Penny Carnathan

Penny’s a Nurture And Hold (NAH): Nah, I won’t pull that out yet, it’s still got a green shoot. She likes dragonflies, lady bugs and new stuff only after weeding, pruning and fertilizing.

Kim Franke-Folstad

Kim’s a Want It Now (WIN): Everything pretty, everything now. She will resort to full-spectrum insecticides in desperate situations, and believes it’s her duty and right to buy new plants every weekend.

Both advocate Plant Choice (SOMEthing besides crotons. Please!), lots of color and low maintenance. We don’t agree on everything, but we’re smart enough to learn from each other - and from you.

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Seed-and-cuttings swap: A bit of color in an otherwise bleak landscape (UPDATED!!)

Posted Jan 17, 2010 by Loren Omoto

Updated Jan 17, 2010 at 08:37 PM

Here’s the update: I’ve added several photos from the swap to our new Dirt gallery. Just click on the link above, “Let’s see your gardens.” Click on the photo to get a bigger view and to see the caption info.

  Best yet, it’s now REALLY easy for you to add photos, too. When you click on this link, you’ll see a bar that says “Upload photos or videos to this channel.” Click on it and you can put up photos that will appear in the little filmstrip above. Send Kim or me an email to let us know you’ve added photos, and we’ll put some on the blog so everyone knows to look. For those of you who used our old Snap galleries, I promise, this is waaaaay easier!

My garden palette is now shades of brown, with the occasional robust little pop of pansy purple, creamsicle and the now insanely bright-looking yellow.

You think I exaggerate? Take a look at the front beds.

For the record, the identifiable plants are, foreground to back, robellini palm (it was covered), a 15-year-old croton tree, jatropha, and another robellini. Up against the house, the bit of green is the one arboricola that’s not brown.

The backyard, believe it or not, is even worse.

So it was serendipitous that we planned our Dirty Dirty Plant Swap for today. I’m now warmed by love, hope and pots of lady slipper salvia, porterweed, dragonwing begonia, curry leaf tree and cat’s whiskers, not to mention seeds for double-yellow datura, sweet peas and Cherokee purple tomato, and scarlet milkweed.

Sigh!

Here’s Janna Begole, left, explaining her plants-for-trade to, from left, Laura Frost, Kay and Susan Gillespie. Behind them is Wes Miller of Seminole Heights with the walking iris and liriope he and his wife, Fay, brought.

Kay—sorry! I don’t know your last name!—won a lovely round of applause for bringing the most goodies. (She was the source of my curry leaf tree, lady’s slipper salvia, and veggie seeds.) She had a basket of little seed packets, all organized by type and labeled. With photos! And the cutest little bargain markers for her plants, which I think we’re all going to be copying: brightly colored plastic spoons, forks and knives with the names written in Sharpie.

Here’s Susan Gillespie, diving into Kay’s seed basket. Behind her to the left is David, who I mention because he and his wife, Janice, won the prize for Most Distance Traveled. They came all the way from Lakeland!

For her efforts, Kay walked away with Song of India and a cutting from my Kalanchoe Blossfeldiana, along with a nifty little magazine, Guide For Real Florida Gardeners, which was Laura Frost’s much-appreciated contribution.

(No one takes “seed and cuttings” swap literally. Gardeners are not big on rules, which is a wonderful thing. Kim brought plastic pots. “I don’t do seeds, though my husband wishes I did,” she said. “I buy my plants, so here are a bunch of plastic pots from my store-bought plants for all you seed people.”)

Wes Miller brought some staghorn ferns he’s been mounting, just to give us a look at the possibilities. They are pieces from a HUGE staghorn he got from the yard of a 103-year-old gardener who recently passed away. Here, he explains how to mount them. (His wife, Fay, came up with the idea of mounting some on large pieces from broken terra cotta pots, which I imagine makes for a really neat-looking display.)

Listening intently in that photo is Chris Ross, a landscape architect and historic preservationist who’s a member of Friends of Plant Park. We held the swap at Plant Park, at the University of Tampa, and Chris gave us a great tour of the grounds, explaining the history and the Friends’ plans for its future. She pointed out landmarks like the ancient DeSoto Tree, a live oak said to be so named because 16th-century explorer Hernando DeSoto once parlayed with the Indians beneath it. And Biology Creek, unearthed from beneath layers of underbrush decades ago by the school’s biology department.

Plant Park was the first City of Tampa Park (!!) and the Friends have been working to restore it so it resembles, as much as possible, the park it was when UT was the Tampa Bay Hotel. Future plans include a Victorian garden and a botanical garden.

Thank you Chris for that tour! I will enjoy the park even more now that I know so much more of its history.