Weekend Report

We took a long weekend. Drove down to Naples Botanical Garden for a hands-on workshop on Tropical Fruit Trees. It turned out to be more of an introductory tour than I had expected, but it nonetheless taught us a lot of stuff we didn't know and gave us some ideas for planting the rest of the plantation.

The fragrant begonias were blooming at the NBG, so we had to find one of those when we left. We went to a nursery we've been to before [it's on the road to Marco Island], and sure enough they had one. We bought it and headed north.

Spent the night in Fort Myers and then drove back to Naples this morning to visit Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. If any of you get this far south, make sure that's on your itinerary. It is fantastic. The native epiphytes--Tillansia--were blooming at this time of year. There were night herons, lesser blue herons, alligators, and red-bellied turtles everywhere.

Left Corkscrew and headed to ECHO's tropical fruit nursery. We have been lusting after a "Carrie" mango for a year or so. ECHO had one this time. We also bought a "Red Lady" papaya and an Okinawan spinach, which is a tangy perennial salad green for the subtropics.

Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Zone 10a
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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