Welcome to my first post ever! Why “excessive” gardener? At times I lack “moderation”. How much is too much? I like Steven Tyler’s opinion: If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.
- Oh, No! There goes Orlando!
I have been in Florida a year yet still I am surprised by the variety of plants and creatures here, and that’s just in my yard. So many lizards and they’re all living in my potted plants.
- Brown Anole
The majority are brown anoles, Anolis sagrei. The males reach 20 cm (8 in.) and at least half of that is the tail. I haven’t seen any that large in the yard. We used to have a snake that feasted on the lizards and so kept the population lower, but he wandered into a neighbor’s yard and was promptly executed.
Green Anole
There’s also the green anole, Anolis carolinensis. It’s a tree lizard whereas the brown anole for the most part occupies the ground. Apparently greenies like to eat the brownies’ hatchlings and the brownies have a taste for greenie babies. I’m not fond of nature’s mechanisms for keeping populations in check. A lot of nature’s theater plays out on my patio while I’m there: these lizards seem to like an audience. I’ve given many an adult lizard a nudge of my walking cane when he’s stalking a little one. I can’t be there all the time so it’s survival of the fittest able to run like hell.
I’ve never been a reptile person. I used to scream and run when I saw a snake. The deceased snake I mentioned would slither over my feet when I sat at the patio table. There was no justification for these encounters as far as I could tell. For awhile I thought he was doing it intentionally just to unnerve me. I became paranoid whenever outside. Finally, I concluded that his reptilian “brain” wouldn’t have the capacity for teasing, so he must have been drawn to my body heat. He’s not the first.
the EXCESSIVE GARDENER 