Tag: plants

To the Everglades

One of a good-sized group of brown pelicans we watched while we ate lunch in Tin City, a group of shops located in old tin buildings on Naples Bay. Naples, FL, February 2026.

We had brought the frigid temps of the Carolinas and Georgia with us to Tampa, and my wife’s sister lamented the loss of her typical 70’s and 80’s. It warmed a bit on our second day there. I bundled up in the warmest things I’d packed and walked to a nearby reservoir to see what bird life I could find. Driving south the next day, we arrived at the Tin City shopping mecca early afternoon, and tucked into a late lunch. The food and the bird life entertained; the shops did not. Tin City seemed a poor and miniscule version of Seattle’s Pike Street Market. Most shops sold typical tourist trinkets which said “made in China” on the bottom. Combined with the exorbitant hotel rates—$300+ for a Springhill Suites on the outskirts of greater Naples?—I doubt we’ll be back in Naples. One saving grace? We’re not exactly foodies but we’re kissin’ close, and discovering that the Cracklin’ Jack’s just up the road from the hotel had recently been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives sure put a fine end to the day. Best fried catfish I’ve ever had! We looked forward a bit more eagerly to entering the Everglades and surrounds the next day.

Although the westernmost entry to the Everglades National Park, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center, purported to not be open until the end of February, we decided to chance it on the 26th. We were rewarded with an open, brand-spanking-refurbished center….but not much else because it’s a jump-off point for visitors who want to boaters and to those who want to hike/camp in the Ten Thousand Islands. We are neither of those types. We traveled east on US-41, a.k.a. the Tamiami Trail, the southern route across the Florida peninsula which parallels I-75 a.k.a. “Alligator Alley”. I planned the US-41 route; it became a wise decision when a fire broke out between the two and officials closed sections of the interstate. (It also precluded driving very far north from the US-41.) The southern tip of Florida is a patchwork of state parks, state forests, national preserves, and the national park. We stopped first at the Big Cypress Swamp Welcome Center in the Big Cypress National Preserve. After that, a stop at the H.P. Williams Roadside Park gave us our first good glimpse of alligators, and some nice views of the bird denizens.

A Tri-Colored Heron stalks its prey. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.
It’s not “oh, look, there’s a gator.” It’s more a find-the-gator experience. Sure they’re swimming up and down the minor canal you’re looking at. Can you spot the one hanging out under your nose? Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.
“like ships passing in the night…” Some gators were easier to spot. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

Sometimes, though, the subtropical plants grab one’s attention…

“Moses-in-the-cradle”??? That’s what my plant ID program says, but it seems doubtful. Regardless, it created a stark contrast to the water’s edge. Big Cypress National Preserve, February 2026.

Technically, the final photo of the plants was taken at the Oasis Visitor Center for the Big Cypress National Preserve. If you’re traveling “to see the Everglades,” I would highly recommend US-41 and the Big Cypress route, because it’s basically the northern environs of the Everglades. When one leaves the eastern boundary of the preserve, it’s less than a mile before the Everglades’ Shark Valley Visitor Center. As good as our day’s beginning had been, we had much to look forward to, it turned out.

To Leyke Ranch Reservoir

A simple noontime walk in the Greater Tampa area.

A wrong turn turned right when I spotted this Great Egret. Riverview, FL, February 2026.
Arriving at my destination, a reservoir in land known as the Leyke Ranch, I saw an old friend: the Anhinga, seen here in a typical sunning-of-the-wings pose. A strange, almost exotic bird which frequents Florida but gets up to NC only rarely. February 2026.
A short distance offshore from the Anhinga were the similar-looking cormorants. These Double-crested Cormorants reminded me of turtles all lined up on their log…even if one end of it was sinking into the water! February 2026.
A Brown Pelican flew in to join the cormorants. February 2026.
I heard a strange call as I left the reservoir, and turning toward it, I saw two large birds on the island in the middle of the water. I thought they looked like cranes and my sister-in-law identified them as Sandhill Cranes which are nesting out there. Way cool. I’ve seldom seen these birds. February 2026.

On my return walk I noted several interesting looking plants. Altogether a very nice if cool time of it. (It dipped toward the 30’s here this morning!)

February 2026.
February 2026.
February 2026.

The New Year (in the rearview mirror)

