The Darwinian Gardener hit the thermal barrier and knew it.
Over time, through hard experience, he had pinpointed the exact temperature at which all outdoor work must stop: 88 degrees. A mild 86 he can handle uncomfortably. At 87, he is slowed down. At 88, he should throw down the clippers and flee indoors where he can rehydrate, and while still panting like a dog, pull a beer from the refrigerator.
The thermal barrier. Don’t cross it.
Conservationists move rare plant away from Volusia I-4 construction
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Conservation Florida teamed up with Young Bear Environmental, Environmental Science Associates and the Florida Department of Transportation to relocate on July 8, 2026, 37 whole Rugel’s pawpaw plants and 17 root fragments. to the D Ranch Preserve in Osteen. (Provided by Conservation Florida)
But wait, who is this Darwinian Gardener person? The Darwinian Gardener is Florida’s foremost exponent of survival-of-the-fittest lawn-and-garden care. He is not running a resort for select plant life from all over the planet. His yard is no plant zoo and he is no zookeeper.
He’s not in the business of replicating a favorite golf course on his front yard. The last time he was even at a golf course he damaged the arm of the little windmill and was told not to come back.
And on these days of Global-Warming Era heat, he is not here to overexert himself, which makes this an excellent time to step into the shade and Ask the Darwinian Gardener.
Q: So have you just given up on lawn maintenance until October?
An air potato plant drapes itself on a palm fond. They like to do that.
A: Oh, pretty much. From late July through August and into September, the thermal barrier hits too early in the day, and the Darwinian Gardener is no early morning laborer.
Each June he tells anybody still listening to him that he is not one to be cooped up, immobile, inside a sealed house listening to the cool air push through the ductwork. He is a Floridian, dammit! A man of the bright outdoors. Unfazed by flying insects, impervious to heat, sun and moisture.
But then, sometime around the Fourth of July, he finds himself panting from the exertion of picking the newspaper up from the still-warm-from-overnight driveway and retreats indoors. These are days when rain has roads sending off visible steam. Second-phase summer. Ultra-summer. It defeats even locals.
Q: Does that mean you never venture into that jungle behind your house?
A: Yes, but only for brief spells. Like when the temperature drops just before a 3 p.m. thunderstorm. On these forays, he discovered that sunny days and rainy afternoons invigorated his longtime enemy, the pernicious air potato vine. He shielded his eyes and looked skyward to find that they wrapped themselves around the tops of the tallest trees in his yard.
Not a run-of-the-mill invasive plant, the vine debuted on the Florida Noxious Weed List in 1999 and so is banned by law. (Florida Statute 581.091, look it up!) An outlaw weed!
The vines crept in from an adjoining yard sometime in the 1990s and he’s been battling them ever since. Each winter they wither and appear to die off so even a practiced observer like the Darwinian Gardener might be fooled into believing he’s won the war.
But no. Each spring they pop back and by second-phase summer, they are merrily wrapping themselves around bushes, flowers and trees and reaching skyward in their bid for backyard domination. So he cuts and pulls until he hits the thermal barrier.
Q: Does the air potato have natural enemies?
A: Just the Darwinian Gardener. Yes, the nasty Old World climbing fern tries to out-compete it but fails. Courtesy of the University of Florida, the Darwinian Gardener introduced air potato beetles into the yard some years ago to attack the vines, but the insects did not thrive as expected. He suspects overeating did them in. A remnant emerges in late summer to gorge on vine leaves, but to little avail.
Q: Last spring you kept saying to give freeze-damaged plants a lot of time to prove they are still alive. Now that the year is two-thirds over, have you finally accepted their demise?
A: Eight long months after the one-two punch of freezes, the Darwinian Gardener came up against the thermal barrier while he dug up a blackened, clearly dead croton.
He had seen it fake its death so many times he was not upset in February when it dropped its shriveled brown leaves. But this time new leaves never budded. August was long past time to accept things.
But hey, it took his big hibiscus a full six months before it decided to send out shoots. The Darwinian Gardener understands the plant’s wariness. It’s dangerous out there. Glad he waited all those months.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
Mark Lane
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: The Darwinian Gardener hits Florida’s thermal barrier