A National Symbol?

Guess what species of bird this is?  If you said, "an adolescent bald eagle," you'd be right!  Like human teens, eagles go through that "awkward" time when their elders may wonder what gene pool they came from.  The bald eagle is born with a fluff of grey brown feathers on its body and wings and a snowy cap of white.  In northeast Florida the births happen in winter. It is a voracious eater, and by early spring it is as big as its parent and has exchanged its adorable plumage for a coat of scruffy dark feathers with white mottling.  A face only a mother (and a father) could love.  Both parents care for their chicks.  This photo probably doesn't endear us to it - sopping wet and gripping a bone from its latest meal in its beak.  The Switzerland-Fruit Cove Flordia area hosts at least seven bald eagle nests, and if this year's eaglets are lucky they'll have nests of their own in the future.  Learn more about our local national birds at our Resources post on Bald Eagle Nests.

Laissez Fumier Roule

They may be celebrating Fat Tuesday in New Orleans, Laissez Bon Ton Roule style, but up in the Butterfly Garden at Alpine Groves Park in Switzerland, Florida the Garden Club of Switzerland was getting ready for spring Laissez Fumier Roule style.   Instead of letting the Bon Ton (good times) roll, they were letting the Fumier (manure) roll.  Don't wrinkle up your nose!  The fertilizer was properly cured; and cured of any unpleasant odor...  Yes, OUR butterflies are WORTH IT. 

Despite the chill and the grey threats of rain, Mother Nature was on their side;  she held off her spring showers.  

And so the gardeners hauled, and pitched and wheeled their treasure to the appointed spots - the roots of the waiting plants.  We may smirk about manure, but it's the original Black Gold, the all-natural 100% organic - often imitated, but never duplicated (except by horses and other herbivores) "good stuff".  You could almost see the buds pop for joy!

Happy Birthday St. Johns County Agricultural Extension Center

County Agricultural Extension Center

St. Johns County is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Agricultural Extension Center at 3125 Agricultural Center Drive, St. Augustine, FL 32092-0572.  On any weekday (and a great many weekends) you'll see volunteers and county extension employees hard at work providing science-based information and lots of fun activities to help our residents understand and appreciate horticulture (professional and homeowner), agriculture, 4-H youth programs, forestry issues, disaster mitigation, marine and estuary programs, and consumer information and nutrition.  

For instance, every weekday from 9AM until noon, county residents can get free help with horticultural questions provided by our University of Florida certified master gardeners.  Just call  (904) 209-0430 or come to the center.  The extension center hosts many free and lost-cost classes and events too.  See the latest newsletters on Coastal Environment, 4-H Youth,  and Lawn and Garden topics.  

But you can't fully appreciate where you are unless you know where you've been.  Learn where St. Johns County has been by visiting the  County Administration Building, 500 San Sebastian View to see the free exhibit on our county's agricultural history.  The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.   It runs through April 24.   For more information regarding the display or the Agricultural Center,  call (904) 209-0430.

Welcome Spring! Our February Garden Party at Alpine Groves

Eight intrepid gardeners brought rakes, clippers, loppers, and, as you see, sheets and brooms, to the Garden Club of Switzerland’s February garden party at AlpineGroves Butterfly Garden.  For an hour they braved tangly old vines, pointy branches, crumbly leaves, and fire ants to prune back deadwood and sweep up the “carnage”.  The gardeners in the “American Gothic” photo were about to dump the debris from their sheet into the woods to decay.  No need to call in forensics, this is just what nature intends.  

Punxatawney Phil may have called for six more weeks of winter, but his prognostications do not extend to Florida.  We are enjoying the beginning of spring here, with daily highs bouncing between the upper seventies and low fifties.  And in the garden there were indeed signs of life, and not just from the gardeners who showed up for the party.

Our Garden Has a Pulse.  

A male coontie showing its cone, which looks like the cone of a fir tree - if fir tree's cones were orange...  Coonties are dioecious - meaning each plant is either male or female.  You never know what the sex is until the reproductive equipment start to show themselves.  We hope the other coontie in the garden is female, but she hasn't "come out" yet.  Learn more about coonties in our post describing the coontie as northern Florida's answer to the sago in our Resources section
  

A "clump" of green that may be a shasta daisy reemerging from its hibernating roots, or something else surprising:

 

 

Many Hands Make Light Work.