Besides Jay and Marti, is anyone else frequenting the forum in the Florida area? Or Louisiana?

Get your stuff together, like flashlights and batteries, so you won't be in the dark when you don'nt want to be.

This is the time I give thanks that we cut down those 6 tall trees near the house, including the 4 100 foot tall pines.

We do a pretty god job of keeping prepared for storm season. We stockpile quite a bit of non-perishable food, and I buy a lot of charcoal for the grill when it's on sale. I get up to a about 12 bags or so, then use them the rest of the year. We have a decent generator, too, but it's hard to store gas- it goes bad very quickly these days.

We're on relatively high ground here at 55', but it would be hard to evacuate. Our county is virtually an island with nearly a million people on it, most of whom would be under water in a major storm. The bridges are the first thing to flood, so you have to either leave two days early, or hunker down. They once did an evacuation study, and after the numbers were all in, the official recommendation is to stay put! It would take longer to evacuate the county than the typical amount of warning given for a hurricane, so the fear is that the bridges would be jammed with cars when the flood waters came up. Not very encouraging- yet another reason we are moving to SC.

no hurricanes out here but we do have some nasty winds. makes me glad I don't have any trees close to me. only 3 on my land (that'll be changing tho). I won't plant any close to the house. I'm planting them far enough away that if they fall (going by the height of them full grown) they still won't hit me. I doubt they'll get that high in my lifetime here on earth anyway.

I hope it's passed by now and you all are ok...

We're not usually in the path of anything bad. They've worked themselves out and we just have rain and some wind.

Today, it thundered for awhile and I kept looking out and nothing was going on. Finally it quit thundering and the sky got lighter, and then it started sprinkling and my internet went off. I thought maybe lightening hit the tower and heard on the news tonight that the outage was really because of copper thieves.

ML, I hope nothing bad comes your way. I always worry when I have part of the roof exposed.

And I mean we have had a LOT of rain. The wooden fence does not get to dry out much, and parts of it are getting a greenish look. Of course my container plants are doing great, and the grass is growing quickly. But so are the weeds in the flower beds. I go out early in the morning with the dogs, and pull a few weeds, but not enough to keep up with it. My poor roses do not look too good. But the elephant ears, and the palms, the bananas, the sweet potato vines, the canna lilies, the begonias, the split leafed philodendron, the monstera deliciosa, they are on steroids.

Hard to keep the grass cut though. It needs it every week instead of bi weekly. But that is a little too ...what is the word....prissy? for me.

Jay

And yes, they are growing like KUDZU.
Did I mention that up in NC at Plant Delights Nursery, they have a variegated kudzu? The do not "export" it beyond state lines, however, because it would be against the law to plant kudzu in Georgia....think the vine that ate Atlanta.....and all those roadside trees covered by a green blanket of kudzu.

The man who brought kudzu to this country probably lives in infamy. But it seemed like a good idea at the time, right?
Just no environmental impact study done on it. Same as for the nutria rats that they imported for their fur, which got loose during a hurricane, and then they proceeded to become a number one pest in the swamps of Louisiana.

I love mine. The chartreuse leaves are the same color as the sun coleas, and they just light up the dark green of the dense tropical greenery around the house. Too bad I have not felt like keeping the beds weeded this year. It would be lovely to look at.