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September 2001
But we gotta keep moving. So this month's journal is my way of "carrying on" even though it is kinda lame.
Here in North Florida, like most areas, September is a great month for observing butterflies in the garden. Early in the month, the garlic chive blossoms hosted scores of tiger swallowtails and mourning cloaks. The lantana species I grow here (Lantana camara and L. montevidensis continue to supply a dependable butterfly bounty to the delight of hordes of hungry gulf fritillaries. The Texas sage and cigar plant have also been blooming for most of the summer and are constantly a-flutter in clouds of yellow sulfur butterflies. One of my September favorites is the golden dewberry (Duranta erecta). But there'll be no actual dewberries for me - I grow this shrub only for the pretty blue flowers that it is putting forth right this month. This is a very useful and easy to grow tropical shrub. Here in Zone 8 it is invariably killed back by frost but it always rises again in the spring. In warmer zones the clear blue blossoms transform into the shrub's signature golden berries creating a precious picture that persists through the winter. September is also the month when many ornamental grasses look their coolest. A recent planting of switchgrass 'Heavy Metal' has rewarded me with a densely wispy haze of reddish seed heads that complement the fuzzy pink muhlygrass flowers that have just started appearing. Completing the scene are soaring twelve foot tall flower stalks of pampas grass that provide the background for this dry area garden. Back in a wetter area near the catfish pond, our native Fakahatchee grass is hanging on to the last of it fat tubular seed heads. Unfortunately I won't get to enjoy voluptuous drooping seed heads of my new wood oats planting as they had an unfortunate encounter with an errant lawn - no big deal, the plant has recovered already and will be bigger and better next year.
This month I turned 51 on the seventeenth of September but it was on the eleventh that I became old. I've heard that age brings patience, serenity and wisdom. So far I'm just tired, crabby and befuddled. So I intend to spend as much time as possible working in the garden where I feel just a little wiser and a bit more serene. I, for one, need much garden time as I can get these days! Lastly, my gratitude and prayers go out to the members of our military and to their families for the sacrifices they will be called upon to make. September was a nightmare, October will be better. I'll see you next month. Be good and grow stronger. John Scheper 09/30/01
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