Flora Journal in Northeast Central Florida

The Money Tree was supposed to be a Bonsai , but Scooter the cat kept trying to eat it. It’s outside and unbraided, which feels mor appropriate for our life. Above is a Loquat seeding I found. I'm going to keep trying here, because it's my dream to have one. If this thing lives, it will indeed be a miracle. Yes, in the background is a failing Azalea. I had this bright idea to clip one from my mother's Azaleas.  They are large and proud in her yard, and they've been there for over 30 years. I had this dream that I could migrate some to my yard and make it a family thing. Like, we'll pass the Azalea torch or something, generationally.  My mom has beautiful bamboo in her yard, and this is not the same. See, I'm hoping to turn my very small strip of back yard into a forest. We back up to a busy road and have a fence separating us from the sidewalk and road, but I do want nature buffering us from civilization.  There is a leaf on this. all the other ones fell off.  I...

 Lavender I planted some lavender in this pot about a year ago, and this is all I have from it! Loquat (Noquat) Our lawn people somehow mowed our loquat tree, which was like, five feet tall. I really can't figure out how it happened, but I was incredibly sad. There is a loquat up the road along our sidewalk and I found a disrupted seedling and made an attempt. I don't know why it's so difficult to get a loquat.  If you have loquat seedlings, I will take some--pay for them. I want a loquat.  Cucumbers I learned recently that we changed to hardiness zone 9B about two years ago, which is super wild, because a few years before that I learned it wasn't 8B, but it was 9A, so is climate change a hoax or nah?  Anyway, I'm really, really wanting cucumbers to pickle, and I don't have the greenest of thumbs. These cukes are struggling in the good ol' 9B Florida heat.  I had a few mushrooms in there and thought it was some sort of tragic sign of the soil, but apparentl...