A new vision of the garden

Well I finally decided to go under the laser and improve my vision with Lasik surgery.  This Friday I had the surgery and now have perfect distance vision and my close reading is improving  rapidly.  I am composing this with no glasses.  It is so exciting, I have worn glasses since I was in the third grade.

I think it is a miracle.  Colors are more vivid.  Depth perception is increased.  I am so happy and this is only the second day.  Every day I will heal more and get back into the swing of normal activities.  The first week I am not allowed to garden!  While the eyes are healing, no dirt can come in contact with the eyes.  No sweat can enter the eyes.  I have to sleep with goggles so I will not rub my eyes by mistake.  No water can touch the eyes for the first week as well.

My doctor mentioned to me that quite of few of his patients remark they see leaves on trees for the first time.  He was intrigued by my horticultural therapy profession.  It turns out his wife is an accomplished nature photographer and is interested in placing her magnificent photographs in senior residences.  He gave me her card and I will contact her soon.

Here are some wonderful blooms from the garden this week.

Thank you for visiting my private backyard garden.  I got an anonymous call this week asking if they could come down to pick fruit in my garden.  I returned the call and got an answering machine.  I explained I do not have a farm, it is just a small urban yard and there is not enough fruit to to have people come and pick.

Thank you for visiting my blog and I enjoy reading yours as well.  It is fun following each other on the social networks, looking forward to seeing you there as well.   

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Summer in the garden

Well we are mid summer in the Fort Lauderdale garden.  We have 6 months of hot sticky wet weather and 6 months of warm dry weather in South Florida.  We had 27 inches of rain since June, and the mosquitoes are out in full force.  The bees, butterflies and birds have been very active.  The photo below is of our state butterfly, the zebra longwing.

To stay cool, I have been drinking iced tea with mint, iced coffee and coconut water.

The royal poinciana trees are in full bloom, and they are always a joy to behold. Here is an article and slide show of the trees.
Grand Dame of trees the royal poinciana

YouTube asked its contributors to make an introduction to their channel, so I completed this last weekend.  My food and garden channel is taking off!  Thank you for subscribing and viewing the videos.

Two weekends ago was the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden  Mango Festival.  I was asked to write an article there for Examiner.com, and I wrote two.  Here they are!

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden features a mango festival featuring the mangoes of Mexico

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden features a mango brunch

I have been so busy picking mangoes and starfruit, pruning, weeding and planting lately in my backyard garden.  At my horticultural therapy business, I have been picking up new accounts and coming up with new activities for the older ones.  In the summer the heat is too strong for the seniors so we do more indoor activities.  I have been very remiss in writing my book though, so much going on!

Thank you for visiting my blog and I enjoy reading yours as well.  It is fun following each other on the social networks, looking forward to seeing you there as well.  

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Anticipating an urban harvest

There is always something to eat from the garden.  Right now the second crop of mangoes are ripening.  This is a rare occurrence, usually we only get a short crop, and are inundated with ripe mangoes in a few short weeks.   This second batch is plentiful, but the fruits are half size.

The critters are already feasting on the unripe mangoes, so I have to pick them early and have them ripen inside the house, in the sink.  I use a large pole picker, as seen in this video.  You are all welcome to subscribe to my youtube channel, greatly appreciated!

The sugar apples are still green, but are starting to turn yellow.  They usually are ready after the mangoes, but this year we are having an overlap.  It is wonderful to pick and eat directly from the tree.  Urban farm fresh!  Just a bike ride from downtown Fort Lauderdale.  This video shows how to slice a star fruit.  Did you know once they are sliced, you can float them in a drink?  Fun!

If I had to redo my garden, I would have planted more edibles.  I am all planted out and the only way to add more is to take trees and shrubs out.  I may do just that...

Thank you so much for visiting my blog, greatly appreciated.  I like following and reading yours as well.  See you again soon.

You can follow me on other social networks, and I will follow you back!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Grieving the loss of a loved one in a garden of healing

Recently a dear friend of mine passed away from cancer.  She loved her garden and found inspiration in many places, including my garden.    We shared cuttings and helped each other in the garden from time to time.  She lived a few blocks away from me so it was easy to see each other.  She loved my jungle look and replicated it in her garden.  The tropical plants, small rock path slightly curving

is very similar to my design.  She made hers more formal with stepping stones and black plastic edging.   Hers path opened up to a grassy area enclosed by a fence.  A friend of hers recently confided to me she took him to my garden to see it a few years ago while I was away from the house at work.   She told him she wanted her garden to look like mine.  

