New mini movies to hopefully educate and entertain!
First, "Rabbits"
And...
Snakes are beautiful people too!
A site where those who are concerned about clean air, water, and habitat for wildlife can learn more about how to help in their own back yards. This site will keep up with proposed legislation that affects our ability to keep our planet clean and green, and will help others find websites and services to learn more about living lighter on the planet.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Shout Outs
Need to promote some great groups so let's get to it!
First of all, Dr. PJ Deitschel formally the Clinic Director for CROW on Sanibel, is now working for the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation on the east coast of Florida. Their blog page, full of wonderful videos and a link to their YouTube channel is at http://www.rscfblog.blogspot.com/ There is hope for the world's most endangered animals, I hope you'll see what they're up to and help any way you can.
I am adding the Arbor Day Foundation to my list of Great Websites. http://www.arborday.org/ is the place to go.
Be sure to find out which trees NATIVE to your area are the most needed and please consider planting one (or 2 or 3) in your own back yard, or at a local park.
I need to promote the Friends Group of the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program, they are doing wonderful work too! http://chnepfriends.org/ will get you there.
And a special thank you to Mike and Ryanne Beaty for their support, twitter advice and friendship at work. If you have any family or friends into wrestling, please go to Facebook.com/3countradio and check out their podcasts. You can download from iTunes as well.
Also, if you have chimney swifts in your part of the world, they are in desperate need of housing. Paul & Georgean Kyle have created plans for building nesting sites on their website at http://www.chimneyswifts.org/
Finally, we need to remember that in this country millions of cats and dogs are put to death each year for lack of a home, yet many people insist they have some kind of right to continue to breed so-called purebred animals. Purebred is another word for inbred, and although these animals can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, many will end up in shelters because they require too much care, or aren't as wonderful as they are in the movies (dalmations etc). Locally, we have a greyhound rescue group called Homeward Bound. Wherever you live, there are shelters and rescue groups. PLEASE, never BUY a pet! Rescue, from a group or local shelter or animal control and be rewarded with the greatest gift of all...LOVE.
First of all, Dr. PJ Deitschel formally the Clinic Director for CROW on Sanibel, is now working for the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation on the east coast of Florida. Their blog page, full of wonderful videos and a link to their YouTube channel is at http://www.rscfblog.blogspot.com/ There is hope for the world's most endangered animals, I hope you'll see what they're up to and help any way you can.
I am adding the Arbor Day Foundation to my list of Great Websites. http://www.arborday.org/ is the place to go.
Be sure to find out which trees NATIVE to your area are the most needed and please consider planting one (or 2 or 3) in your own back yard, or at a local park.
I need to promote the Friends Group of the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program, they are doing wonderful work too! http://chnepfriends.org/ will get you there.
And a special thank you to Mike and Ryanne Beaty for their support, twitter advice and friendship at work. If you have any family or friends into wrestling, please go to Facebook.com/3countradio and check out their podcasts. You can download from iTunes as well.
Also, if you have chimney swifts in your part of the world, they are in desperate need of housing. Paul & Georgean Kyle have created plans for building nesting sites on their website at http://www.chimneyswifts.org/
Finally, we need to remember that in this country millions of cats and dogs are put to death each year for lack of a home, yet many people insist they have some kind of right to continue to breed so-called purebred animals. Purebred is another word for inbred, and although these animals can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, many will end up in shelters because they require too much care, or aren't as wonderful as they are in the movies (dalmations etc). Locally, we have a greyhound rescue group called Homeward Bound. Wherever you live, there are shelters and rescue groups. PLEASE, never BUY a pet! Rescue, from a group or local shelter or animal control and be rewarded with the greatest gift of all...LOVE.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Q & A and Thank Yous
Many thanks first of all to the Pine Lily Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) and their support of The Back Ten Feet. They are signed up for tweet alerts already! I really do hope all our viewers in Florida will take the time to visit www.fnps.org, find the chapter closest to them and join.
We received a request to do a show on grafting. Unfortunately, that is not my area of expertise. But I DO know that your local county co-operative extension office will have experts who can answer your questions, offer advice, and even publications to help.
Thanks to all who are "liking" us on their Facebook page. We too are in the process of liking other organizations and individuals on our page who are like-minded and providing good information and services to the public.
Hope you enjoy the second episode and our new look and layout.
We received a request to do a show on grafting. Unfortunately, that is not my area of expertise. But I DO know that your local county co-operative extension office will have experts who can answer your questions, offer advice, and even publications to help.
