a. Hardy Ageratum – Conoclinium coelestinum Full to partial sun, moist soils.

b. Blue Salvia – Salvia guaranitica - available at local nurseries. Full sun, well-drained soils.

c. Bluephoria™ – Mandevilla spp. ‘Bluephoria’™ available at local nurseries. Zone 9 -11 Full to partial shade, moist but well-drained.

d. Scabiosa – Scabiosa triandra Zones 6 - 11, Full sun, well-drained soil.

e. Lily of the Nile - Agapanthus africanus ‘Storm Cloud’ Zone 7 - 11 Full sun, moist but well-drained soils.

Dirty Word of the Day - "Cut and Come Again"

“Cut and Come Again” vegetables: Swiss Chard, Lettuce

What are “cut and come again” plants? When we typically think about growing gardens, we think about seasons. We grow cool-season plants, like beets, carrots, lettuce, and kale, in the Fall and warm-season plants, like bok choy, chives, tomatoes, herbs, purslane, and scallions. Farms grow large expanses of one crop to harvest one time. Smaller gardens have the advantage of a caretaker, gardener, who can or needs to harvest on a daily or weekly basis.

Growing edibles that supply enough food throughout the growing season is optimum without the need to replant. Harvesting edible vegetables and flowers allow gardeners to pick and choose to eat it at the perfect time, and allow the vegetable to keep growing, so you can eat fresh produce all season long.

Benefits to having a “Cut and Come Again” garden includes, reducing waste. You pick and cut what you want to eat when it’s freshest, leaving the rest to grow again for a future meal. If you don’t have the space to grow a lot of vegetables, or can and store vegetables, cutting just what you can eat, will reduce waste.

You can save money by not buying new plants or reseeding to extend your season. Your plants are already growing, no need to wait for it to have roots and become established. Plants can produce more leaves, flowers, or fruit in a smaller area.

And it slows bolting. Cool-weather crops, such as lettuce, spinach, broccoli, kale, some herbs, and even some flowers such as pansies and violas tend to bolt in hot weather—going to seed by putting out flower stems before harvest. Plants that bolt typically develop a bitter taste. Harvesting regularly can postpone bolting. Furthermore, taking the outer leaves of leafy plants like lettuce and spinach prevents them from maturing, ensuring continued vigorous growth.

It also keeps most of your garden plants healthier and more robust by cutting it for your meals. Harvesting the older leaves also reduces susceptibility to disease and pests. Removing the mature leaves helps keep the plant healthy.

So, how do you cut and come again? Keep an eye on how many leaves you have growing and where they are on the plant. You can cut as many of the larger, older leaves as you need, but leave the younger, brighter, smaller leaves to continue to grow. Trim the leaves down towards the base of the plant. Be gentle so you don’t break or bruise the new growth. Once you cut the older leaves, the plant will force more effort into growing those smaller leaves.

Whenever using tools in the garden, please make sure they are sharpened and sterilized to prevent disease and bruising.

Cut 2 to 4 inches of leaf just above a leaf node or a pair of leaves by using shears or your fingers to snap them off. Don’t cut all the foliage so the plant can continue to go through photosynthesis and only remove one third of the plant. Removing more than this will cause stress and possibly death.

Not all vegetable varieties are conducive to “cut and come again.” Keep an eye and (a tongue) to see how your vegetables are doing. Some plants can get bitter as they age or may decline after cutting. These plant varieties can differ by regions, weather, and zone.

As with cutting flowers for floral displays, and herbs for cooking, cutting your edibles in the morning helps plants stay their freshest till time for dinner. Placing your harvest in cool water will help hydrate them so they don’t dry out before use.

  • Arugula

  • Asparagus

  • Bok Choy

  • Broccoli

  • Celery

  • Chinese Cabbage

  • Chives

  • Dandelion

  • Daylilies

  • Endive

  • Fiddlehead Ferns

  • Herbs

  • Kale

  • Lettuce

  • Mustard Spinach

  • Nasturtium

  • Purslane

  • Radicchio

  • Rhubarb

  • Sorrel

  • Spinach

  • Spring Onions

  • Swiss Chard

*Greens: Beetroot, Carrot, Collard, Mustard, Turnip.

Landscape expert Teresa Watkins answers gardening questions on Florida’s most popular garden radio show, Better Lawns and Gardens. Listen every Saturday from 7am - 9am EST on WFLA- Orlando, iHeart radio, and wherever you listen to podcasts. https://bit.ly/3c1f5x7

Happy New Year! I hope you had a fabulous holiday season with family and friends. January’s gardening weather will be typical in that this month Florida usually receives its first of several major freezes. What won’t be typical is that meteorologists are predicting a Polar Blast coming down as far South as Lake Okeechobee mid-January. Chances of snow in the Panhandle and Jacksonville areas are likely. The coldest winter temperature record for Florida was in 1899 with the chilly low of - 2 degrees.

Tropical plants will be damaged. You can ease the damage by using frost cloth on your clusia, crotons, gardenias, hibiscus, ixora, plumbago, poinsettias, blue daze, Hawaiian tis, bananas, and other popular ornamentals.

What plants will be okay during a freeze? Any winter annuals, like alyssum, pansies, stock, delphiniums, hollyhocks, hostas, foxgloves, ornamental cabbage, kale, and sweet peas. Shrubs that can take a freeze include azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas, jasmines, roses, sweetshrub, anise, ligustrum, viburnum, and podocarpus.

Palms that survive freezes are Bismarck, Cabbage, Pindo, Washingtonia, Chinese Fan, Windmill, and Phoenix varieties.

Citrus trees that withstand freezing temperatures like lemon, lime, kumquats, tangerines, some grapefruit, and navel varieties.