One of my favorite plants: an oak leaf hydrangea. We had several of these planted in our backyard to replace the one killed by the squirrels. It sat under our bird feeder, and the squirrels used it to attempt an ascent to said feeder. Though a hydrangea, the leaves resemble the shape of oak leaves and turn such glorious colors in the fall. January 2026.
My spiritual development received a boost, oddly enough, when my friend Dennis died in December and his passing was memorialized in mid-January. Every Sunday morning our choir rehearses in a small chapel off of our narthex, and in that chapel are lovely stained glass windows. We attempt to do more than sing; we attempt to listen to the words and the intent of the music so as to impart an inspiring message to the congregants. January 2026.
January (and February!) brought some pretty cold temps to North Carolina, and we warmed many a time to fires. An ‘illuminating’ moment with a friend informed me that I could be using the TWIGS IN MY YARD to start fires! I had laboriously been shaving slivers of tinder off of oak quarters, and the oak was running out. What a great life lesson! January 2026.
A spontaneous purchase from Rancho Gordo (please check it out if you like the taste of good legumes) led me to Christmas Lima beans. I cooked them on January 20th despite being in a fever from some weird viral thing that was neither Covid nor flu. When you soak the beans, you have to cook them. They found their way into a cabbage and bean soup, and more uses are planned. January 2026.
When the going gets cold, the cold get caffeinated: the morning ritual captured. Once in a while I use a more automated version (a Nespresso machine) but this is the normal routine. After being gifted this mug, I now have an accurate scale to tell me when I should stop letting the water drip through the coffee grounds. January 2026.
As always, cats know best. Hunker down and wait for spring. Benny might have thought he had the chair to himself (that’s him in the rear) but Charlie had other ideas. January 2026.

Crape myrtles…

…or crepe myrtles if you prefer…seem ubiquitous here in Raleigh, NC. From what I read and hear they’re throughout the South, though I haven’t paid enough attention while driving through our neighbor states. Crape myrtles take their time, slowly becoming substantial trees of a type called thicket trees. They can be well-tended and trained, as this one is:

With care, the trunks grow together. Raleigh, NC. July 2025.

Usual care involves letting them grow as they will, but pruning suckers and sometimes trimming the tops to shape them:

Crape myrtle with usual thicket look and showing white blooms. Raleigh, NC. July 2025.

Crape myrtles are everywhere here. The photo above is across the street from the first photo. The thicket-trunked myrtle in the foreground has a substantial myrtle right to its left, the one with a more substantial trunk. Follow the sidewalk and you’ll see two more, smaller (younger) crape myrtles flowering. These last two demonstrate the variety of the approximately 50 species of crape myrtle (or are a particular cultivar of one):

Younger, different crape myrtles. Raleigh, NC. July 2025.

Crape myrtle are maintained by the City of Raleigh in the decorative medians:

Three “City” crape myrtles at the end of my street. Raleigh, NC. July 2025.

To me the Ultimate Crape Myrtle lives in my neighbor’s yard. Its branches extend from the edge of the sidewalk and tower over her house. It’s at least 30 feet tall. Someone appears to have pruned a few suckers in its youth, but mostly it’s been left to its own.

Crape myrtle in neighbor’s yard. Our white car and yard in the background. Raleigh, NC. July 2025.

And then there are our crape myrtles. Ours were planted sometime between 2007 and 2014 (using Google Maps Street View), with the most likely time frame being 2010-2012, a period when the former owners rapidly changed the landscaping and interior of the house. The myrtles probably were purchased as saplings, and have doubled in height for the eight years we’ve lived here. For reasons I suspect have to do with amount of sunlight and my utter lack of any care beyond occasional pruning, they flower very late. I suspect sunlight because my other neighbor has three, also near the sidewalk, which haven’t bloomed yet either. In the photos above you might have noticed most of the myrtles nearing the end of their blooming period. Ours?

Our two crape myrtles, either side of the driveway, not blooming. July 2025.

But here’s the thing: though closely identified with the American South, they are not native to it. To quote the NC State University’s Extension Gardener website, “[Crape myrtle] is native to the Philippines, Japan and central Himalayas to southern China and Indochina.” Our whole move the past 12 months has been to replace everything in the front yard with native plants. (note that in the photo above) After a year of debate, and many years of saying, “Maybe they will bloom better when they get bigger,” we’ve decided to replace them. (Sorry, former owners. Consider it payback for removing that big tree in the front yard and not properly having the stump ground. I nearly broke my ankle in that mess many a time.) On one side will be an ‘Amethyst’ witch hazel which blooms in winter and very early spring. (Photo here.) On the other side will be a serviceberry. It mimics the look of a crape myrtle with the multi-trunk growth, but it will provide berries for birds and other critters.

All right, I’m craped out.

Clouds from the ground

My first photo at Volcanoes National Park: a steam vent on the edge of the Kilauea crater. September 2024.

The island of Hawai’i could be called triangular. The west coast roughly runs north to south. From its northern tip, though, the coast runs northwest to southeast. Then from that easternmost point it runs northeast to southwest to join up with the west coast. Situated inland from the southeast-facing coastline lies Volcanoes National Park. Volcanoes presents much more than just dormant craters. Its most active feature (inland) turned out to be the first thing we saw: steam vents. Craters? I found their vastness difficult to comprehend.

Kilauea from steam vents on north rim, looking southwest. September 2024.

I’m not even sure the photo above shows only Kilauea. I see “Hale Ma’uma’u Crater” on the ol’ Google Maps. Lava flowed in 1919, 1921, 1954, 1959, and on and on I would guess. I paid little attention to information, so I’ve only myself to blame! Seeing it seemed more important than reading about it on signs, the internet, pamphlets, and the like.

Trade winds blow northeasterly toward the park. There are dry plains inland, but plenty of slopes catch the moisture. Plant life abounds there. Even in this dryness:

On the edge of the steam vents. Volcanoes National Park, September 2024.

