County's Adopt-a-Tree program is a blooming success

Crowds come and go at the tree give-away

This tree give-away program rocks! And kudos to Miami-Dade's Department of Environmental Resource Management for setting it up some 10-plus years ago. It's given away hundreds of thousands of shade trees -- flowering, fruit, natives -- to home owners who are entitled to up to two trees per year.

It started after a survey indicated that Dade's tree canopy was a horribly low 10 percent. And then the citrus canker fiasco began and some half million backyard citrus trees were cut down by the state in order to protect the commercial citrus industry. Fail.

So DERM applied for canopy restoration grants, and the rest is history.

After we complete the paperwork, we stand in line in the hot, hot sun, waiting our turn. (I've done this enough times to be prepared with hat and long sleeves.)

We watch the trees being unloaded from one of the huge tractor trailers, which collect the trees from local nurseries contracted to grow them for the county. (The program is a boon to nurseries, too.)

Finally! It's my turn. But I arrived late for today's event (one of four, this year). By the time I got to the head of the line, only pigeon plum (Coccoloba diversifolia) was left, which is way too big for my yard. I sneaked back around to the education center where, hooray, there were three native Dahoon holllies (Ilex cassine)  -- the trees I had wanted -- on display. Dahoon holly is dioecious and I managed to get the only female, showing small green berries. So, I came away a happy camper. I will claim another tree at the next event.

And here's my holly, home and waiting to go in the ground.

Visiting my mother-in-law in Atlanta ...

My MIL lives in Buckhead, which, if you know Atlanta, is an area of grand homes and splendid gardens.

I've missed the dogwoods, but the azaleas are at their best, and I'm told that it's the "best best" for years.

My MIL is elderly, frail, and has a list of ailments as long as your arm. Each weekday is about trips to this clinic followed by appointments with that doctor. It's no vacation.

Whenever I can, I escape to the garden and its magnificent oaks, magnolias and tulip maples. I look up at these towering trees, breathe in their spirit and feel my own blood pressure sink. To paraphrase the King James version of Psalm 121, "I lift up mine eyes to the trees ..." The sun is warm and the flowers are glorious. It only takes a few minutes to feel restored.

Oaks in flower

It's another sign of spring.

I was up on the roof this afternoon to clean the gutters and take care of any pruning needs and was delighted to see the live oak closest to the house covered in "blooms." Most of the time, they're so inconspicuous you don't even notice them. They remind me of tiny catkins.

Seeing the garden after the big chill

I was out of town last week when the coldest nights for a couple of decades hit. My first reaction on seeing the garden was that there was much more light that usual. All the non-native trees are losing  their leaves, which, according to my husband, only started happening on Saturday. Unlike fall in temperate climates, these leaves are still green so the trees have dropped a ton of nutrients. I'll leave them to break down in place, and I hope the roots take back most of what was lost. New leaves will appear soon, so I'm not worried.

My natives, the oaks and mahogany, don't seem to be affected at all, but they may simply take longer to show stress. The avocado's response was to drop  its remaining fruit. There's so much that even the squirrels can't get to it all.

My next reaction was, "Phew!" Although there is plenty of damage, most plants should recover. Even the orchids my husband left attached to tree trunks are better than I expected. I'm attributing this to two things: First, the wind came out of the northwest and directly over the lake, and that may have had an ameliorating effect on low level plants. (There's more damage higher up.) Second, the red pavers, which cover much of the yard as paths and sitting areas, may have retained and released sufficient heat to keep frost at bay.

Spanish moss For Mr. Brown Thumb in Chicago

Blog follower, MBT, commented that he likes Spanish moss, so here are some pix I took yesterday with the sun shining through. It was a gorgeous sight. Incidentally (and as I responded to his comment), in most of the South chiggers live in Spanish moss, so it's risking handling it. For some reason, South Florida's Spanish moss is chigger free and safe to pick up. I've got it hanging off a young oak as well as dripping off orchid containers where it proliferates in the sun.

Devloper makes quick buck with cruelty to trees

This really annoys me: Planting young trees right under utility lines. It's a cheap developer's trick to make a property look nicer. These live oaks will soon reach the overhead lines where they will cause power outages to homes further along and then FPL will hack them back. We all pay for that service.

Struggling in the tropics

I spend a huge amount of time in the garden. It's a strange climate because you can grow things familiar to those who have temperate gardens, but at the same time I have coconuts and mangos. The most difficult thing to deal with is the soil; it's highly alkaline and there's only a couple of inches before you hit limestone. It can take a long time to dig a small hole, even with a pick axe.

Trees, too, struggle to gain a foothold.