So today was the Great Syngonium podophyllum clean out in the greenhouse. This plant had crept everywhere and was just causing a big overpopulated mess, so I went around and pulled it out from everywhere it had installed itself....in the stream, up the walls, climbing on other plants, creeping across the ground...in the end I pulled out three 35 gallon trash cans of this plant.

And I found some interesting things that it was covering up. Not the least of which is the fact that, after 12-13 years, my Areca vestiara 'Yellow Crownshaft' palm has finally started to develop STILT ROOTS!!!!!!!

I know, if you aren't into rare unusual palms this is not of interest to you. But Its a great revelation for me. And it has a baby too! I have an official clump!

I'd never heard of Orange Crownshaft Palm (Areca vestiaria) but what a cool palm it is! Congratulations on finding it beneath the Syngonium, it's a real beauty!

We are back at our home in Sebastian and boy, what a year away will do to a property! My nephew was taking care of mowing, edging and pool upkeep the past 15 months but nothing more. I knew we had Syngonium taking over one area but boy, I had no idea it would completely consume the area in that time. It's trailing along the ground, covering shrubbery and climbing trees and I noticed today some of it attached to a deck at the back of the property, traveling along the railing and on the floor. We have Epipremnum aureum climbing two trees and a couple of long vines dangling down to the ground and trailing along the ground in one area and, I found Twoleaf Nightshade (Solanum diphyllum) and Brazilian Pepper Tree (Schinus terebinthifolia) sprouting up in many places. I also noticed lots of sword ferns here and there on the property!

I am so afraid of getting out into that mess because I'm afraid of snakes! My sister and brother in law (just down the street) have their property backing up to a preserve area and they saw a rattlesnake and a moccasin recently and then last week the next door neighbors young 4 year old son saw a 5 foot rattlesnake in their driveway and ran to get his mom. My brother in law grabbed a machete and my nephew got a shovel and went over and killed it. Another neighbor also found a rattlesnake in their backyard last week too. We have a resident 5 foot black racer that's been around a few years; I saw it a few weeks ago and although it always startles me, it's a good one to have around. I'd probably have a heart attack if I came across a rattlesnake and I'm so worried about the dogs being out in the yard with snakes around. I'm hoping I can talk my husband into hiring someone to come clear out the wooded areas of some of the weeds and overgrowth and get rid of the Brazilian Pepper trees and Syngonium. We have a pine tree that the top was cut off of a couple of years ago when we had all the oaks trimmed but I wouldn't let them take it all the way down because it's completely encircled by a huge Staghorn Fern ... unfortunately, the Syngonium has climbed up that pine and is now overtaking the Staghorn.

Syngonium can be a plague I tell you. Of course there are different forms, I have 3 others in the greenhouse that I really like and they have not tried to become the huge little shop of horrors this particular one has....I have the pink and green splashed one I think its called Confetti, and the green and white albovariegated one which is actually kind of rare. I also have the big leaf climbing one that kind of resembles the juvenile form of Anthurium clavigerum going up in the plumerias and it has not tried to take over.

Areca vestiaria is a very interesting palm. There are several different color forms. I have the yellow. But there is an orange, a maroon, a 'purple', and a red as well. They are the poor man's (or poor woman's LOL) Red Sealing Wax palm. The most interesting thing about them is that they grow at both higher and lower elevations in the wild, and the ones that grow at higher elevations exhibit more vivd color than the ones at lower elevation. And, if you collect seed from one color, say maroon, you cannot be 100% certain you will get ANY maroon seedlings. You have to plant all the seeds and select out for the color you want...its like a roulette wheel you can get any and every color.

I understand your fear of the snakes, even though I don't share it. They just don't scare me, probably because when I was 5 years old I was bitten by a western diamondback when we lived in West Texas, before we moved South. It wasn't a full envenomation, and the snake was only about 18" long, but it was enough that I was in the hospital for 3 weeks. I never kill the venomous snakes that we find here. We just skirt them and let them go away, or we get someone to remove the really big rattlers.

My big problem now is what to do with all this Syngonium. If I dump it on my magic compost pile just inside the edge of the woods by the greenhouse, it will all root and become naturalized there and I really don;t want that. I guess I can try to throw it on the bonfire next weekend.

The bonfire sounds like a great idea!

Well its still raining today so we will see what happens later

We have so much Syngonium podophyllum to clear out on our property but our HOA doesn't allow a bonfire or even a fire in a barrel and that sure would be a sure fire (excuse the pun) way to do away with those horrid vines! We really do need to clear it out, along with the highly invasive Brazilian Pepper trees sprouting everywhere!

