Winter Garden Projects - Flight Encounter

The cool days of a Central Florida winter are the best time to get major gardening projects done. First, we did a major re-plant of the Flight Encounter exhibit and front wall area with cool season annuals. Then, we tackled our front walk area, installing hundreds of new Florida native and Florida-Friendly perennials along with 20 cubic yards of pine bark mulch. The work was hard, but the payoff was tremendous. Here are some shots from our Flight Encounter work.

Before, with overgrown hanging baskets and bloomed-out summer annuals.

First, we removed all the old plants from the pots and relocated any that were still in good shape out to the gardens.

Then, our new plants were delivered, and we helped to unload the trays from the truck. Here's a small part of the order:

And some more:

Then we got to work. Installing hundreds of plants into dozens of pots takes some time, and the exhibit remains open while we work, so we try to sweep up and stay organized along the way.

Perhaps the best part of "new plant day" is watching the butterflies eagerly swarm the new blooms for the fresh nectar. Sometimes, we don't even get to set the trays down before hungry butterflies are landing and feeding. New buddleia (butterfly bush) is always popular.

Heliotrope was also a big draw.

Delphiniums make a striking background for resting butterflies.

Other new additions include sweet alyssum, trailing bacopa, lantana, and digitalis (foxglove).

The wonderful thing about cool season plants is that many of them provide such wonderful fragrance. The Flight Encounter smells as sweet as it looks now!

The cement block retaining wall outside received updated plantings, too, with sweet alyssum, ageratum, and curly parsley creating a fresh look of green and white.

Even though it's January, the Flight Encounter is still full of hundreds of butterflies. Stop by to see malachites, monarchs, great southern whites, giant swallowtails and more, all enjoying the mid-winter buffet! And look for a post coming soon showing the major improvements we've made to our front walk area and nearby gardens.