Thanks to all who are "liking" us on their Facebook page. We too are in the process of liking other organizations and individuals on our page who are like-minded and providing good information and services to the public.
Hope you enjoy the second episode and our new look and layout.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
We're on Facebook
Please take time to read the guest blog from Tom Becker below, lots of really good advice and information plus class dates and websites to use, especially for those new to Florida. Also, we now have a Facebook page! The Back Ten Feet With Sue Scott. I'm still working on learning how to use it, we will have lots of great plant pics etc.
Thnks for all the messages of support for our first episode!
Thnks for all the messages of support for our first episode!
Guest Blogger Tom Becker
Watch for Damage in Your Yard from Heavy Rain
Heavy rainfall events are common this time of year. Over 10% of our rain events annually in Southwest Florida drop three inches or more of rainwater. 50 or more inches of rainwater falls each year. During one storm event, a thunderstorm or hurricane, 3-8” of rainwater can fall.
One inch of rain is often all our local soils can hold. Additional rain water accumulates in retention ponds, empty lots, roadway drainage ditches or in local rivers, canals and lakes.
With continued sun and heavy rain, any soil runoff from a yard could impact water quality in local watersheds. In landscaped areas, the Lee County extension service recommends maintaining a 2-3-inch layer of organic mulch over bare soil to prevent erosion. Heavy and repeated rainfall can quickly thin out mulch intended to last for a full year to just 6-8 months.
Once exposed directly to the weather, our urban soils erodes rapidly. Even mulch applied properly still thins and wears out, sometime faster then we’d like. Exposed or bare soil encourages weeds and quickly dries out. And, as a result, healthly plants suffer.
Thinning mulch or bare spots most often develop along property borders, roads, driveways and sidewalks. Excess soil, not held in place by mulch or vegetation potentially washes into the wrong places; under a neighbor’s fence, on top of a healthy lawn in a drainage ditch or worse-yet, cover the surface of a nearby road. Every soil particle needs held in place or captured before washing off your property.
Keep checking your landscape beds after each major storm event this summer. Have on-hand an extra, 2-cubic foot bag of organic mulch product for use to cover and replenish bare spots. Choose from locally available or produced source materials. Some mulches are even considered recycled products when reused. For example melaleuca trees, a prohibited plants makes excellent mulch.
When covering bare spots of soil with mulch, use, if possible, the same type of mulch as was originally applied. Each mulch product reacts differently on the surface of the soil. Each one breaks down at a different rate, depending on its particle size, the intensity of the sun or shade its exposed to and how much and how fast rain water hits its surface. Three good, recycled mulch products have worked well in display gardens for the FYN program in Lee County. They include pine bark, pine straw and melaleuca mulch.
Bare spots in a mulched landscape bed often appear at the base of rainwater gutters and downspouts. Homes built without gutters develop frequent bare spots in mulch that follow the edges of roof’s overhang or where water collects and washes off via converging roof lines. (a.k.a. corners).
Take advantage of Lee County Extension workshops that show you how to construct and collect rainwater landing on the roof of your home. Workshops are presented regularly showing homeowners how simple and easy it is to harvest and recycle rainwater.
A rain barrel workshop is planned for July 23 at 9am at Rotary Park in the Southwest Cape. The $45 cost includes the cost of taking home a rain barrel. A FREE informational session is also planned for the following Saturday at the GreenMarket at the Arts for the Alliance at 10AM. For more info., visit http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/
Rainy Season is a Good Time to Plant
Installing new shrubs and trees is recommended now and throughout the rainy, summer months. A few, good ‘best management’ gardening practices should be followed. Take every precaution possible to keep soil from eroding during heavy rains. Cover recently dug and exposed soil by permanently or temporarily covering with mulch. Or, keep off rainwater using a heavy plastic tarp. In sloped areas near waterways, pine straw bales can be positioned to stop the flow of rainwater into a waterway.
Apply a new layer of organic mulch immediately after installing new plants. Apply mulch properly by spreading it evenly 3-4 inch deep. Use recommended products including organic mulches only, wood mulches made from recycled products, freshly chopped tree trimmings or bark mulch. For a list of recommended mulch products and local suppliers, contact the extension office.
Mulch often breaks down quickest over the summer months due to the high heat, excess rainfall and high humidity. A 2 or 3 inch mulch layer, after the rainy season ends, often need refreshed with new materials by November or December.. This is especially true when organic mulch product is laid on a newly worked soil. One way to improve the longevity of a newly laid mulch layer is by first applying multiple sheets or sections of newspapers. The newspaper is laid randomly, leaving no uncovered spots. Try to apply as much as 4 to 8 sheets or more newspapers. Follow laying the newspapers immediately with a mulch layer that is 3-4 inches deep. Follow that with lightly wetting down both with ¼” of water.
