The first three hordes of Lubbers in the street beds are nearly gone, but a new one by my home office saw them eating off ALL the Louisiana Iris blooms! So I put out NoloBait....now they are nibbling it due to the bran so they too will be infected with the Nosema locustae protozoa. I got my NoloBait at Arbico, keep it in my fridge to keep them alive as they can die quickly in a hot garden shed.

I was given this smelly perennial tropical legume, and since I love Asian food and smelly fermented foods I will grow it my landscape in south Tampa.

http://thaifoodandtravel.com/blog/cha-om/#1

These are my first blooms on the new plants thriving with no care in a second pond in my front yard. Each is 5 inches across. I need to re-check but I think the name of this hybrid is 'Zydeco'.

My odd Surinam Cherry (Eugenia uniflora) which bore no blooms or fruit for years, then fruited continuously for a year then took a break this winter, is fruiting again. The berries are very large, sweet and juicy.

Here in Tampa I've seen pics and heard of mature avocados suddenly getting massive dead areas covering much of the trees....I am wondering if that is why my 15 year old seedling in the kitchen garden is suddenly having a LOT of dead bare branch tips. I think it is a beetle but forget the name. Does anyone know of/experience this problem? John

New seedlings today from my Publix 'Caribbean Red' papaya that I experimentally planted in pure builders sand with NO sprouts for nearly three weeks due to my watering no where near enough. But as I started to water daily those in the shade began to sprout first. It would be cool if these survivors turn out to be drought resistant in the ground.

More spring blooms on my dwarf Louisiana Iris 'Wood Violet'.

The dwarf Louisiana Iris I've grown for years, 'Wood Violet' today in a front pond.

I am SO GLAD that I escaped Denver twelve years ago as I garden in Tampa today.....3-4 FEET of snow predicted!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=39.73025277894368&lon=-104.91841124628127#.VxJAtvkrLcc

The last few years my scavenged brick work drive way has been heavily invaded by weeds. I won't use Roundup and so tried several different natural controls that had little effect. And so I am covering the driveway with very tough rubber mats my friend Mary Jo brings me now and then....they are given her by a friend who works for a truck transport company who uses them to keep cargo from shifting around. They are recycled, made from old tires and are very resilient to traffic...ones in the back garden have taken two years of daily foot traffic from me and Cracker. Short term, I will leave them down until the end of summer to choke out the weeds and hopefully to solarize the weed seeds. If I decide to remove them this fall, I will sweep into the bricks a few 50 pound bags of decorative red clay/sand mix like used at baseball diamonds. So nice to see the weeds being so easily controlled, and for free! I feel that they will lie flat after being sun warmed. Thanks to Mary Jo I have enough to do the whole driveway! John

Three hordes of Lubbers, promptly treated with about 3 heaping tablespoons of NoloBait, has resulted in them being barely mobile and eating almost none of their usual target plants like amaryllis and crinums. Many have now died.

This an old article from The St. Pete Times. Due to ongoing drought I now grow mine in a pond to insure I don't need to remember to water them as their ancestors grew in low pH swamp water in the southeastern U.S.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/03/Homes/Beardless_is_beautifu.shtml

Central Florida gardener Craig Hepworth is growing one of the large fruited bred loquats called 'Novak'.

This is what happens when a GIGANTIC plant of the edible glochid-free (99.999%) cactus Opuntia cochinellifera falls over during a rain with a nearby tornado! Come over to get BIG cuttings. Young pads julienned and cooked like string beans are a great treatment for blood sugar issues. I've also used them with sliced raw ginger root to make "bread and butter" pickles.

Malva sylvestris was SO reliable in Denver it was an invasive annual that endured the first few snowfalls each winter, but for years my seeds from Denver would sprout (winter or summer) then the plants would fail here in Tampa. Some years back ONE plant did very well and reseeded some here in Tampa, which makes me think it is the RNA evolution of plants I've read about vs. the usual DNA. This plant should me a LOT of seeds to share in about 4-6 weeks.

I've had three colonies of Lubbers appear this year all out front; none in the back yard as usual. I put down twice a jar lid with a heaping tablespoon of Nolobait, and twice used my fingers to put a LIGHT dusting of NoloBait on the colonies. They are eating nothing, sit still all day, clearly sick from the Nosema locustae protozoa, and I doubt that few will eat my plants or survive long enough to lay eggs. But even those few eggs will be infected. They are cannibals and thus spread the infection.

I will keep on with my rain barrels and deep mulching and peeing outdoors and using 1 gallon rain water showers and deep infrequent waterings.....despite having a washing machine my new water use just came here in south Tampa.....$8.36 !!!