Open half-acre is a fall treat

For almost a decade, garden writer Monica Brandies has opened her own half-acre in Brandon to visitors. They flock to her yard during her fall Open Garden to look and snag cuttings and seeds.

Some also come to meet the woman who helped them adapt to a strange new horticultural experience; she originally published "Florida Gardening: The Newcomer's Survival Manual" in 1993.

"Every year I say, 'This will be my last year.' All the time getting ready!" Monica said between fielding questions and well-wishes from visitors last weekend. "I don't know if there will be another."

She paused a beat and smiled.

"There probably will."

Monica has written or co-written 11 garden books, publishing an expanded "Survival Manual" in 2007. During her Open Garden, she consulted her own "Florida Gardener's Book of Lists," co-authored with Lois Trigg Chaplin, when a neighbor asked about a plant to cover the chain-link fence in her shady back yard.

Confederate jasmine, Monica advised.

Her garden is an organized, labeled jungle of common plants grown steroidally huge, and uncommon plants that thrive here but may be hard to find in the local garden center or nursery.

"I snitched that cutting from the (Hillsborough County) Extension Office years ago," she said of her unusual yellow 5-foot-tall salvia. "I really liked the name, Salvia forsythia."

She liked it because people like her, who move here from up North, look for the plants they loved back home. Salvia forsythia is about as close to the real forsythia as you'll grow here, she said.

Monica and her husband of 51 years, David, (they met in second grade!) had small farms in Ohio and Iowa before moving to Florida. Monica studied horticulture and landscape design in college and published her first garden article in 1961. Her down-to-earth, practical style has won her many fans.

Monica's books are available at all the major retailers, but if you order from her Web site, www.gardensflorida.com, you'll get an autographed copy. You can also read her articles in the Tribune's Brandon section and in Florida Gardening magazine.

Penny Carnathan

Salvia forsythia, Forsythia sage

Salvia madrensis

One of few types of salvia with yellow blooms, forsythia likes part sun to full shade and well-drained soil. It needs room to grow; spreading clumps can get up to 10 feet tall.

A perennial, it produces bright yellow blooms on foot-long spikes from fall to early winter.

Cockscomb celosia

Celosia cristata

A full sun annual, Cockscomb's flowers look like soft velvet but they're firm to the touch. Blooms may be purple, pink, yellow or orange. Plants get up to 2 feet tall and about a foot wide.

Plant in rich, moist soil from April to November in Zone 9.

Chinese hat plant,

Cup and saucer plant

Holmskioldia sanguinea

Named for its unusual little blooms, this climbing shrub comes from the Himalayan lowlands. It likes full sun, but Monica says it does well in filtered sun or shade, too, and requires little care.

It grows 8 to 10 feet tall and may require a trellis. Look for flowers from late summer through fall.