Help conserve water year-round

Native Sage does well in drought.

I remember feeling surprised that Florida has a drought season when I first moved here in the early 70s. It didn't take long to notice the annual dry landscapes and low pond levels. Deep green lush turf takes a lot of nutrients, herbicides, and water. 

How to help? When planting, consider plants native to our area. Learn about changing weather patterns. Spring is a time of drought in Florida. Find out what the watering restrictions are for your community. Learn about best practices for water conservation. 

Here is a link to year-round watering restrictions for Manatee County. Briefly, 

• Irrigation of existing lawns and landscaping is limited to once a day, two times per week.
• Irrigation is only allowed before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m. on approved days.

Restrictions apply to all potable (drinking) water and all irrigation waters that come from wells, surface water sources including retention ponds, rivers, lakes, etc. Violations of this directive carry fines up to $10,000 as provided for under Florida Statute 373.129(5).

Great Egret taking a bath in the pond. More photos of its bath here.

Lush season is here: flowers and butterflies

Passionflower and passionfruit. (Available as a print, a cutting board, and stationery cards, benefitting the New York Botanical Garden.)

With rains returning, plants thrive. The passionflowers grow more than they are eaten by the Gulf Fritillary butterfly caterpillars. I took this photo from in front of our place:

Before social media and smart phones with cameras, illustrators like Étienne Denisse (1785–1861) brought the world of botany to us via drawings. The New York Botanical garden is celebrating her work with a book of her flower and fruit illustrations. I found Denisse's passionflower drawing via Brain Pickings, a favorite Sunday newsletter in my email in-box.

Interested in adding passionflower to your butterfly garden? THIS POST includes photos and names of selected varieties. 

Most flowers attract butterflies. Here is a White Peacock Butterfly in the butterfly garden.

"Most butterflies live on nectar from flowers and some also receive nourishment from pollen, tree sap, rotting fruit, carrion, dung, aphid honeydew and minerals found in wet sand or dirt." - Choose Natives 

On a recent trip to North Carolina, I saw a bunch of butterflies on a dirt road getting minerals.

If your village is interested in incorporating little butterfly gardens, this website matches butterfly species with their host plants. Where to find these plants in our area? Check out Sweetbay Nursery and Florida Native Plants. (Links in the sidebar of this website.) It's a good time to plant.

See the difference in flora from a recent post where I showed a photograph of the pond's low levels? Before:

Now, look:

Resurrection ferns

This is a resurrection fern growing on a southern live oak in Wildewood. The resurrection fern is not a parasite. It’s an epiphyte (or air plant, which means it gets nutrients and water from the air—rain/dust) that grows attached to branches of forest trees and sometimes upon rocks or dry ground. “This fern’s long thin rhizomes grow creeping along narrow cracks or the furrows of the host tree’s bark (Floridata.com)."

It’s called a miracle plant because during drought the leaves turn brown and look dead. It’s not. When it rains, it’s dense furry green coat appears. 

Florida’s climate might be described as "wet desert" with normal periods of extreme wet and dry conditions. This little fern evolved and adapted to tolerate these extremes. Although it can lose up to 97% of its water and still survive, it typically only loses about 76% during droughts. It has been speculated that these plants could go 100 years without water and still revive after a single soaking (Florida Native Plant Society).

The fern dries with its bottom sides upward so when it rains, they get the water first. Here is a time-lapse video of their amazing unfolding (2.5 hours in 60 seconds).