If you are planting an area within 10 feet of a body of water or on the water’s edge, select plants wisely. Choose from dozens of appropriate, low-maintenance or maintenance-free plant species. Many tolerate infrequent flooding or submergence. These plants often prefer regularly wet soil conditions. But, after getting established, these same native plants survive in less ideal, droughty soils at or near the water’s edge.
Shorelines are particularly difficult to get plants established without supplemental water. Known as the littoral planting zone, these soils if dried out become highly erodible and prone to damage if not mulched or covered with vegetation. These soils can literally wash out and around the root system of newly installed plants.
The preferred organic mulch type for banks and wet shorelines is pine straw. As pine needles gets collected and baled, pine needles get intertwined and bundled into an interlocking pattern. As a result, a mulch layer exposed to surface water does not wash away.
For any plants needed along a waterway, choose the best, indigenous, natives. Design and install Florida-Friendly landscaping™ plants. Many are recommended because of their ability to establish wildlife habitat or groundcover quickly in water.
Use the right plants and right mulch prevents un-intended consequences including pollutants washing off lawns and landscapes. Several of the worst contaminants needing prevented include grass clippings, pet waste, fertilizer and pesticides.
Low growing plant types, including many of the native bunch grasses, are often preferred along residential shorelines. These large or small-growing natives look natural while establishing quickly along a waterway.
Bunch grasses can be used alone or grouped with other plants. Use them along a sea wall or along drainage swales or mixed with other wildlife-attracting plant types. Mixing with small trees and cabbage palms is popular.
When possible, use two or more native plant types in each area. The greater the plant diversity, the better it is for attracting wildlife. Use wildflowers, vining groundcovers or small shrubs like beautyberry, saltbush, walter’s viburnum, golden creeper, buttonbush, red-berry stoppers, Carolina Jessamine and others. Choose plants based on their salt tolerance (if near salt water) and height depending on yours and neighborhood’s needs.
Eleven different, native bunching and clump-forming grasses are used for landscaping in Florida About half that number are grasses used in Southwest Florida. Some bunchgrasses are grown and sold in native plant nurseries only. Each type has its own look, feel and texture. Each one has its preferred ‘best’ placement on or along a waterway.
These native bunchgrasses act along a waterway much like an oil filter on your car. Small particles in surface water get caught in their roots. Or, if a pollutant is washing off the surface of the soil, their dense plant bases catch larger particles before entering the water. Bunchgrasses used along roadways act as plant barriers. They can slow the flow of stormwater while improving water quality.
Consider using one or more of these bunchgrasses: Muhly Grass, Little Blue Stem Grass, Elliott’s Lovegrass, Sand Corgrass, Fakahatchee Grass or Dwarf Fakahatchee grass.
New Gardener to Southwest Florida
When starting out new in Florida, plan ahead. Look on-line for guides containing plant photos. Consider using at least 10 or more plant species in a single yard. Follow pattern guides available on-line for Florida-Friendly Landscaping™. Follow guidelines in your community to conserve irrigation water while improving the overall look of your home and neighborhood.
Follow the nine principles of Florida-Friendly Landscaping™. For a FREE tour of a demonstration garden using all nine principles, take a guided tour at the Lee Counties’ FYN Demonstration at Rutenberg Park. Guided tours outside follow a hard surface walking path that is wheelchair accessible. The FYN tours are each Wednesday starting at 10:30AM at 6490 South Pointe Blvd., in South Ft. Myers. For more info., go to http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu or call 239-533-7514.
Go to http://www.floridayards.org/ for an easy to use, gardener-friendly, website showing you how to apply all nine principles. This frequently used website at the University of Florida provides every gardener a place to get started simply by making the Right Plant choices for the Right Places in your yard. The website has a FREE tutorial course. Or, a visitor to the website can quickly get other on-line links and resources, including professional contact information and success stories. Also available on this site is a landscape modeling or design tool that you can use to identify characteristics of your planting site giving you immediately the best plants for your yard that are considered Florida-Friendly.
For more information, contact Tom Becker, the FYN Program Extension agent for the Lee County Extension Service.
Thomas Becker tbecker@leegov.com FYN Extension Agent, Lee County Phone: 239-533-7515 Cell : 239-634-6898 Fax:(239)4852305 3406 Palm Beach Blvd, Fort Myers,FL33916 http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/.
