Green Thumb in KW

I love, love flowers. I have always wanted a cutting garden....rows of colorful blooms to cut and arrange and decorate every room in the house. Instead, I used to bring home armloads of cut sunflowers, zinnias, coneflowers and dahlias from the farmer's markets in Frederick. Our first home was in an urban setting. I tended the ivy that grew up the bricks on the front of the house, but that was about it. Our second home had a large yard and I jumped into gardening with gusto.....an herb garden, hydrangeas, and coneflowers added to the existing peonies and butterfly bushes. A few years later, we put in a large raised bed vegetable garden. Fun, but lots of work, and I was seriously afraid that we might perish in a sea of sun gold cherry tomatoes. Here in our third home, in Key West, gardening couldn't be easier. Put something in the ground, water during the winter dry season and let the short, drenching rains and humidity take care of it the rest of the year. Here are a few of the things growing by the white picket fence that fronts our property. Yellow tropical buttercup, fragrant jasmine, the red flowering trees that line one side, a firecracker bush, and some colorful croton.