I'm certified!

Hooray! The sign says it all. Note the gold label, which is the higher of the two classifications. (It's not difficult to qualify if you're an environmentally aware gardener.) 

The extension office in most Florida counties participates in the Florida Yards and Neighborhoods program.

My next goal is to have the garden certified as a Florida Backyard Wildlife Habitat, which is more complicated since there are forms to complete, a property survey -- with bird feeders, native trees, shrubs, and the like, all marked out -- to submit. Plus it will cost a whopping $5 for the sign.

A visit to a native plant nursery

Native blanketflower, Gaillardia pulchella,

I'm planning a little guerrilla gardening on a tiny, tiny plot of city-owned land by my house, so over the weekend I went to Casey's Corner, a native plant nursery, near Homestead (Ground Zero in Hurricane Andrew). As would be expected, there were butterflies everywhere. It was glorious!

Susan, the owner, specializes in butterfly garden installation. (She provided the plant material for the Smithsonian's Butterfly Pavilion.) She told me that one of her clients called to say the garden was a disaster because caterpillars were eating everything! After wondering how someone could be so clueless, I moved on to wondering how it's possible that someone was never taught that caterpillars become butterflies.

Anyway, I spent more money than I intended and have decided that most of the plants are going to stay in my garden. It just goes to show how selfish I am.

Disguising itself as bird poop, the caterpillar of the giant swallowtail languishes on top of a leaf

A gulf fritillary caterpillar feeding on a corky stem vine (Passiflora suberosa)

Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

This sunflower is remarkably similar to tickseed; I have trouble telling them apart

I think this one is the Helianthus

Butterflies, including queens and white peacocks, were all over these shrubs

One of the numerous white peacocks

I'm amazed that anyone would pay for this; I keep pulling it out of the lawn!

Rows of (mostly) native plants, with blanketflower in the forefront

Storm clouds roll in; it's time to leave

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.

Old Miami

This is what much of South Florida, east of the Everglades, looked like until the post WWII building boom began the destruction. The "pine rocklands"
are unique to Miami-Dade County, parts of the Keys and a few Bahamian islands. Of the 225 species of native plants that grow on them in Dade, 20 percent can be found nowhere else, and their survival is far from guaranteed.

The understory palm, growing beneath the pines, is the low growing saw palmetto (Serenoa repens), used in several natural remedies, especially for prostate health.  It has nasty little spines along the petiole, hence the "saw" in the common name.

I bicycled over to this area with Sparky recently, but it's fenced off, which, while keeping people (and dogs) out, doesn't prevent invasive, non-native plants from taking root. Still, it didn't look too bad, so I guess the county is taking care of it. This particular site is only a few acres and, you guessed it, a new development is going up next door, although it seems to be stalled for the moment. (One of the few benefits of the recession?)

Many years ago, I was listening to Car Talk on National Public Radio, and someone from Pembroke Pines, a municipality in Broward County, just north of Miami-Dade, called in with a question. The Car Guys decided that pine trees couldn't possibly grow in a climate like this. Ha! Actually, these are a subspecies of  the southern slash pine, generally known as Dade County pine (Pinus elliottii var. densa).

They are very slow growing, which results in a dense, resin-filled wood that's resistant to termites. No wonder so much was cut down; every house built through the 50s had floors made of it. Fortunately, when old houses are being torn down, much of that precious wood is now being recycled.

The last photo is of a similar habitat, but this was taken in the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key. It gives the impression of being hot and dry, but this was a September afternoon, and it was hot and humid and the skeeters were out in full force.

Why woodpeckers don't need helmets but footballers do

If a human hammered away with his head the way this male red-bellied woodpecker does, his brain would soon turn to mush.

According to Random Animal Facts, woodpeckers have a:

[R]elatively thick skull with relatively spongy bone to cushion the brain; there is very little cerebrospinal fluid in its small subarachnoid space; the bird contracts mandibular muscles just before impact, thus transmitting the impact past the brain and allowing its whole body to help absorb the shock; and its relatively small brain is less prone to concussion than other animals.

Incidentally, there are occasional glimpses of the red feathers on the belly, which is why it gets its name. That's not quite as much as a "duh" as you might think because it's rare to see the belly feathers.

Swimming au naturel

No, this isn't somewhere in the Everglades; it's a natural swimming pool in suburban South Miami.

Four years ago, the owners, two FIU professors, brought in the backhoe and dug an enormous hole that became this extraordinary retreat. The water is supplied from the water table and recycled.

It took a while to get the flora/fauna balance right, including mosquito fish -- native gambusia that feed on mosquito larvae -- and other natives.

The surrounding plants are all native to the Everglades, including cypress and pickerel weed. Raptors visit the place looking for food, too.

I just loved this pool; it was so much more inviting than the regular South Florida offering.