Florida Fall & Goodbye Lie Diaries

Fernandina on Amelia Island
present day

4 o'clocks- A friend gave me the huge bulbs years ago and they smell delightful, too!

Jane Marie writes:
Mama Nature is wonderful in so many way.  One of them is her perennials.  You know, those plants that come up from bulbs or the ones that bloom every year. Yes, fertilizing, dead heading, cutting them back, etc., all the things gardeners should do will make for a bigger display of blossoms. But, for anyone who hasn't the time to bestow much TLC upon these garden gems, well, be grateful they don't need you very much.  The photos are proof of that since I can't be in my cottage garden as often as I'd like to be. 
 

seven  sisters roses


 

white mums from a pot that decorated the altar one
 Easter Sunday morning



yellow mums

Wild red Florida roses-very bug resistant,
and they bloom a couple of times a year.





miniature oleander bush

 


orange tree



pink mums


Gerbera daisy is an annual.  I looked it up,
 but our Florida winter has been mild enough that it survived. 
 I think this plant is at least 4 years old.

******

Fernandina on Amelia Island, Florida
1880's

Aunt Noreen writes:
If you are trying to show off, Jane Marie, you are doing a masterful job of it.  It's not that you don't have some very lovely specimens, but it sounds as though you are neglecting your garden and depending upon the good Lord to make your flowers grow.  I'm sure He would appreciate you lending a hand and spending a few hours a week in your garden.  Don't be so lazy!

Aunt Noreen

The ladies in my orchid society realize how hard I work to produce the show-stoppers I do and so  I am proud to say I won second place for what I call my Emerald Eye.  The only reason I did not win first place was that Mrs. Wiseflicker tripped over a tree root when she was visiting her husband's grave and landed in a patch of poison ivy.  They judges felt sorry for her when she appeared in front of them with her hands, arms, left foot and right ear wrapped in bandages, balancing her orchid pot on her hip. The people who get their way by feigning illness ... I would never think of doing anything like that.  It's not in my nature.

Aunt Noreen is a featured player in Amelia Island's Goodbye Lie series set in the 1880s.  She is less that popular within her family and even less in the small seaside town of Fernandina on Amelia Island, Florida.