Heavy rainfall events are common this time of year. Over 10% of our rain events annually in Southwest Florida drop three inches or more of rainwater. 50 or more inches of rainwater falls each year. During one storm event, a thunderstorm or hurricane, 3-8” of rainwater can fall.
One inch of rain is often all our local soils can hold. Additional rain water accumulates in retention ponds, empty lots, roadway drainage ditches or in local rivers, canals and lakes.
With continued sun and heavy rain, any soil runoff from a yard could impact water quality in local watersheds. In landscaped areas, the Lee County extension service recommends maintaining a 2-3-inch layer of organic mulch over bare soil to prevent erosion. Heavy and repeated rainfall can quickly thin out mulch intended to last for a full year to just 6-8 months.
Once exposed directly to the weather, our urban soils erodes rapidly. Even mulch applied properly still thins and wears out, sometime faster then we’d like. Exposed or bare soil encourages weeds and quickly dries out. And, as a result, healthly plants suffer.
Thinning mulch or bare spots most often develop along property borders, roads, driveways and sidewalks. Excess soil, not held in place by mulch or vegetation potentially washes into the wrong places; under a neighbor’s fence, on top of a healthy lawn in a drainage ditch or worse-yet, cover the surface of a nearby road. Every soil particle needs held in place or captured before washing off your property.
Keep checking your landscape beds after each major storm event this summer. Have on-hand an extra, 2-cubic foot bag of organic mulch product for use to cover and replenish bare spots. Choose from locally available or produced source materials. Some mulches are even considered recycled products when reused. For example melaleuca trees, a prohibited plants makes excellent mulch.
When covering bare spots of soil with mulch, use, if possible, the same type of mulch as was originally applied. Each mulch product reacts differently on the surface of the soil. Each one breaks down at a different rate, depending on its particle size, the intensity of the sun or shade its exposed to and how much and how fast rain water hits its surface. Three good, recycled mulch products have worked well in display gardens for the FYN program in Lee County. They include pine bark, pine straw and melaleuca mulch.
Bare spots in a mulched landscape bed often appear at the base of rainwater gutters and downspouts. Homes built without gutters develop frequent bare spots in mulch that follow the edges of roof’s overhang or where water collects and washes off via converging roof lines. (a.k.a. corners).
Take advantage of Lee County Extension workshops that show you how to construct and collect rainwater landing on the roof of your home. Workshops are presented regularly showing homeowners how simple and easy it is to harvest and recycle rainwater.
A rain barrel workshop is planned for July 23 at 9am at Rotary Park in the Southwest Cape. The $45 cost includes the cost of taking home a rain barrel. A FREE informational session is also planned for the following Saturday at the GreenMarket at the Arts for the Alliance at 10AM. For more info., visit http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/
Rainy Season is a Good Time to Plant
Installing new shrubs and trees is recommended now and throughout the rainy, summer months. A few, good ‘best management’ gardening practices should be followed. Take every precaution possible to keep soil from eroding during heavy rains. Cover recently dug and exposed soil by permanently or temporarily covering with mulch. Or, keep off rainwater using a heavy plastic tarp. In sloped areas near waterways, pine straw bales can be positioned to stop the flow of rainwater into a waterway.
Apply a new layer of organic mulch immediately after installing new plants. Apply mulch properly by spreading it evenly 3-4 inch deep. Use recommended products including organic mulches only, wood mulches made from recycled products, freshly chopped tree trimmings or bark mulch. For a list of recommended mulch products and local suppliers, contact the extension office.
Mulch often breaks down quickest over the summer months due to the high heat, excess rainfall and high humidity. A 2 or 3 inch mulch layer, after the rainy season ends, often need refreshed with new materials by November or December.. This is especially true when organic mulch product is laid on a newly worked soil. One way to improve the longevity of a newly laid mulch layer is by first applying multiple sheets or sections of newspapers. The newspaper is laid randomly, leaving no uncovered spots. Try to apply as much as 4 to 8 sheets or more newspapers. Follow laying the newspapers immediately with a mulch layer that is 3-4 inches deep. Follow that with lightly wetting down both with ¼” of water.
If you are planting an area within 10 feet of a body of water or on the water’s edge, select plants wisely. Choose from dozens of appropriate, low-maintenance or maintenance-free plant species. Many tolerate infrequent flooding or submergence. These plants often prefer regularly wet soil conditions. But, after getting established, these same native plants survive in less ideal, droughty soils at or near the water’s edge.
