I wrote this many years ago....before blogging was even a thought :) But my sister's first comment on my blog brought the memories flooding back so I thought I'd share! The time period is my first home and garden....I was new at gardening....All I had was a small side yard I gardened in...and it was the love of my life...some of my greatest moments in a garden were there! So here ya go!
I’m not sure where my love of gardening began. Possibly from the
need to grow something from my childhood that kept me still attached to those
memories. Or maybe the desire was always there and that just got me started as
an adult. As a child, the only gardening that happened at our home was my
father rooting and rerooting different houseplants on the back porch. He must
have been way more toleranat than I remember, because I once took cuttings from all his plants and set up my own makeshift
nursery in my bedroom. Making a total mess of the carpet. When I was
discovered, I thought for sure he’d be furious, but instead he was very supportive,
I don’t know but maybe he liked that I was interested in a hobby that he seemed to
love so much himself. Than there was the time he planted Sweet potatoes bordering the pool
decking, he of course grew them for the attractive vine that flourished here in
Central Florida, I on the other hand was totally into the harvest. I dug up
each and every tuber I could could get my 9 year old hands on. That led to my
first vegatable patch and a small Strawberry plot behind the house. I was all
that! Little miss farmer, or at least I thought I was. I watched those strawberries everyday, so when I saw
one half eaten one day, my heart broke. I immediately went into action. That hand painted “Poisinous Berries” sign went up that same day! Little did I know at the time
that, a bug had been the perpetrader, and not some little kid from down the
street, like I had imagined. But the real passion that brought all those childhood feelings back,
was the desire to grow Butterflies.
You see my parents had gotten a Purple Passion
Vine plant from my Aunt one year. They planted it on the ouside of the screen
enclosure to the pool. In one season the entire enclosure would be covered with
this incredible vine. I used to pick the purple flowers and float them in the
pool. Dozens of them at a time, it was beautiful. The Gulf fritilary butterlies and catepillars were a
part of the landscape, and as a child I just took for granted they were always
there. Every year as the frost would top kill the vine, we’d pull it down off
the screen and then in Spring the magic started all over again. It was about
the third year into that my parents realized how invasive this vine could be
and soon began the useless effort of erradicating the vine from the premises. I
believe that continued for many years. My sister bought the family home when my parents
retired and moved into something smaller. She was determined to remove it once
and for all. Thankfully by this time I had a home of my own and was just beginning my
first garden on the side yard. I slipped over and dug up a couple of small
sproutings, brought them home and placed them on my own fence, knowing very
well that one day I may regret this decision, but that desire to have those
butterflies back was strong enough to persuade me to go ahead. Though the vine
still sprouted at the family home they had managed to keep it enough in check
that the butterflies were no longer around.
I was so excited to be planting it, I had visions of masses
of vine clambering along the fence. Of course I failed to tell my husband that
this perticular vine ran, you know, about every three or four feet a new vine
would sprout up all over the yard. You see Dave, likes a manicured yard, nice
and neat. Boxwood type of gardening. Formal, you would call it. I on the other
hand could see flowers and more flowers everywhere. Because he liked the idea
of a vine growing on the fence he didn’t object, I mean how threatening are two
little six inch sprigs freshly dug out of the ground. But, that first year my
little
passion vines never became lush and beautiful as I had anticipated. Just
weeks into growth, I saw my first Gulf frittilary butterfly zooming around my
yard. Now understand that our home is surrounded by undeveloped lots consisting
of pines, oaks and a billion palmettos. Yet this lone butterfly was able to
find my flowerless sprig of passion vine. She then laid her little eggs and was
off. The catepillars kept those sprigs from getting no higher than about a foot
tall that hot summer, and not one flower the whole year. By the next spring my own
garden had some bones of it’s own, and the season was beautiful. My vines
started popping up here and there, from the runners the first years sprigs had
sent out. I got my first flower that year, and I’m sure we had several dozens
of frittilary concieved , hatched, and
metamorphized right there in that small garden. I had learned the secret to
butterfly gardening in Florida. Plant the right host plant and they will come.
God made nature a wonder that way. He just sends them where they need to be and
gives them all they need. Now five years
later, on any given day, even in the middle of winter (isn’t Florida great that
way) there is a fritillary butterfly darting this way and that way in search of
flowers, or a place to lay her eggs.
