The Garden Club at Palm Coast

Bill Brattain and Carol Wamsley-Brattain of Eastwood Drive have been recognized as December 2021 Selection of the Month by The Garden Club at Palm Coast.

Bill and Carol are from North Carolina and moved to Palm Coast in 2008. Carol is a watercolor artist and used to teach art in Tennessee. She has many beautiful art pieces inside their home. Bill is now retired after working in construction for 51 years and enjoys gardening and being outside. He continuously propagates many plants in order to always have color throughout the landscape.

Bill Brattain and Carol Wamsley-Brattain of Eastwood Drive

The front garden contains a large diversity of plants, including bird of paradise, dark pink crape myrtles, agapanthus, oyster plants (Moses in a cradle), split-leaf philodendron, large ferns, Hawaiian Ti, broadleaved palm lily (Cordyline petiolaris), crimson fire loropetalum hedges, a tall variety of red canna lilies, red canna lilies with yellow specks, firecracker bush, European fan and Phoenix roebellini (pygmy date) palms and a native Palatka holly tree.

Bill has propagated several banana trees which are in the backyard. Last year he harvested over 50 pounds of bananas in a single day!! Other fruits include: pink grapefruits, juicy Hamlin and Valencia oranges, Florida’s best juicing orange. He also has a vegetable garden with tomatoes and peppers.

He is experimenting with two hybrid dragon fruit cacti –‘Halley’s Comet’, which is self-pollinating, and produces a fruit which is pink outside with purple flesh inside, and ‘Physical Graffiti’ with dark pink flesh. ‘Physical Graffiti’ needs cross-pollination to set fruit, usually done by hand pollination from another variety. Both hybrids produce gorgeous white flowers which only open at night and are closed by morning. He is waiting patiently for them to produce fruit.

He also grows two other night blooming cacti, both with fragrant white flowers: Hooker’s orchid cactus (Epiphyllum hookeri) and Dutchman’s pipe or Queen of the night (Epiphyllum oxpetalum).
Bill gave us some bananas to try as well as some pups to grow in our yard. Hopefully, we will have our own bananas next season! Thank you, Bill.

Submitted by Nancy Iandoli
Selection of the Month Committee

November 2021 Selection of the Month

Debra Isham of President Lane has been recognized as November 2021 Selection of the Month by The Garden Club at Palm Coast.

Debra Isham of President Lane

Debra and her husband formerly from Wisconsin moved to Palm Coast three years ago. Debra’s love for gardening came from spending time in the garden with her mother on their 4 acres. When she moved to Palm Coast she quickly learned that plants from her Wisconsin Zone 4 would not work in Florida in Zone 9B. Therefore, she joined The Garden Club 2-½ years ago. With a little bit of patience and some help from her garden friends she finally figured out what works here.

When Debra bought her house there was very little landscaping and she has turned it around into a beautiful sanctuary of numerous plants and whimsical decorations and beautiful planters. Many of her unique planters come from various yard sales and thrift shops.

You are greeted at the doorway with a hanging Welcome flag, a variety of succulents in decorative pots as well as in a piece of driftwood. There are beautiful orange and pink ground orchids, a red geranium in a pottery basket, a lily fountain, snake plant and white mandevilla vines.

The front and side yards have spiral and shampoo ginger, crinum lilies, mini bottle brush, bleeding heart vine, caladium, little gem magnolia, variegated liriope, Mexican heather, bromeliads, crape myrtle, plumbago, bird’s nest and moonshine sansevieria.

The back yard is full of so many various plants, fire bush, agapanthus, star spider lily, mother of thousand, crown of thorns, Kings mantel, blue iris, gerber daisy, dwarf princess flower, rain lily, coral plant, cape honey suckle, roses, purple salvias, rosemary, elephant ear and kalanchoe.

Debra Isham’s ‘She Shed”

In the back yard we were totally amazed to see her “She Shed”. It has French doors with a wreath on each, a decorative dragonfly on the exterior wall. The inside has an armoire with fancy glass sketched doors filled with various fancy pots and gardening books. She claims this is her work space but it is so nice you could live in it or at least have afternoon tea or a glass of wine! Her husband made her a very nice workbench outside the She Shed. She also has a compost bin which explains why she has such a green thumb and it is evident in her beautiful landscape all around her property.

Submitted by Nancy Iandoli
Selection of the Month Committee