Many of my plants and trees came with my property and I have just either accepted them as they are or gotten rid of them as required. The requirement might have been that they died, became overgrown, or that I just didn't like them. The Pygmy Date Palms definitely fall under 'accepting'. And so far these palms are not in my love/hate relationship since I can still reach them for trimming. However, (yep - there it is - however) there has been an issue. The previous owners had an ornamental grass planted in base of them. At least I think they planted it there, but maybe it just started growing and looked good so it was left on its own.
In the 10 years that I lived here I have also just left it on its own, sort of. I would go in and pull out handfuls of dead stuff in the spring and let the rest sprout back up. After all it is was an ornamental sort and looked nice. But I have now grown tired of the sprigs of grass sprouting up in the mulch where I don't what it. So this spring I decided it was time for it to go. It took me a couple of days of pulling and yanking to get the upper layer out. (Here in Florida I only work at things like that early in the morning or in the evening when that area is in the shade, so some things may take me a week or so.) At that point it looked liked this...
I thought I could dig at the roots of that grass, but that stuff was TIGHT. I didn't want to actually chop at it for fear of damaging the palms, so I figured I would let mother nature have some time with it and maybe it would loosen up a bit. Every few days I would dig at with a grubber weeder to see if seemed any looser. Finally today it seemed like it would be good day to really get at it. Plus it was a tad bit cooler this morning. As you can see here, it looks a little looser that in the previous photo..
After about an hour of stabbing the grubber in and twisting, and sort scraping whatever came loose, I got it where it looked good for the time being. But as I was doing this I realized something odd about how the palms were in the ground that I never really noticed before. It looked like the root ball was above ground by 8". I don't know if I hadn't noticed it because of the ornamental grass covering it, but now it was quite obvious 
(as seen in the first photo).
As I stood back and looked at it, it seems they had to have been planted that high. Perhaps there were other things planted with them in the past that have since died or been taken out, I 'm not sure. But I don't think the base should be exposed that much. So I cleaned back the mulch from around the base, added some soil to build it back up. And just for fun I planted a Lantana Bandito™ Orange Sunrise. Then I covered it with new fabric and old mulch. 
I'll have to get some new mulch for better covering tomorrow. :biggrin:
And I'm sure grass will still be popping out for while.
(Note on photos:The top photo is a different palm than the one in bottom two photos. Both palm had the grass and both had the erosion around the base.)
This blog is dedicated to @Jai_Ganesha who so kindly shared these offsets with me. 
The Lobivia (Echinopsis) is my first cactus! After I had them planted I realized I should have taken a photo of them before. Oh well, live and learn. Since this is new to me, I thought I would give them a chance to get a good root system going on their own before incorporating them with other plants. This will also give me some time to think about pots and companion plants. So in the meantime they are in little peat pots. Doing it this way I can just place the whole pot into its new home later on. Or if I need to downsize it a little I can peel back the pot and remove some of the dirt and fit it in where I need it to go.
Jack also gave me 2 pieces of Gasteria. These little girls got their own cute little pot. They will just sit tight here for the time being.
Earlier I blogged about making my garden larger in June. A week ago I purchased various succulents which I had planned to incorporate into this area. However in my naiveté, I didn't know that they weren't all suited to outdoor Florida. But that's okay, now I also have an indoor succulent garden (to blog about another day). So after some repotting of previous items to larger pots, and then repotting the newbies, here is the new look.
Except for the Cochineal Cactus, I don't plant anything in the ground. This way I can move the containers inside as weather dictates. The cactus was here when I moved to this property in 2007, so it's safe to say it can withstand any weather.
You can click here to get the ID's what I can name:
I purchased this on 7-2-18 from Duncheon's Nursery, along with a dozen other misc. succulents. I didn't know what any of them were and I have been working to identify them so I know how to take care of them. I was planning to plant some together in containers to put in my cactus garden area outside, but have since learned they all will not be good with that environment. Sheis one that will not get to be put out in the garden. 
So this gal got transplanted today from a 2" pot to a 3" pot. Her trunk is 7" tall.
Now that I understand her growth potential, I will leave it in this for now until I get a larger, more appropriate pot. And since this is a plastic pot, I am setting it inside a ceramic pot for more stability.
This is sort of an addendum to my first blog entry.
As I was walking outside today I noticed something bright green on the edge of the planter which I had just put together that is shown at the bottom of my first blog. I thought, "What in the world is that? I didn't plant anything in there that bright green color that could have fallen over." When I went over to investigate, well - you see what I saw...
When they are busy it does allow time to get close-up, clear photos. It is interestesting that he seems to be biting the back of her neck, perhaps to keep her from trying to get away.
My photography session didn't seem to bother them. They finished their business and later disappeared.
Also a note that these are taken with my phone and I can crop them in quite close for some great detail.
