Native and Exotic Plants of Florida

A new recording

2013-03-05T18:46:00.000-05:00

Hey everbody,
This is a short blog just to let you know I am now in the process of starting to record my music. I have a shit load of ideas for songs and music so I need to get them mixed and recordied. This is just a sample of music that I am doing just to break in the software. This is a Tom Petty song called "You don't know how it feels" and I am singing and playing all of the instruments. Enjoy
DW

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=12199660&q=hi&newref=1

my camera

2013-02-05T20:23:00.001-05:00

hey folks,
its gonna be a little while before I get some photos on my blog because my camera is kaput. I kept getting a lens error message and I fixed it by loading the latest firmware and it worked great for a day. I am posting a video that I shot of myself playing the Dobro. About 5 minutes after I shot the video I was going outside to take a picture of my brother cooking ribs on the grill and dropped my camera on the concrete and it flew into pieces and now it doesn't work at all. I will buy a new one in a few weeks when I can afford it but until then here is my last video. Blues and then I break into "Nobody knows when your down and out.

ENJOY PEOPLE

2012-11-25T19:00:00.000-05:00

Hey Folks,

Just a short note here. My cat Cupcake loves to ride in my truck. Every time I pull up in the drive way he jumps into my open window and wants a ride. So here is a video that my brother shot of the little guy loading up and going for a ride with me.

Thanks for watching. Please feel free to spread this video around the internet.

D.W.

My vegetable garden

2011-11-17T14:20:00.006-05:00

NATIVE AND EXOTIC PLANTS OF FLORIDA PRESENTS:

My vegetable Garden.

Hey, Folks,

Last week on the full moon I planted my vegetable garden underneath my kitchen window. It gets plenty of afternoon sun which a good garden needs. So far I have been watering it twice a day so that it get plenty of moisture due to the approaching dry season here in south Florida. I only planted two kinds of vegetables due to the small area I use for my garden. I planted Collard greens and three different types of tomatoes. One beef steak, one big boy, and one grape tomato. The collards are a variety from Georgia which grows well in the south Florida climate and they have really taken off since I planted them last week. I will post pictures of the progress of my garden as it grows so that you can see how it takes shape. I hope to have a harvest before or around Christmas so I will let you know how it goes. Please if you have any questions or comments then let me know and I will try to answer them the best I can. Thank you for reading my posts at NATIVE AND EXOTIC PLANTS OF FLORIDA.

UPDATE:

I posted above a before and after photo of my garden. The before photo was taken around the post date of this blog and the after photo was taken the day after Christmas 2011. You can barely see a few tomatoes growing on the plants and the cherry tomato plant has quite a few of them right now. We have already eaten a couple of batches of the collards and they are very nice and tender. Just waiting for a good cold spell to sweeten them up a bit.

Royal Poinsiana trees blooming now

2011-05-11T20:54:00.000-04:00

Hello folks, Welcome back to NATIVE AND EXOTIC PLANTS OF FLORIDA. This post is about a beautiful tree that is blooming right now all over South West Florida, The Royal Poinciana tree (Delonix regia) is from Madagascar off the coast of Africa.This is a very rapid growing tree and when it blooms it has a beautiful orange canopy that really stands out. It grows in almost any soil but is very sensitive to freeze damage. It also has a strap like long seed pod and is very messy to keep clean but the beauty of this tree is well worth the work. All Royal Poinciana trees bloom at the same time so they are easy to pick out in a landscape. People always ask me at this time of year "What are those orange colored trees?" Well they are an Exotic tree called the Royal Poinciana.

up all night

2010-09-11T05:38:00.008-04:00

Hey Folk's

This is my blog on Native and exotic plants of Florida. Here I am sitting up all night. Let me tell you about my late fathers Carambola (Averrahoa carambola) Tree. My dad planted the tree right in the front yard near the driveway and it has flourished since. It bares fruit, called star fruit because of the shape, a couple times a year. They are messy at first but they break down in my fire pit fairly quickly. If you ever get a star fruit rest assured there are only two flavors. Sweet and sour. We have the sweet variety so they are pretty good. They are a very good source of vitamin C. You can bake them in bread with some raisins and nuts and that is pretty tasty. As an exotic plant of Florida they grow fairly tall. Right now mine is about 15' tall and still growing. It takes up a lot of space as it spreads, also it's not a good idea to plant it too close to the house. When the fruit is falling it attracts ants and fruit flies so it should be cleaned up regularly as the fruit drops and disposed of in your mulch bin or if you have a fire pit or burn area in your yard because it breaks down easily. I use the fire pit because I have a lot of debris due to having a large Oak and a Sable Palm as well that needs to be cleaned out once or twice a year. Well it's almost 5:00 am so I am calling it quits and I am ending this blog on Native and exotic plants. Leave a comment or a question and I will post your answer in the comment section whenever I can and thanks for reading my blogs. By the way that is my cat in the Carambola tree pictured at the bottom and my late father pictured at the top.

behind blue eyes by the who

2010-07-26T16:31:00.003-04:00

Welcome back to Native and exotic plants of Florida. From time to time I will be posting a video of me playing the guitar even though it has nothing to do with Native or exotic plants. This is "Behind blue eyes" by "the who" one of my favorite bands. I first heard them in the 60's when I was 7 or 8. The song was "substitute" and I think the flip side was "whisky man" but I'm not positive. Thanks for reading my blog on Native and Exotic plants of Florida.Enjoy

Palmetto for border plants

2010-07-24T15:27:00.002-04:00

Hi Folks, and welcome to another post on Native and Exotic plants of Florida. The Saw Palmetto ( Seneroa repens) is an excellent plant to use as a border for your property because it can fill out your entire property line or just sections. You could use fellow native Florida speicies like slash pine trees and other ground cover taking up the rest of the sections to fill the space. Saw palmetto is very low maintenance and once it is established in very rarely needs watering. If you want variety and color, try the Silver Saw Palmetto with its bluish tint it will add a beautiful element to your yard or garden. These plants don't get very tall only about 4' high but they are a nice addition to any garden.Thanks again for reading my posts on Native and exotic plants of Florida

This is my first blog

2010-07-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hey folks,
My name is Dwain and I am going to blog about native and exotic plants in the great state of Florida. I am a landscaper and a landscape designer in southwest Florida and I hope to help people with there decisions on what type of plants and shrubs to put in the yards. I was raised in the Southwest Florida area so I know about the climate which as someone once said "Florida has only two seasons, wet and dry". I also know about the native plants that we use a lot of to save on water and maintenance. Right now as I post we are in our rainy season and as a matter of fact we just had a tropical storm pass over yesterday that dumped a bunch of rain which we needed because it has been dry for the past couple of weeks. My experience in exotic plants comes from my 22 years working as a groundskeeper and manager at the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers Florida. Mr. Edison had a wide variety of exotic trees, plants, and shrubs throughout the estates that I personally took care of for all those years. I also worked as a landscape designer with a landscape architech here in Fort Myers for about 4 years and now I am trying to start a lawn and landscape business with my brother. This blog is intended to be an introduction to me and my experience in this field and in future blogs I will talk about choosing plants for certain spaces and how to plant and maintain the plants and different types of problems occur with the plant such as damage from insects, fungus, over watering, and under watering. I will also talk about fertilizer and what type to use with which variety of plant.

Privacy Policy

2010-07-23T13:07:00.001-04:00

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Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Dwain Willis at Dwainw@comcast.net