This beautiful Queen Crape Myrtle I planted years ago sure overcame a challenging time.  She had a cutting growing in the corner of her yard in a pot and could not decide where to plant it.  Years had gone by and the roots extended way down through the drainage holes into the soil.  We could not even lift up the pot, we had to dig it out and cut the tree away from the container.  Since we could not get all of the roots, I trimmed the branches.  Luckily it did not die during transplanting.  It has since thrived and as you can see above it looks great. 

She loved her cat so much.  This plant is called cats whiskers and grows prominently near the house entrance.  It is nice to make a garden match your personality.  This garden is bold, colorful and full of life, just like its owner was.  

Good bye my dear, and happy planting up above.  

Thank you for visiting my blog.    Please follow me on other social networks!  You will meet other people there as well.  

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!

Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Cerasee Tea for Health

Cerasee is a popular herbal tea of the Caribbean Islands.  It is utilized for many ailments, as it is a blood cleanser.  Women use it to sooth monthly cramps, as well as to treat urinary tract infections.  The tea is used to remove parasitic worms from the body.  It cleanses the liver and kidneys.  If you google cerasee tea, there is a great deal of information about all the benefits.

I never knew about cerasee tea until I brought it inadvertently  during a flower arranging class from my garden and a certified nursing assistant told me all about it.   The cerisee vine grows like a weed in my garden so I started bringing it to work for the nurses to use.  I decided to make a video about it on my YouTube garden channel.

People started asking me for the tea and seeds so I started a business.  I sell the tea in bulk gallon bags for just six dollars, including shipping.  Seed packets of a dozen seeds are three dollars including shipping.

To brew the tea, boil water and then pour it over about a four inch piece of vine and leaves.  Leave the tea to steep in the water for a few minutes, then strain into a cup.  You can also put the leaves in a tea infuser and steep in  boiling water.  It is a bitter tea.

To order tea, just leave your contact information on my website, www.robbornstein.com

Thank you for visiting my blog, and you can follow me on other social networks.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.



























Men and women drink the tea as a tonic, but not all the time since it can be hard on the kidneys and liver.

Secrets, tricks and best bets for your successful garden this spring

For most of the country, this is the time to start tilling the soil, adding organic amendments, buying the seeds, starts and accoutrements to begin the planting season.  (Those of us in South Florida are winding down our main fall to winter vegetable planting season.)  This is a new article I wrote for Examiner.com giving you top tips for your new spring planting.  Click on the purple sentence below to read article.

Best goals for your garden this spring

Fresh lettuce greens are quick and easy to grow.

I am excited to share this wonderful method of organizing  seed packets.  I have tried many methods over the years.  I have kept them in boxes, bags and recipe card holders.  On one of the social networks there was a post on utilizing small photo albums to hold seed packets.  I love it!  Here is a quick video to show you how.

It is also fun to try new varieties  it keeps gardening interesting.  Remember to rotate crops, they produce bigger yields and it helps the soil as well.  I never spray any insecticides and always have plenty to eat, even in my small urban garden.  I am going to try some yard long beans and maybe some tropical root crops this summer.  New to me also is a tropical green called callalo, which is utilized like spinach.  You may know it as amaranth.

Creative salads from garden produce is always a healthy easy to digest meal during hot summer months.

Cherry tomatoes ripen quickly and can be diced and added to salads, omelettes   sandwiches and burgers.

The mango tree is putting out a second set of blooms this year for two crops of fruit, very unusual.

I hope you find these tips useful and have a happy, productive, fun, healthy growing season.


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Boston bombings, Stress and therapeutic landscapes

 What a week it has been, so stressful.  One night I had the news on late, and then was unable to get to sleep.  I even woke up early, without the alarm.  I need my garden more than ever to heal, calm down and try to relax.  As the Grateful Dead song goes, What a long strange trip it’s been.

Tips to heal:

Take a walk in a park, nature preserve or garden.  Mother Nature has a way of calming you down.  The fresh air, beauty, and order are very calming.  It is also beneficial to get out of the house, away from the routine, and especially away from the TV for a while. 

 Visit a florist shop.  The beauty of flowers arranged just so, brings joy and lift your spirit.  You can buy one or make your own.  Making your own arrangement is very creative and will make you feel good.  Enjoy the aroma of flowers.  Aromatherapy is great for soothing the soul.

