Mark Lane
| Special to The News-Journal
The Darwinian Gardener leaned back into the Christmas pillows his wife had put on the couch just after Thanksgiving dinner was cleared away and stared at his iPhone screen. It showed videos sent by his stepson Up North and looked like he shot them in black and white. But no, they were in full color and showed snow coming down so thick it painted the woodland scene in monochrome.
In the foreground, two orange dogs were frolicking. They alone looked to be in color. Dogs who had once suffered through Florida Augusts but are now happily where they belong.
The Darwinian Gardener was glad to experience this only vicariously. Unlike the dogs, he has over-adapted to Florida’s climate. Still, he chuckles at the complaints he’s hearing about the cold front that blew through around New Year’s. Like this was a betrayal of the Florida Promise.
Who is the Darwinian Gardener?
But wait, who is this Darwinian Gardener? The Darwinian Gardener is Florida’s foremost exponent of survival-of-the-fittest lawn-and-garden care. You won’t find him putting scarves and sheets over bushes and rushing potted plants into the toasty indoors. He is not the party planner of Nature. He is the low-bid subcontractor of Nature, arriving an hour late and dumping the scrap material in the front yard.
And when the wind picks up and the heating unit gives off strange smells, that’s a good time to Ask the Darwinian Gardener:
Q: Are you really so lazy that you don’t prepare when the TV weather maps are painted blue and spotted with little digital snowflakes?
A: The Darwinian Gardener does not consider light frost an emergency. In fact, he feels the natural order is off in a year without at least one actual, more than hourlong, freeze in his yard. His nearest airport hasn’t reported a real freeze since mid-January 2023.
In Florida, it’s survival of the fittest
Q: You don’t consider freezes an emergency? That’s not what we moved to Florida to experience. Are you enjoying the sight of painstakingly maintained tropical yards looking all droopy and dead?
A: Heh, heh. Maybe just a little. But mostly the Darwinian Gardener enjoys that invasive vines, overenthusiastic weeds and fussy plants that don’t belong in his corner of the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 9 get stunned back and killed without his raising a finger. He identifies with being a Zone 9er.
Q: What is this “feels-like temperature” that the TV weather people keep talking about? How do they know how I feel?
A: Feels-like temperature calculations on cold days take into account wind speed. Some formulas include other factors like humidity. Florida’s cold is a damp cold, and that can just go through you. Even if you’re wearing shoes and socks, which not all Floridians will resort to regardless of temperature. (He always notices the popular ski-jacket and flipflop combo on cold-weather errands.)
But no, most feels-like formulas do not reflect Darwinian Gardner’s feelings. A longtime Florida resident, his feels-like formula is as follows: if the temperature is under 70 degrees during daylight, subtract 10 degrees from the thermometer reading. If you’ve moved here within the past five years, subtract six degrees. If you’re over 70 and lived here for more than five years, subtract 15 degrees. And subtract a degree or two if you have a dog that must be walked before breakfast.
Q: What about my crotons? It didn’t even freeze here, yet they’re looking all wilty.
A: Throw a Tom Collins glassful of water at their base and in a firm voice tell them to buck up. Be happy you live in Zone 9 and not Zone 6 or somewhere harsher.
Crotons can look pretty dramatic at the slightest cold; don’t let them get to you. This new year has at least one more cold snap to come. But come March, they’ll still sprout new leaves, and you’ll feel dumb that you ever felt sorry for them. The Darwinian Gardener is not one to be fooled.
Q: What are your resolutions for the new year?
A: Less screen time, turn the mulch pile, and take down the Christmas tree before Valentine’s Day. He believes in reasonable expectations.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
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