LEARNING | WELCOME

I am new to setting up a blog and learning how to upload and create using some photos I took yesterday in Roxy's Square <3

I have been learning photography while also trying to stay off of social media recently. Someone special suggested I should start a blog highlighting my native plant gardening journey in my small side yard - Roxy's Square. I am excited to have a virtual space to express my photography journey along with & through my love for pollinator gardening. Nurturing butterflies through native plant gardening has been a consistent soul purpose for me since I bought my home in 2019. I hope to share a little piece of my learning joy and maybe inspire more native plant and butterfly habitat enthusiasts!

The first photo is blanket flower, a fan favorite in Florida native plant gardening and an absolute joy to look at with her beautiful bright shades of red, yellow, and orange. There is some dispute about her legitimacy as a native but she is always welcome in my book! How she could ever be considered a weed is way beyond my comprehension. Keep an eye out for her, she is fairly common and found in a range of Florida habitats.

There is also an overexposed close up of a blood lily, I believe she comes from Africa. Yes, she is not native - but she is not invasive and I adore how funky she is. I made sure she is "Florida friendly" before I dug her up from the yard of a foreclosed property I toured last year in my neighborhood LOL!

The purple|blue flower is a personal favorite and Florida home girl, spiderwort!! Her stem and flowers are edible but if you want to eat the flower, you better harvest before the afternoon heat. She opens her flowers to the morning sun but they start to close mid day. I really enjoy this native plant for so many reasons - her color is gorgeous, she forms nice clumps, and will give you babies that are easy to move around the yard. She does prefer full sun and will not flower or grow as full in shady areas.

Then there are butterfly eggs that I watched being laid by a zebra longwing - our official state of FL butterfly. I managed to get a few shots but none that highlighted the individual hairs on the purple passion flower vine quite like this photo did. I have a hard time remembering latin scientific names but this one stays in my brain for some reason - passiflora incarnata. This vine is a Florida native and it was the first plant I ever put in my yard, harvested from a fellow native plant lovers yard prior to the first spring mowing. I transplanted 4 plugs and didn't think they took, but 7 years later and this time of year I have to control it a bit - she can be aggressive! In order for her to show her fully bloomed self, she requires full sun. I took a few photos of her flowers but none that I thought did her justice. Maybe one day....