Plants Need Sunshine

Today I'm joining Tootsie at Tootsietime for Fertilzer Friday. This is a lady who not only has a green thumb, but a pair of green hands! She does remarkable things with plants while living in cold country. Could you imagine what she'd do in sunny Florida?

You may remember that we are renting a condominium while our new house is being built. To make the place a bit more like home, I bought a pot of blooms and a palm tree. (This is Florida, and I WILL have my palm!)

This porch faces North, so after a few months, my plant is yucky, and the palm tree is beginning to whimper. Tootsie encouraged me to show all, so here it is. 

From a distance, it doesn't look too bad.

Upon closer inspection, you can see the little tree needs to be trimmed. Can you hear the sad whimpering? I can.

This is the one pretty bloom left in this poor sun-deprived Anthurium.

Look at the leaves. Besides a lack of sun, did we fertilize too much? Too little? I'm guessing that the plant might have had a time-release fertilizer when we bought it, so it didn't need our feeding. I'm going to let it alone for a time. Perhaps when we move into our new place, it'll snap back into its former beauty. Let's hope.



I hope to see you back for Blue Monday!

Outdoor Wednesday - How We Recycle

Susan at A Southern Daydreamer is the gracious hostess for Outdoor Wednesday. Life has become complex for her these days, but she still takes the time to provide Mr. Linky for those of us who are interested. Participants post pictures of anything that they might find outdoors. Come join in.

Last week I showed you the unique method of trash disposal called valet trash that we have in the condominium complex. Many of you said that you had way too much trash to fit in the benches even though they are emptied three times a week. There is an answer. We are encouraged to recycle paper.

Today, I'm sharing our recycling facility. It's a separate building. It looks like a small house with a pretty porch. It's the building on the left.

There's room to pull up your car if you don't wish to walk to it.


Climb a few steps.

The sign on the wall tells the tale.

Signs on the metal door reveal earlier problems.

It's an easy thing to open the metal door and drop in paper trash.



Here's a different angle.


Now you can understand how there is plenty of room in the cute bench for the other trash.

Outdoor Wednesday - Cute Benches

Susan at A Southern Daydreamer is the gracious hostess for Outdoor Wednesday. Participants post pictures of anything that they might find outdoors. Come join in.

Several bloggers have expressed a curiosity about what my new apartment looks like, so I thought I'd use Outdoor Wednesday to show you.

I showed you our back entrance last Wednesday. Today, I'm showing you the front door to our apartment. It's in a rather dark hallway. This picture was taken during the morning, and notice that the lights are on.

Notice the sunshine peeking through the end of the hallway. See the cute brown benches beside each apartment door? 



Let's take a closer look. They're made of durable plastic.




Look, they open, and are lined with black plastic.

This is where we place our trash. It's picked up three times a week. They call this "valet trash." We are billed for it separately on a monthly basis.  


I've never heard of this before. What do you think?

PS A couple of people commented about the smell. There is NO bad odor in my apartment hallway. It's clean and both ends are open, allowing the air to flow freely.

Diane asks if we separate trash. No, these benches hold one bag of trash, and that is all that will be picked up. Unbagged trash is not collected. There is a huge recycle unit on the complex where we can take paper to be recycled.

Outdoor Wednesday - Our New Temporary Home

Susan at A Southern Daydreamer is the gracious hostess for Outdoor Wednesday. Participants post pictures of anything that they might find outdoors. Come join in.

Several bloggers have expressed a curiosity about what my new apartment looks like, so I thought I'd use Outdoor Wednesday to show you. 

This is the entrance to the complex. These buildings were originally built three years ago and sold as condominiums. However, when our bad economic times hit, some units were rented. We are renting until our new home is built. We've been told that we'll be in by Christmas. Our son is renting a house one block away--right down this road. I wish that we could always stay this close, but eventually, we'll be seven miles apart.

It had just stopped raining before I took these photos, so everything looks clean and shiny.


This is the back door to our unit, and the one I prefer to use. The front door is in a dark hallway. I like to see the sunshine and green grass when I walk out my door.

The apartment comes with blinds in all the windows and a full-sized washer and dryer. It's a two-bedroom, 2 ½ bath. I have no idea why a half bath is necessary! The door to the right houses the air conditioner.

The place has new carpeting and fresh paint. It was all nice and clean which made moving in much easier. There's a dishwasher and a microwave in the kitchen.

We put a pretty little plant here, and I must say, it makes me feel more at home.

I can't remember what the name of this plant is, but we've had one before. It's an easy one for us to keep alive and happy. We simply water once a week with a weak fertilizer (as Tootsie suggests). I hope I've answered your questions about my new apartment.