Week of March 24

The fruit trees have bloomed and the summer perennials have not yet budded.  The Florida Home’s garden therefore needs something for food for the arriving hummingbirds and butterflies.  Our garden has two plants coming to the rescue, and both have early SPRING SPIKES of tubular flowers perfect for our hummers.  One is the dickia, a member of the pineapple family.  It has stiff, pointy blue-gray leaves almost like a yucca, and is amazingly tolerant of heat and drought.  In the last week, plants both in the front and backyards have pushed up lots of 3 foot spikes with rows of yellow-orange tubular flowers up and down the spike.  We just wait with our morning coffee for the hummingbirds’ breakfast!  The second kind is the aloe plant, the one used to make skin moisturizers.  The plants have lighter green, fleshy leaves and grow in clumps, sending out new plants until the clumps are quite large.  In the last days of March, our aloes in front and backyards send up one or more 2-3 foot spikes which produce a candelabra of rose-orange flowers, also nice feeding tubes for our winged visitors.  Without these two, the garden would still be in a winter mode; with them, we know spring has arrived.