"Drive-By" Gardening; Silk Floss Tree

Garden "wellies."  My art.

Usually when I am gardening I dress in an old, stained pair of overalls.  They are blue and white pinstripe and have splotches of white paint across the front pockets.  Even though I bought a size "small" they are much too big for me and years ago I shortened the legs so that their bottom edges didn't drag the ground.  I also sewed the shoulder straps in place because they kept working their way loose as I worked.  They have great pockets that I empty of soil and crumpled leaves at the end of the day.  The knees are reinforced with no chance that I would ever have to patch holes.  

My overalls.  My photo.

I wear an old shirt--usually a hand-me-down from Nathan that shrunk in the dryer.  I keep a few of them just for gardening and so I can start with a fresh tee shirt for several days in a row without stopping to do laundry.  I also bought myself some black "wellies" from Walmart more than a decade ago that I step into and out of at the door as I come and go from inside to outside--it keeps the dirt that I drag into the house to a livable minimum.  

Before going out I smear my face with sunscreen and spray my arms with mosquito repellant.  I pull on a floppy canvas hat to complete the look.

Thus prepared, I pull on a pair of gardening gloves and load a big bucket with pruners, clippers and a small tree limb saw.  I also usually drag a big, empty garbage container with me so I can collect anything I pull up or cut off as it is pulled or cut.  

In a word--when I work in the yard--I look like I am working in the yard.

Three days ago Lauren came looking for me outside.  Caleb toddled beside her, holding her hand and picking his feet up a little higher than usual (I think the stiff Florida grass tickles his feet).  She found me in the front yard--pruning the inner branches of a hibiscus tree.  I was dressed in jeans and one of my "good" tee shirts.  My feet were bare--though I did have gloves on.  

Lauren approached me and stopped, picking up Caleb so he wouldn't continue to pull on her hand.  

"Hi, mom.  I couldn't find you inside.  You doing some drive-by gardening?"  

I looked back at her with a questioning look--you know one eyebrow up and one eyebrow down.

"Well . . . you're not dressed like usual . . . and you didn't tell anyone you'd be out gardening."

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Drive-by gardening.  Doing something without planning before hand.  Getting caught in the middle of working on something I didn't really mean to be doing.  With yard work, that can be a bad thing for me--shoulder, hands, wrists, knees have all been repaired frequently in the last few years.  

Yesterday we celebrated Lauren's birthday and a (hated) family tradition (that I insist on--another story) is the giving of a "wish" to the person whose present you are about to open.  Lauren wished that Brent would find some really cool fossils the next time he went to the Peace River to search for them.  I was next.  

After rolling her eyes and thinking hard, Lauren said, "I wish that you won't have to have more surgery on anything this year."  

Unfortunately a very appropriate wish; already this year I had to have a severed tendon in my right wrist repaired. 

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NEW SUBJECT

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Silk Floss Trees

Bombacaceae Chorisa speciosa

Ever since we moved here eleven years ago I have alternately felt pity and awe for the Silk Floss tree.  

Through the late fall, winter and spring, the trees look like something from a Tim Burton movie.   

In late fall and winter the crepe murtles are flush with bright purple, red and pink fluttered flowers.  In spring the gardenia trees and tiny jasmine flowers fill the air with a delicious fragrance.  My wild roses produce hundreds of blooms all year long.  Hibiscus bushes and trees boast huge flowers in yellow, flaming orange, bright crimson, and blood red.

In contrast, the Silk Floss tree stands barren almost all year long.  When I first saw the row of trees along Donald Ross Avenue standing naked and crook-branched, I wondered out loud why they didn't just pull them down and put in something that would be able to thrive along a busy street.

January 2016.  Line of Silk Floss trees along Donald Ross Avenue, east of I-95, Jupiter, FL.  My photo.

Usually, sprawling, bare branches are hung with sparse pods--luminous dark olive.  These turn into white, cottony lumps, tight as a clenched fist.  

Seed pods--with green cover and without. I like the image of the smooth green pod against the thorns on the branches.  My photo.

These gradually expand into four fluffing fingers hanging down until a storm wind carries them off--leaving the trees completely naked.

The last stage before the tree's seeds are liberated by a strong wind.  My photo.

As if in response to this dearth of foliage, the trunk and branches have sprouted thousands of thorns.  If they have no leaves, at least they have something with which to protect themselves.  The only way to believe them is to see them.

Spiny thorns on trunk. My photo.

During the summer the tree is carpeted with gobs of fluffy pink clouds of petals--from afar it looks like something from a My Little Pony movie.  During this time of year, it always seem odd to me that there aren't rainbows sprouting from each tree.