Dunedin Garden Club, Inc. - Florida

06/19/2026

Excellent information on look a likes!

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Four plants in the same family. All have umbrella-shaped white flower clusters. All have divided feathery leaves. Three of them will hurt you in completely different ways.

🌿 The 3-second field check:

Is it taller than you with massive leaves? Giant hogweed. The sap causes severe blistering burns when skin is exposed to sunlight afterward. Do not touch. Do not cut. Report to your county extension office.

Are the flowers yellow? Wild parsnip. Same phototoxic sap as giant hogweed. Same burn risk. The yellow color is the diagnostic — if the umbrella flowers are yellow, don’t touch any part of it.

Is the stem smooth with purple blotches? Poison hemlock. Crush a leaf — it smells musty, not like carrot. Toxic in every part of the plant. Grows in ditches and roadsides across the US.

Is the stem hairy with no blotches? Queen Anne’s lace. Crush a leaf or root — it smells like carrot. Flat cluster that curls into a bird’s nest shape as it dries. Not toxic.

🐾 The sequence: size first, then flower color, then stem, then smell. Four checks. Four answers.

When unsure, leave it. The safe one has a hairy stem and smells like carrot. Everything else gets distance 🌿

06/18/2026

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1434992252004128&id=100064800998030

06/16/2026

Very good advice!

🦋 Monarch caterpillars are usually found on milkweed, and they become one of America’s most loved butterflies, famous for their long migration.

🦋 Black Swallowtail caterpillars are often found on parsley, dill, fennel, carrots, and Queen Anne’s lace, and they become beautiful garden pollinators.

🦋 Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars usually live on wild cherry, tulip tree, birch, ash, and other native trees, and the adults are important nectar visitors.

🦋 Mourning Cloak caterpillars are often found on willow, elm, birch, poplar, and hackberry, and they become one of the first butterflies seen in spring.

🦋 Red Admiral caterpillars usually hide in folded leaves of nettles and false nettle, and the adults help pollinate flowers while feeding on nectar.

🦋 Luna Moth caterpillars are found on walnut, hickory, sweetgum, birch, and persimmon, and they become one of the most beautiful native moths in the USA.

🦋 Cecropia Moth caterpillars are often found on maple, cherry, apple, birch, willow, and lilac, and they become North America’s largest native moth.

🦋 Tomato Hornworm caterpillars are usually found on tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes, but they become large native hawkmoths, so it’s better to move them instead of crushing them.

06/16/2026

Please open and read the entire article below the photo. Recluse spiders and Black Widow spiders are the only ones that might be problematic and usually are not. Recluses are NOT endemic to Florida. Both are shy spiders and retreat rather than attack unless you directly stick your hand/foot into their way. In Florida it is always a good idea to shake out shoes left in the garage - more for scorpions - and when weeding poke around before reaching in - more to move off any snakes. In nature - creatures prefer to retreat rather than attack. In nature - spiders and snakes are good hunters of the pests you pay a monthly service to spray - killing all kinds of beneficial wildlife in the process.

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The creature you most want gone from your house is the one keeping the flies, mosquitoes, and roaches out of it.

North America has thousands of spider species, and nearly every one is harmless to you. Spiders aren't out to bite people — they're shy, they want to avoid anything your size, and they bite only when trapped against skin. Of all those species, just two groups are worth learning to recognize: the recluses, which live only in the south-central US, and the widows. Both are reclusive and stay out of the way.

Here's the part doctors keep pointing out: most "spider bites" were never spiders. Brown recluses get blamed for wounds across the whole country, including regions where they don't even live — and when those wounds are actually tested, the most common culprit is a MRSA skin infection, not a bite. A confirmed spider bite is the rare exception.

Everything else is quietly working for you. Spiders are the most important insect controllers in a yard, eating the flies, mosquitoes, gnats, and garden pests you'd otherwise be swatting or spraying. And their silk is so strong — pound for pound, several times tougher than steel — that hummingbirds bind their tiny nests together with it.

🕷️ What's already hunting near you:
- The little spider on the wall that swivels to look at you is a jumping spider — sharp-eyed, web-free, and out hunting flies on foot in daylight
- The big wheel-shaped web on the porch each morning belongs to an orb-weaver; she often eats it and rebuilds it overnight, and it's catching the gnats you'd be swatting
- The fast brown spider that darts across the floor is a wolf spider, a ground hunter clearing out roaches and crickets — and if it's a female, she may be carrying her young on her back

Two spiders earned the fear. The rest earned the rent 🕸️

06/08/2026

Do you have a lovely garden? Unique garden? Special plants? Patio or houseplants? Please share your photos!

05/30/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=839771785877260&set=a.220887627765682&type=3

A bouquet that wilts in three days and one that holds for two weeks came from the same flowers. The difference is almost never the flower — it's what happens in the first ten minutes after you bring them home.

- Cut stems at a 45-degree angle under running water. A flat cut sits flush against the vase bottom and seals shut.

- Strip every leaf that falls below the waterline. Submerged foliage rots within a day and breeds bacteria that clog every stem in the vase.

- Change the water completely every two days. Rinse the vase. Recut the stems — ends reseal with air and buildup within 48 hours.

- Keep the vase away from direct sun and ripening fruit. Ethylene gas from bananas, apples, and stone fruit triggers petal drop in nearby flowers.

- Never mix daffodils with other flowers in the same water. The stems release a sap that damages every other cut flower sharing the vase. Soak daffodils alone for 12 hours first.

- Lost the flower food packet: two tablespoons white vinegar plus one tablespoon sugar per quart of lukewarm water. Change every two days.

Two weeks is not exceptional. It's what most cut flowers do when the water stays clean and the stems stay open.

05/25/2026

Photo taken in Dunedin Municipal Cemetery ~

05/17/2026

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A single leaf pulled from a houseplant is not damage — it is a blueprint for an entire new plant. Some species pack enough genetic code into one leaf to rebuild themselves from scratch in nothing but a glass of water.

- African violet — set the leaf with its stem into water so just the bottom half-inch is submerged, baby plantlets cluster at the base in four to six weeks
- Rex begonia — cut a healthy leaf into wedge-shaped sections, each with a vein, set the cut edge in shallow water, tiny plants form at each vein in six to eight weeks
- Snake plant — cut a leaf into three-inch sections, mark which end was closest to the soil, stand that end in water, roots form in six to eight weeks
- Peperomia — snap off a leaf with its stem attached, place the stem in water, a new miniature rosette forms at the base in four to six weeks
- Christmas cactus — twist off a two-segment piece, let the cut end dry overnight, then stand the base in shallow water, roots appear in three to four weeks

ZZ plant leaflets, jade leaves, kalanchoe, and streptocarpus all regenerate the same way — one leaf, one glass, patience measured in weeks instead of trips to the nursery.

The smallest piece of a plant already carries the whole thing inside it.