A Plant Geek in South Florida - Time in the Everglades

On our second full day in Florida we drove west of Fort Lauderdale, past the yacht brokers, the beautifully landscaped neighborhoods, beyond the golf courses, national chain stores and familiar restaurants.  Through the car window, among all this development, you can see a system of canals, levees and control gates that separate new Florida from the Everglades.  This has to be one of the most engineered ecosystems on the planet, and a fragile one at that.  I don't know much about the subject, but I do know that the Everglades were nearly ruined, have been stabilized begrudgingly, and are now being restored. However the recovery must be managed, as all of man's meddling means it can't yet stand on its own.

Now let me come down off my high horse - and climb into an airboat.  Our destination was Sawgrass Recreation Park which offers group and private tours of the Everglades, and is home to a small and somewhat sad zoo.

This is a female boat-tailed grackle, which our captain mentioned was a nuisance bird. I have missed them though. Where I once lived they were a constant presence, as the showier males always try to out-sing and out-display one another.

Was that what we all came to see in the previous picture?  I do believe it was.

By this point I could have easily reached over the side of the boat and touched the gator. In fact, I was probably closer than I wanted to be and was recoiling a bit while the other people in the boat were pushing me forward so they could get a better look.

After this he submerged and went on to doing what his kind have been doing for millions of years, and we went on to Ikea.

(Next up: another piece of old Florida)

Fifth Annual Citywide Bloom Day

It is a July tradition at A Tidewater Gardener to celebrate my city's signature tree, the crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica and hybrids).  Last year's celebration took place elsewhere, but this year we are bringing it back home, and if you want to know more about why this tree is special here, then you can read more here.  My son and I got on our bikes this past Friday, enjoying temperatures in the low 80's, and began our trip at Old Dominion University, home to some very nice plantings. 

Despite a love affair with urban renewal, Norfolk still keeps a few older buildings lying around, and the crape myrtles grow by them just as well.

Let's head downtown where there are more than a few crapes to look at.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is an event held on the 15th of each month where gardeners who blog can post about what they have blooming. The host of this world-wide event is Carol of May Dreams Garden, and if you would like to see for yourself, then please pay her a visit.

(Stay tuned as the Florida travelogue resumes in upcoming posts.  You won't want to miss the next one, as I have a close encounter with a different species, Alligator mississippiensis.)