Gina, y'all are still having rain up your way? Did you get any severe weather conditions yesterday? We never got the severe weather that was predicted but we had gusty winds all day and some downpours but no thunder, lightning or tornadoes, thank goodness! It's sunny and cool here today, currently 65º.

Lin it rained all day here until about 3pm then it rained on and off and is STILL raining on and off, we have standing water again (just like after Hurricane Irma and most of this summer). Our neighbors property is flooded. When they flood their septic system quits working and they have to go stay with relatives.

Its supposed to clear out here today but it hasn;t yet. Will drop to about 39F tonight.

My daughter drove up Wednesday and it rained on them all the way from Sarasota. There was severe damage in Manatee county last yesterday we saw on the news. But so far nothing here, but it is supposed to get really windy here today, 20-25 mph gusts!

So far this is the wettest winter I can remember. Weather has been so wonky. October we had over 20 days of 90F or above, still had hot (not warm) weather all through November, finally started getting some cooler air but have had so much rain we are drowning.

I ran to the store yesterday when it finally stopped raining around 3p.m. The roads were littered with palmetto boots and fronds and other branches. People were driving every which way to avoid them. The wind was still fierce and every ditch was filling up. What a mess. It rained again overnight and the wind is still blowing this morning. I was wishing I had a rain barrel at this house. We have plenty of marshes for the water to drain into thankfully.
Gina, I have only been to Gainsville once and it was shortly after the hurricane. I was fascinated by a prairie in the middle of Florida to begin with and that this wide flat area was filled with water really amazed to me. I plan to return and see the prairie in the spring, I bet it is beautiful.

I know that Jacksonville and Orlando area got a big hit yesterday from the gale force winds, they showed a lot of damage on the TV. We escaped that but it still made a mess with branches down and all that. Today looks like it is going to be absolutely gorgeous.

The visible flooding on our property only generally stays for about a day or 2. (although the water table is at the surface) We live on a 5 acre property that has a creek running through it, The creek is in the back and the property slopes down to it so everything eventually drains to the creek, which then runs through the State Nature Preserve and meets up with a complex network of creeks that all eventually drain into the Prairie. All of our storm drains in Gainesville also eventually drain there and there has always been a huge push to keep garbage, grass clippings and the like out of the drainage pathways because it will go right out to the Prairie. This is also why I never use any outdoor fertilizer or herbicides or anything like that in my yard. It ends up in the creek, or in my well, and travels far away from my property.

The Prairie is a pretty fascinating place. When we first moved here in 1992, the Prairie was DRY. There were isolated pockets of small natural lakes, but for the most part, Gainesville was in a flux of climate change at that time...we had several years of relatively intense drought here, the Santa Fe River dropped to levels so low it couldn't be navigated by boat, local fishing lakes like Newnan's and Little Lake Santa Fe were drying up, the beautiful area springs were drying up, the aquifer was being depleted, alligators were coming up into people's pools looking for water, there was a plague of rats in our old neighborhood because they were coming into people's houses looking for water. It was all because the weather pattern changed and we did not get the daily convergence thunderstorms that were customary, Old timers said that in summer you could set your watch by the afternoon thunderstorms. But for a period of years they stopped, we had a lot of wildfires, all the stuff that comes with drought. All that is OVER now, the Prairie has been fully submerged now for a few years. Last time we were out to hike the La Chua trail, last year, the herd of wild horses made a rare appearance up around the boardwalk and they were standing in 2-3 inches of water. I know there are some dry hammocks in there somewhere or they (and the herd of bison and all the other land mammals) wouldn't be able to stay in there. Years and years ago the last time the prairie was submerged they used to run paddleboats on it for tourists.

Interesting! We are definitly going to explore there again.

One of the things to try to time a visit to the Prairie for the the now-annual mass lotus bloom.
The prairie has huge stands of the native yellow American lotus which because of the persistent water on the prairie now have been popping into bloom now for years. It is an absolutely GORGEOUS site.
When we first came here from Los Angeles, the lotus only bloomed in very small isolated pockets because of the lack of water. Now, every spring and early summer, its a fantastic site and you can see it all from the roadway. Google Payne's Prairie Lotus and you will see photos people have taken of it. Its worth seeing.

Oh and there are photos of the bison and the wild horses too. The bison herd is very rarely seen although a couple years ago a tourist got too close to them and one tried to stomp him. I have only seen them once in 27 years and it was from the road. The horses are seen pretty commonly. And the wild waterbird populations have really increased with the coming and staying of the water.

Some really interesting onld photos here. Loved how they surveyed property back then.
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/...

This is so nice!