Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Redlands

The next time you walk through a home improvement box store, and visit the garden center, you most likely will see a section of tropical plants.  I know that when I lived in Cleveland, and especially when the long grey winter was about to make me homicidal, I would find relief from my blues in looking at, and occasionally buying, a spider or schefflera plant to add a bit of greenery inside to contrast the white outside.

Now, I live close to where much of this plant stock is grown.  It is an area south of Miami and north of the Florida Keys called the Redlands.  And I could not be happier about it!  Farm land, interspersed with little nurseries, each an incredible adventure waiting to happen.  Harry and I have had such fun landscaping our yard and our business from this area.  We drive down little dirt roads and discover the most amazing places.  Often no one speaks English and we have to practice our really bad Spanish.  I am not sure if I am asking the price of an item or if I can purchase their youngest child.  We hop on their rickety golf cart and away they go to show us their bounty.  One time an owner made Harry sit with him under a homemade canopy and the gentleman produced a gallon of whiskey from under the table to share a drink and stories with H-bomb.  Other properties have livestock, goats and chickens running about the plants.  Road side stands or little tables set up along the road sell the most exotic fruits I have ever seen.  And my favorite fruit stand sells perhaps the most fantastic treat ever after a day on the water in nearby Everglades National Park - a fresh coconut milkshake.  I thank my grand kids for introducing me to that selection when I would normally pick something as exotic as strawberry-banana. 

And the Orchids.  Holy cow.  I landed right in Orchid heaven.  A little hobby I started up north with a few plants I struggled to keep going under lights in the winter has taken hold of me and made me a crazy woman.  I fuss, baby, fertilize, apply fungicides, lament, and nurture maybe a hundred plants.  I cannot get enough.  People sell them from cars on the side of the road up "there" in the Redlands.  There are nurseries, orchid shows and festivals.  I volunteer at one that draws people from all over the world.  Who knew that there was such mania about a plant species? 

After golf this week "up in Miami" I took the rural way home and passed a cart loaded with Heliconia Rostratas (lobster claw).  I saw these growing wild in the Amazon rain forest and have wanted one for my own ever since.  Woohoo - $9 for a five foot tall plant - and I could not wait to get home from work the next day to dig a hole in our yard of coral rock and get this into the garden.