Where the rain can fall, things change rapidly. Just a few miles away from the photos above…

Kilauea Iki Overlook trail. Volcanoes National Park, September 2024.
Kilauea Iki Overlook trail. Volcanoes National Park, September 2024.

Eventually I realized this incredibly wide circle we were tracing surrounded a ‘family’ of volcano craters. We continued past many tantalizing side trips, acknowledging our (a) laziness, (b) general physical un-fitness, and (c) certain time constraints. Turning off of the Crater Rim Drive where it intersected Chain of Craters Road–further westward travel was blocked–we traced the path of lava flows to the ocean.

Approaching the coast in Volcanoes National Park. September 2024.
Where lava meets the sea: Holei Sea Arch. Volcanoes National Park, September 2024.

Now that I know more about this park, I would go back to look into lava tubes, to hike a bit here and there, to see if some of the roads had opened up, and to maybe hike down into a crater…maybe. It looked kinda boring to be truthful.

‘Yep, the rock looks just as black down here. Why did we hike down here again?’ Volcanoes National Park, September 2024.

It all impressed this guy who grew up with the volcanoes of the North Cascades, a far different kind of thing.

Old Mamalahoa Highway

Our rental car, trees, vines, and a curve on the Old Mamalahoa Highway. The Big Island, HI. September 2024.

If you find yourself on the Big Island, and most especially if you stay on the east side in or near Hilo, a must stop (for the physically fit) is Akaka Falls State Park. As you head north to that park–only 15 miles distant, a very easy drive–just past Paukaa you’ll see a typically yellow/orange/ochre, diamond-shaped highway sign telling you that to your right is a “Scenic Highway” with a little sign beneath that says it’s four miles in length. Hopefully someone in your car (perhaps you?) will say as my wife did, “Let’s take that!” When you jerk the steering wheel to the right in the Papaikou census area (pop 1314), you’ll be on the Old Mamalahoa Highway.

These aren’t my best photos. Skies were overcast. Dense tropical foliage made it dark everywhere. Green predominates. The road twists, turns, offers few places to just pull over to grab a photo.

Halfway in we stopped at the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden. It looked interesting, and it had restrooms. Our interest waned when faced with admission prices of $30/each and the prominent display of mosquito repellant for sale right beside the register. Translated from “customer-eze”, the signs basically said, “You’re a fool if you don’t apply repellant.” I’m sure it’s a wonderful point of interest: it features a valley down to the ocean with 2,500 species of plants. Nevertheless, we drove on. We stopped soon after when we found a bridge and a wide spot to pull off the road.

Kawainui Stream, Big Island, HI. September 2024.
Kawainui Stream, Big Island, HI. September 2024.

I had become fascinated by a orange-red flower growing high in the canopy. At this stop we found ourselves above some of these trees, permitting me to photograph them:

Big Island, HI. September 2024

Driving north as we did, one suddenly pops out of the dense foliage and into a grassy pasture area on the edge of Pepeekeo. Joining the main highway, we drove on to Akaka Falls.

Fall, y’all

Like so many things in the American South, the arrival of autumn takes its own sweet time. I should say “fall” also because at two syllables, both of which have a “u” in them, “it “autumn” just seems a bit pretentious here. Our first inkling summer is nearing its end (besides a simple look at the calendar) occurs when “someone turns the humidity off” as a former boss of mine put it. (He was from Michigan.) Humidity levels build quickly in early June, and by mid-month your A/C chokes on the amount of water it’s removing from your indoor atmosphere. Around Labor Day a similarly rapid decline in humidity takes place. It seems even quicker than the ramp up because the lack of humidity means heat no longer lingers around all night, ready to leap into action at dawn. Instead of staying in the high 60’s and low 70’s suddenly one’s body registers temps that are downright cool at dawn. What follows seems like a coda to the summer, a time of 72-80 degree weather, mostly sunny weather, and dawn temperatures in the low 50’s.

For me fall can be said to be truly here when leaves start to turn color. Except for stressed trees and shrubs, this usually occurs around the second to third weekend in October. Even then it’s a slow, drawn out affair. This cluster of leaves seemed representative to me. We’re in the last week of October, and the trees reluctantly turn various colors dependent on species.

Fall in Raleigh, NC. October 2024.

We arrived home Monday after a quick dash north for a wedding, when I realized, “Hey the dogwood is really turning color.” One of the first to herald spring with its blossoms, and one of the first to leaf out, it’s also one of the first to say, “Nope, gettin’ a mite too cold. Goodbye.”

Front yard dogwood. Shaded trees in back a more dusky red. October 2024.

And finally this photo to illustrate the sadness of invasive species. The Virginia creeper is native to central and eastern North America. It knows that it’s fall here. The English ivy isn’t native to North America at all. The latter will hang around nearly all winter, and in milder winters I believe I haven’t seen it turn colors at all. It chokes out most undergrowth if allowed, and it adds weight to trees if allowed to proliferate. It creates an eco-desert.

Tree with ivy and creeper, L foreground; tree with mostly ivy center. October 2024.