IFAS: An Invaluable Source

Your earliest New Year’s resolution for 2014 should be to become more familiar with IFAS, The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.  IFAS is a partnership of federal, state and county agencies charged with generating knowledge in several key areas — agriculture, the life sciences, and human and natural resources – and making that information accessible to the public.

IFAS is part of the great tradition of nationwide cooperative extension whose antecedents date back before 1850, when agricultural societies in many states in the eastern U.S. began to conduct public lectures on agricultural topics.  The big boost to this movement occurred in 1914, when Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act creating the Cooperative Extension Service as a partnership between land grant colleges and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and authorized an appropriation to the states for work in agriculture and home economics.

The State of Florida refined its role by creating IFAS in 1964.  Now IFAS has offices in all 67 counties of Florida, and operates 12 Research and Education Centers (RECs) throughout the state.  The Cooperative Extension Service is administered by The University of Florida and Florida A&M University.

For growers — commercial operators and homeowners alike – of food crops and ornamental plants in the state, IFAS provides invaluable help.  But the functions of county extension offices don’t stop there.  For instance, families and consumers are served in the categories of aging and caregiving, children, food safety, health and nutrition, house and home, money matters, relationships, and workplace.

Richard Lyons’ Nursery recommends that you celebrate the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Extension Service by checking out what IFAS has to offer.  Examine the website, http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/, and call IFAS offices in your county when you have specific questions.  The number in Miami-Dade County is (305) 248-3311, and the number in Broward County is (954) 357-5270.

We’re sure that your first New Year’s resolution for 2014 will be one you won’t regret.

Vegetables and Herbs For Sale

As winter and the dry season rapidly approach in S. Florida, so too does the optimum vegetable and herb growing season.  We have a variety of potted herbs(rosemary, chives, oregano, thyme, marjoram, mint, and basil to name a few), and some tomato plants and hot pepper plants for sale.  If vegetables picked fresh from the garden is more to your liking we have several types of these to offer for sale as well.  Currently, we are harvesting leaf lettuce, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard, and red radishes.  Later we should have cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, tomatoes, Daikon radishes, string beans, onions, and beets.

Latest News From Around The Nursery

Who says we don’t have seasons here in south Florida?  We have just begun the dry season – no more daily storms, just occasional rain.  Don’t expect a rainy season until about the middle of May next year.  Watch the moisture level in all of your potted plants.  They lose moisture much faster with the advent of lower humidity and drying winds.

This is the latest safe period for applying granular fertilizer to your garden’s plants and trees.  You don’t want to stimulate growth in the event we experience severe cold later on.  The idea is to let your plants harden off for the cooler weather which arrives the latter part of December or the first part of January.

Here at Richard Lyons’ Nursery we have planted vegetables which we expect to begin harvesting in the next 60 days and continue to harvest until April next year.  We will have carrots, lettuce, kolrabi,  cauliflower, broccoli, swiss chard, string beans, tomatoes, and a wide selection of herbs.

We still have some avocados and star fruit.

We will have Jujube very soon.  The fruit is forming very nicely. Should the weather remain on the warm side we may even have some Jakfruit. Some of the trees are producing flowers.

I invite you all to stop by and see our large collection of plants and trees here at Richard Lyons’ Nursery.

Richard.

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The Bombacaceae Family

The Bombacaceae family, commonly called the Bombax or Kapok family is comprised of 30 genera and 250 species of tropical trees, many of them deciduous.  Ceiba pentandra (The Kapok Tree) is the tallest, as it can attain a height of 70m.  Some members of this family are commercially important for their timber, fruit and fibers, and the Balsa tree has the softest wood and has many uses for its light weight wood.  Most of the trees in this family are very large with showy flowers and are commonly found in the S. Florida landscape.  Several can be purchased at Richard Lyons’ Nursery in Miami. These include:

Adansonia digitata (Baobab Tree)

Bombax Ceiba (Red or Orange Bombax)

Ceiba pentandra (Kapok Tree)

Ceiba schottii (Vanilla Kapok Tree)

Ceiba speciosa (Silk Cotton Tree) Syn. Chorisia speciosa

Pachira aquatic (Guiana Chestnut)

Pseudobombax ellipticum (Shaving Brush Tree)

 

Unusual Palm Seedlings

Normally, Richard Lyons’ Nursery offers large specimen Palm Trees for the landscape.  While this is still true, the nursery has recently purchased seeds of some hard to find palm tree species.  These have germinated, and they have been transplanted into 1 gal. containers for sale.  So, if you are patient enough to wait, and watch them grow into a fine specimen tree, but don’t want to spend a specimen tree price, these might be for you.

We are now offering seedlings or small trees of:

Acoelorrhaphe wrightii (Paurotis Palm)

Arenga tremula (Philippine Dwarf Sugar Palm)

Bismarckia nobilis (Bismarkia Palm)

Chambeyronia macrocarpa (Blushing Palm)

Coccothrinax argentata (Silver Palm)

Copernicia berteroana (Yarey Palm)

Copernicia macroglossa (Petticoat Palm)

Dictyosperma album (Hurricane Palm)

Dypsis cabadae (Cabada Palm)

Gaussia maya (Maya Palm)

Pseudophoenix vinifera (Hispaniola Wine Palm)

Sabal mauritiiformis (Savannah Palm)

So, stop on in and take a look.  We are located at 20200 SW 134th Ave. Miami, FL.