To ensure that your plants are ready for a freeze, if you do not receive any rainfall this week, irrigate your landscape with one” of water before and after a freeze. Do not turn your irrigation on at night during the freeze. Do not attempt to keep your plants frozen. This was an old-time practice with citrus growers and it’s not effective for residential landscapes.

After your freeze, hold off on any pruning for a few weeks. Remember that we have a few more months of winter and could still get a few more freezes. Any pruning you do will spur the plant to produce new leaves which would further damage the plant, causing it to die.

Continue to water normally 1x a week and your landscape will recover by Springtime.

Did you know that America had its own royal mansions and majestic botanical gardens? Check out our Art in Bloom Garden Tour to the Newport Flower Show and grand formal gardens and mansion landscapes, June 19th - June 25th. It’s a wonderful journey back to the Gilded Era that I have enjoyed many times. To find out more, check out the details.

Do you know what to do in your landscape this month? Check out what to plant, what actions need to be taken in your landscape in January.

My design tips this month are especially important for all our new residents to Florida. This is the best time of year to start designing your landscape and I have the important aspects to note this time of year.

How did Lizzie and Gerald do over the holidays? I think he looks like he stuffed himself! Check out Lizzie’s Garden Adventures.

My Plant of the Month is one of Christmas’s most misunderstood plants! Have you had a cyclamen die on you? Maybe you gave up too soon.

I am looking forward to a great year of designing landscapes, working in my garden, and getting a new fence up. What are you planning for your landscape this year? Let me know by calling me on Better Lawns and Gardens Saturday mornings 7am - 9am, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Here’s to 2025 and helping gardens thrive!

Use this winter’s experience to assess your landscape for year-round sustainability. What plants die, what plants survive each season? Check out your neighbors’ landscapes to see what lives, what looks good. I pay attention, talk, and write about gardening every day out of the year so I am aware of temperatures and the weather and don’t keep a journal per se, but if you are new transplant to Florida or you moved to a different location in Florida, you may not know what to expect. It’s a good idea to keep a journal or just a notepad, calendar to jot down, if it rained, the temperatures. Note the different areas in your yard that you didn’t get freeze-damage. Pay attention to areas that seem to puddle more or dry out quicker that other parts of your yard. Sunlight is one of the most important aspects of assessing your landscape. In the winter, where is the sun, what parts of your yard are shaded? This information will make designing your landscape and selecting new plants for your garden more successful.

“Get Gilded” at the Newport Flower Show and Explore the Historic Block Island.

Come along back to the turn of the 20th century when Gilded Age mansions were all the rage in Newport and an escape to Block Island was a summer haven for the privileged. This tour features grandeur beyond belief: majestic formal gardens, spectacular landscapes, and historical sites. You’ll embark on a guided tour of naturalesque Block Island followed by lunch at the historic National Hotel, stroll your way through the displays at the Newport Flower Show, visit Marble House and Rough Point, experience the incredible Green Animals Topiary Garden, and have a stately luncheon tea at Blithewold Mansion. This outing is a great way to kick off your summer. Come along and “Get Gilded!” More information: Art in Bloom Garden Tours.

I want to start the new year off with an apology to Florida landscape companies. I drove by this community garden and saw the start of an installation where the ground had been turned over, very poorly weeded, and they even destroyed the agapanthus, leaving the dead stems scattered everywhere. I stopped to take photos when it dawned on me that it wasn’t the landscapers who had left the median landscape in such disarray but the work of a passel of hogs, probably with a litter of hoglets born in the fall. They had uprooted all the plants, turned over the soil and basically ate all the plants buffet-style.

Hogs are not native to the United States, but have been here for centuries, arriving with the Spaniards near Tampa in the 16th century. There are over 6 million feral hogs in the United States. The estimated dollars in damages is $2.5 billion dollars. They cannot be eradicated completely but they can be controlled. Any homeowner or community being annoyed with feral hogs can download this Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission pdf for more information on how to handle this state-wide pest.

So my humble apologize to landscapers this month for assuming it was Landscape Malpractice #33. But just wait till next month!

Hello, January! Onions and herbs planted last month, I was feeling like a gardening pro. Then our forecast now predicts temperatures in the teens with possible snow! So, instead of basking in the sun, I'm prepping the garden and poinsettias for a frosty surprise. And let's not forget the turkeys – their living area is getting a cozy makeover to keep them warm. Also, remember my pumpkin growing fiasco? I have rebellious pumpkins growing in the turkey compost area. Now, I'm left wondering if I should start a new trend: #LizzieSaidWhat Winter Pumpkins!

This is all new learning adventures for the GrandBrats and I.

Remember, life can be a joyful journey. Enjoying all moments is up to YOU!

Updates through “Lizzie Said What” socials.

An unique Christmas flower is also one of the most misunderstood flower gifts. Cyclamen, Cyclamen persicum, are considered winter annuals in Florida but are native to the Mediterranean. The ‘persicum’ hybrid is known as a florist’s variety and isn’t cold tolerant. There are over 20 varieties of cyclamen and the Cyclamen hederifolium is the most cold-hardy, tubers, growing into Zone 4. Cyclamens have attractive, heart-shaped leaves with beautiful upswept flowers. This fall-blooming flower goes dormant after blooming and most people think that it is dying or has died and they killed it.

Do not throw your cyclamens away if they die down. They are only going dormant. If you would like to keep them going, stop watering and let the soil dry out. Trim all the dead flowers and leaves. Place in a cool, dry location. In late summer, bring pot into a sunny location and start watering. Cyclamens are watered the same way as African violets from a saucer below it, so the roots can uptake the water.

GET THE "IN YOUR BACKYARD" NEWSLETTER!

Monthly gardening information for Florida-friendly landscapes,, what to do in your garden, design advice, and more!