Our Gardens Sybil and J. Venice Florida

Our Gardens Sybil and J. Venice, Florida January 2000

Smiling Sybil welcomed us as we poured out of the van and stood taking in the lush, sculptured front yard. A lovely semicircle of hibiscus bordered the driveway. Sybil and J. planted everything we saw growing in that front yard. When they moved here from Manhattan about five years ago, it was all grass, oaks and palms.

The garden today looks as if this is how it's always been. In our first minutes together, Sybil generously offered cuttings, seeds, anything we might be interested in. We started our tour in the front yard, where "wild'; orchids, Epidendrum radicans, blew reddish-orangeish.

There was a Jacaranda (purple flowers so extraordinary that streets, towns, neighborhoods are named for them), and orchid trees grown from seeds. Around the side of the house, we came upon a Neem tree. Jamaican-lilted Sybil shared that in Sri Lanka they believe vapors of this plant have healing properties.

Do the math: Sybil's Caribbean roots + Sybil's and J.'s membership in the Fruit and Nut Society = Slow Going: Unusual and yummy edibles wherever we wandered on this acre-size lot. I'd still be grazing if I hadn't been nudged occasionally. A pretty vine ran around amongst the greenery. Vegetarian bowling balls? No! They're Jamaican pumpkins. I lugged home a couple of hunks, as part of the Fabulous Parting Gifts. Time has passed. I'm updating this article years later… those lovely pumpkins scattered themselves through my garden for years, coming back and back. I had parties, served pumpkin soup. Then the plants and fruits stopped coming and the seeds I had grew old and now I'm bereft of pumpkins… Anyway, there were peach trees, fig and blooming ginger. There was the banana grove, of course, and scallions, lemon grass, persimmon, kumquat and Jamaican spinach. There was a strawberry tree... which smells like its namesake and forks over red berries.

Sybil's husband J. - That's how he spells it. I've gathered those cast off letters to spell MY name… - joined us as we rambled. Asked if he gardens with Sybil, he answered tactfully and tenderly, "Oh, we do different things.. .I'm only the engineer. She's the agronomist." He's a retired engineer, mentions he's gotten her to come in from the shed for a phone call by using cans and string. He calls her My Love. We saw his influence in the fabulous shade house where part of the orchid collection resides. More of the orchid collection surrounded the screened-in pool. Sybil and J.'s place proudly wears a "Florida Yards and Neighborhoods" sign. This is a program originally started to protect our waters, but has grown to recognize sites meeting certain basic ecologically correct (and I have to say totally PICKY) criteria. (Did you guess? I don't have the sign at my garden…) If you notice this sign in front of a home, you know there must be some interesting gardening going on there. In fact, if you notice a GARDEN - just anywhere you notice gardening going on - you can safely assume that there will be imagination and passion, experimentation and FUN in the vicinity, as well. I say, feel free to drop in. Just look at J. and Sybil's! I'm sure you'll be welcomed.

Contact Andye at 941-497-5282 if you have a garden you would like to share with our readers.