particularly close to your cucurbits!) can help. Mostly, I see bumble bees in the squash flowers, so other plants that attract bumble bees (like the African blue basil) can be useful. I have observed that squash planted in raised beds or containers seem to have better pollination rates. I’m not sure why, but I wonder if that puts the flower on a more obvious level, where other flowers might be blooming.
I will say that I am seeing pollinators in greater number this year than in the past several years. Part of this is most likely a response to the extreme weather conditions, like snow in Pensacola! Over the almost eight years that I have lived in my current house, the number of pollinating insects has expanded remarkably. Many of the trees, shrubs, and perennials that I planted over the first several years are creating habitat for pollinators, predators, and “pest” insects; birds and squirrels; turtles and lizards; frogs and toads; plus one rat snake. Each species has a “job” in my ecosystem, and often the job is to keep a balance. The garden is full of birds this year too. They are eating insects, seeds, worms— because we can’t have one without the other. Without pest insects, their natural predators would not be present. I would rather just watch and let nature do the work.
My happiest bird news this month is that the Mississippi kites have returned to my neighborhood! Mississippi kites are gray birds about the size of a small hawk. Their flight patterns are very acrobatic — swooping and turning to great heights. They return every year to my neighborhood to nest and raise their young. I am very glad when I hear their beautiful call, and know that they have returned for another season. Their diet consists mainly of the larger insects: cicadas, dragonflies, large moths and beetles.
My small pond and fountain have attracted record numbers of birds in this dry weather. The indigo buntings seemed to arrive in small groups of 4-5 birds. The males are brilliant blue, the females are a light brown. The birds fly in to nearby vegetation to scout out the area. One by one, they take turns making their way from the plants to the pond or fountain to get a drink.
Providing water is essential in a habitat yard. Besides my small pond, I have three bird baths. All are well-used, but the pond is the favorite. The sound and movement of the water from the fountain brings birds year-round.
At The Garden Gate, there was a clematis planted on the fence. This vine would go dormant in the winter. As it was re-leafing in the spring, the young light green leaves would turn black. Zillions of aphids were covering the tender new leaves and sooty mildew was growing on aphid excrement. As an organic gardener, I would “intend” to use a soap spray to kill the aphids. But it was spring and I was a “busy” gardener — so I wouldn’t get to that chore. About a week later, I would look again to find the plant covered in ladybugs. All stages of ladybugs from larva (they looks like tiny black and red alligators), to adults were eating the aphids. This was natural “pest control”!
Meanwhile, chicks were hatching in the nearby sparrow nest. The adult sparrows were soon busy feeding the ladybugs to their chicks. I was quite upset! But I kept watching. Soon, the plant was pest-free, and there were still plenty of ladybugs around the garden. The sparrows had fledged and were operating as “pest control” all over the gardens. As the seasons changed, the clematis bloomed and was pollinated by many others insects. All of these species (and many more) play a part in the balance of the ecosystem. And I get to watch! […]
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(Click on the images below)
