Flora Journal in Northeast Central Florida

I have an early blooming sunflower.  I think it's remarkable that one can plant a handful of seeds on the same day at the same time, but the seeds sprout and bloom at their own pace.  I told my just-about-four-year-old son, Dane to come and look at the flower we planted, and he seemed excited to come follow me.  Our two year old boy, Liam came right behind us to come see the flower.  When I got to the flower, Liam was oohing over it, but I turned to show Dane and he was nowhere in sight!  I heard him in the house, so I went back inside to see him chilling on the floor watching Teen Titans with his older sister while eating popcorn.  See, it's just about summer time, and we've been getting a good deal of rain.  The adults in our family are procrastinating people, and since we live in a rural area where no one complains about the length of grass, we sorta-kinda let it slide a wee bit.  Dane is a fraidy cat for bugs, and with the taller grass, he slipped back in the house

I mentioned in a previous post that I had something growing under the fennel that my neighbor had given me before she passed on.  She had no clue what it was and asked me to tell her what it was when it grew.  It was some kind of bulb, and much to my surprise, today I saw it in full bloom! I kept losing this plant under the fennel.  I thought it had died after the winter.  I had such a hard time finding the slender leaf blade that originally grew from the bulb, that I thought it was gone.  A week ago or so, I noticed the blade a little further to the corner than I was usually looking, so imagine my surprise to see the big pretty purplish face! Thank you, Kelly, for your amazing gift. So, what is it? It's a Zephyranthes or rain lily!  They have a tendency to bloom in spring, usually after rain storms, so that's why they are called "rain lilies."  :)  It's so pretty.

I'm a terrible garden blogger, because I get all frazzled and don't do things on a regular basis, but this blog is the big ol' update on stuff that's happening and what I'm doing differently than I did before now. Pineapple Plant Here's a pineapple plant that I think I planted in a pot over a year ago.  I had two, but I was a bad plant mommy and left them both in the cold during the winter.  This one was closer to the house than the other one, and it did well.  The weeds in the pot are purslane.  They are actually edible and good for you too, so I tend not to weed them out unless the start crowding my intended plants out.  This plant is starting to get little spikes in the center, so I'm hoping, hoping, hoping its trying to grow a baby pineapple.     Wild Persimmon I live on a long dirt road, and part of it was paved up a ways.  Before the county started paving that part, they started clearing out the area across from me to make a