Shorelines are particularly difficult to get plants established without supplemental water. Known as the littoral planting zone, these soils if dried out become highly erodible and prone to damage if not mulched or covered with vegetation. These soils can literally wash out and around the root system of newly installed plants.
The preferred organic mulch type for banks and wet shorelines is pine straw. As pine needles gets collected and baled, pine needles get intertwined and bundled into an interlocking pattern. As a result, a mulch layer exposed to surface water does not wash away.
For any plants needed along a waterway, choose the best, indigenous, natives. Design and install Florida-Friendly landscaping™ plants. Many are recommended because of their ability to establish wildlife habitat or groundcover quickly in water.
Use the right plants and right mulch prevents un-intended consequences including pollutants washing off lawns and landscapes. Several of the worst contaminants needing prevented include grass clippings, pet waste, fertilizer and pesticides.
Low growing plant types, including many of the native bunch grasses, are often preferred along residential shorelines. These large or small-growing natives look natural while establishing quickly along a waterway.
Bunch grasses can be used alone or grouped with other plants. Use them along a sea wall or along drainage swales or mixed with other wildlife-attracting plant types. Mixing with small trees and cabbage palms is popular.
When possible, use two or more native plant types in each area. The greater the plant diversity, the better it is for attracting wildlife. Use wildflowers, vining groundcovers or small shrubs like beautyberry, saltbush, walter’s viburnum, golden creeper, buttonbush, red-berry stoppers, Carolina Jessamine and others. Choose plants based on their salt tolerance (if near salt water) and height depending on yours and neighborhood’s needs.
Eleven different, native bunching and clump-forming grasses are used for landscaping in Florida About half that number are grasses used in Southwest Florida. Some bunchgrasses are grown and sold in native plant nurseries only. Each type has its own look, feel and texture. Each one has its preferred ‘best’ placement on or along a waterway.
These native bunchgrasses act along a waterway much like an oil filter on your car. Small particles in surface water get caught in their roots. Or, if a pollutant is washing off the surface of the soil, their dense plant bases catch larger particles before entering the water. Bunchgrasses used along roadways act as plant barriers. They can slow the flow of stormwater while improving water quality.
Consider using one or more of these bunchgrasses: Muhly Grass, Little Blue Stem Grass, Elliott’s Lovegrass, Sand Corgrass, Fakahatchee Grass or Dwarf Fakahatchee grass.
New Gardener to Southwest Florida
When starting out new in Florida, plan ahead. Look on-line for guides containing plant photos. Consider using at least 10 or more plant species in a single yard. Follow pattern guides available on-line for Florida-Friendly Landscaping™. Follow guidelines in your community to conserve irrigation water while improving the overall look of your home and neighborhood.
Follow the nine principles of Florida-Friendly Landscaping™. For a FREE tour of a demonstration garden using all nine principles, take a guided tour at the Lee Counties’ FYN Demonstration at Rutenberg Park. Guided tours outside follow a hard surface walking path that is wheelchair accessible. The FYN tours are each Wednesday starting at 10:30AM at 6490 South Pointe Blvd., in South Ft. Myers. For more info., go to http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu or call 239-533-7514.
Go to http://www.floridayards.org/ for an easy to use, gardener-friendly, website showing you how to apply all nine principles. This frequently used website at the University of Florida provides every gardener a place to get started simply by making the Right Plant choices for the Right Places in your yard. The website has a FREE tutorial course. Or, a visitor to the website can quickly get other on-line links and resources, including professional contact information and success stories. Also available on this site is a landscape modeling or design tool that you can use to identify characteristics of your planting site giving you immediately the best plants for your yard that are considered Florida-Friendly.
For more information, contact Tom Becker, the FYN Program Extension agent for the Lee County Extension Service.
Thomas Becker tbecker@leegov.com FYN Extension Agent, Lee County Phone: 239-533-7515 Cell : 239-634-6898 Fax:(239)4852305 3406 Palm Beach Blvd, Fort Myers,FL33916 http://lee.ifas.ufl.edu/.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Episode 2 and Twitter Alerts
Please be sure to post your comments or a (hopefully) thumbs up on our videos on You Tube. If you sign up below for Twitter Alerts, you'll know the moment we complete Episode 2 and get it uploaded. I also alert you to classes and events that may be of interest to you on Twitter. Thanks so much to all for your support!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
The Back Ten Feet Episode 1
It's done! Enjoy Episode 1 of THE BACK TEN FEET! 6 More episodes to come! Stay Tuned!
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