Saltbush at the Beach

Before the season changes with the new year, I wanted to mention Saltbush. This is a plant I am starting to really like. It can be a woody shrub or small tree. It is found growing along the edges of salt and freshwater marshes and disturbed sites both wet and dry. It can reach a height of ten feet with a spread of ten feet wide. It grows throughout Florida and along the coast to Texas and Massachusetts. I planted two when we first moved into our house and way too close together. I am trying to train one to be a bush and one has grown into a small tree reaching up through the native scrub oak. They are part of the reason we have so many birds in our wild garden as the bees and butterflies seem to like the nectar. Two seedlings have recently appeared by our front porch in pretty lousy soil conditions reaching up from the sand and through driveway clay and gravel. They seem perfectly happy and will be a welcome additon. I'm anxious to see what they want to be when they grow up.

The one pictured here is from our visit to the Camp Helen State Park. The leaves are evergreen and the flowers appear in the late fall during a time few other plants are flowering.

It is important to note that the plant is toxic to grazing livestock. For more info on this plant: http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=BAHA

Even in Winter

The 30A corridor has many second homes and vacation rentals but more and more people live here year round. The area is known for it's summer season but I tell anyone who will listen to me how nice it is to live along the Northwest Florida coast even in Winter. Especially in Winter. It is different from the southern part of Florida in that the weather here gets cold. Cold enough to brown up the foliage. You won't find a lot of human swimmers out in the Gulf of Mexico but you will see birds. No matter what the weather is doing the beach is just much more interesting this time of the year. It's just great for birdwatching. American Bald eagles are apt to fly overhead, the loons bob in the surf, even the gulls seem happier, as to the pipers and the pelicans. Birds are one of the reasons I recommend any one looking to retire to consider South Walton County.

This year I gave "Johnny's Garden" up to the wild flowers. Container plants are my new passion. The plants seem to be happy on the porch where they get several hours of eastern sun exposure. We have Meyers lemon, peppers, parsley, tropical sage, mosquito plant, hibiscus, papyrus and palm. I planted some lettuce from seed last week and it's already coming up nicely. Winter and lettuce work fine here. I will lose some of these plants to frost but most will be protected by the colorful sheets I cover them with on the nights we get to freezing temperatures. The porch looks odd those nights but allow the plants to come back to me each spring.

Camp Helen

On the west side of Panama City Beach is a beautiful park called Camp Helen http://www.floridastateparks.org/camphelen/default.cfm . The lodge there was once a private "corporate retreat" in the 1940's. These days it is best known for it's ghost tours in October held to benefit the care and maintenance of the park. Camp Helen is bordered on one side by beautiful Lake Powell, the largest coastal dune lake on our northwest Florida coast. For more info on coastal dune lakes, may I recommend: http://www.basinalliance.org//CDL/CDL.htm . On the south side of the park, a very wide beach spreads out like fine linen, to the turquoise edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The path that leads down the dune is edged with salt bush, oak and sea oats. Even if you don't spend the day, there are vistas of the lake and beach and sky that are worth a walk down the dune. A perfect day trip on a cool winter day.

Queen Bee Cupcakes

In Seaside, on Scenic Highway 30A, the food court is a shiny row of Airstream trailers that line the street on either side of the post office. Here you will find Raw & Juicy, a juice bar of only good for you food, a not so healthy juice bar that balances it out with cocktails, a lemonade stand, BBQ and our favorite: Queen Bee cupcakes. Try the special of the day which can be anything from the popular Key Lime to my current favorite, Pumpkin Spice. You can purchase to go (packaged in a cute little box), or you can sit right down in the shade and enjoy them immediately. People are crazy for these tasty treats and I have it on good authority that more than once, they have been ordered in mass, to be used in lieu of a traditional wedding cake. Kind of a fun idea.

Oh, and the employees are just great too.

After Ida, a local report

This morning, Blue Wave Weather reporter Laurel (and faithful scout Riley), bring you live (well almost live) coverage of: "After Ida" from Blue Mountain Beach. Bracing for the worst from this late season storm, the inhabitants of the house slept (as soundly as they ever do) through the night as IDA (or what we experienced of IDA) passed over South Walton County. An ever vigilant suspect of danger, this reporter woke up at her usual 3am. Hearing the wind blowing and the rain hitting the tin roof hard, I went back to sleep secure in the knowledge I had put all the container plants in a huddle on the veranda and picked up most the loose items around the perimeter of the house (except for, I would find out later, woops, the lounge chairs on the balcony's). This morning braving the remnants of the storms fury, we two intrepid reporters, went out to scout the area for damage. Well, the pictures tell the story: the mail box had fallen open, there were a lot of pine needles on the cars, some of the pine trees might be leaning a little more than yesterday, there was absolutely no flooding (although the neighbors pond looked a little higher than usual) and there was a double red flag at the beach access because the surf was strong (I really don't know what the surge did but the water was true to it's ominous self when the wind is up and so I will have to check later know if our beachfront neighbors fared as well as it looked).

Joking aside, as a Florida native I do not underestimate tropical storms and hurricanes. I've been through plenty of them. I'm grateful that we experienced no ill-effects and hope that as Ida moves North, she is kind. In our geographic favor, South Walton is the highest point on the gulf coast so while we are always preparee and duly cautious, we have less to worry about when Mother Nature sends us a stormy tropical curve ball. We have also come to take cable TV storm coverage with a hefty helping of salt rather than just a grain.

Anyhow, thanks for the calls and emails. Reporting from Blue Mountain Beach, we are just fine after IDA.