 Go to a garden center.  The beauty of orderly landscape plants and flowers contrasts the chaos and sadness of recent events of Boston and Texas.  The soothing sounds of water cascading from fountains will help you feel better.

Time will heal most of our wounds.  In the meantime, just take it one day at a time.

Try not to self medicate with pills, wine or sweets.  Let Mother Nature heal you. 

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Best shoes to wear in the garden

There are a wide range of shoes to wear in the garden.  Everyone has their preference.  I know one woman who liked to garden with her bare feet, until she picked up worms. Bare feet, sandals, flip flops, rubber shoes with large holes and so forth, I do not recommend.  You want to keep the soil away from your feet.

Cloth shoes get wet and dirty.  The mud seeps through the cloth, so you might as well be bare footed.  Cloth shoes are fine if you are just taking a stroll through the garden and are not going to work in it.  Lets say you are having a garden tour or want to read a book in the garden, then cloth is better than sandals.

Work boots are great when you are digging large holes with a shovel for installing a landscape.   I damaged a pair of rubber soled athletic shoes once while digging with a shovel.  Avoid working with waffled, large grooved sneakers, since they can get caught in the metal shovel.

I am trying out a pair of Xtratuf garden shoes from Garden Shoes Online and they are holding up well.  They keep my feet clean and dry.  The soles are not slippery.  I stamp my feet a couple of times before I enter the house and do not bring in a trail of dirt.  I remember days of my youth, hiking through the woods and the footprint dirt trail from the front door to my bedroom.  Did my mother scream at me!  From then on I would sit on the front door steps and scrape out the dirt from my shoes with a stick before entering the house.  

FYI, the FCT requires that I let you know that Garden Shoes Online provided these shoes for me to try.


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Happy Easter and Passover in the garden

Spring time is here and that means so are Passover and Easter.  The two holidays are intertwined and have much to do with food and gardening.  In spring, the popular bulb to grow in the landscape are the amaryllis.  They are carefree and multiply readily.  Below is a nice article and slide show featuring these lovely flowers.
Amaryllis announces spring in South Florida

During the Passover Seder  we eat charoses, which is made out of chopped walnuts, apples and wine, which represents mortar Jewish slaves used to build the pyramids.  The bitter herbs (horseradish) represented the hard times of enslavement.  If you ever saw Charelton Heston in the Ten Commandments  that is the story of Passover that we tell the first and second nights of the Seder meal.  When the Jewish people were finally freed, they had to leave early morning, before their bread had risen, rushing off into the desert for forty years.  Hence we do without leavened bread and eat Matzah for the week of Passover.

During Easter, lilies, tulips, hyacinths are utilized to show a new beginning.  Palms are used to make crosses.  As the people of the Jewish faith do without bread for Passover, the Catholics due without something of their choice for lent.  The communion cracker is similar to Matzah. Every Friday from Ash Wednesday until Easter, during lent, no meat is eaten on Fridays.

I wish you a wonderful spring and holiday season.  Thank you for stopping by my blog and see you again soon!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Healing Power of Roses on #rosechat radio

On Saturday morning, March 23, tune in to #rosechat radio and learn about the healing power of roses.  As a horticulture therapist, roses play an important role in my healing engaging activities.

Currently I work with seniors and roses play an important role in their memories.  What did the flower girl drop on the floor on their wedding day?  Rose petals.  What flowers did they get from their husbands for special occasions? Roses.  What parade did they watch every New Years Day?  The rose parade.  What was one of their favorite flowers to grow in their gardens?  Roses.

My residents love to hold a rose and the first thing they do is hold the flower to their nose.  I only grow the most fragrant roses.  As we age our senses diminish. Some seniors I work with have lost their sense of smell totally.

Over the years I have installed several rose gardens at nursing homes, independent senior living facilities and assisted living apartments, senior activity centers, day programs, and Alzheimer units.

The thorns can become a health hazard to those on blood thinners, diabetics, and the frail elderly.  Be careful where you plant them.  I like them to be close enough to have access but not in the way so they get scratched as they walk or wheel themselves by the bushes.

All the above roses are photos from my backyard garden.  I love growing roses and always have bud vases in the kitchen and bathrooms with roses in them.  The link below is for the rose radio broadcast.  You can catch it live or listen at your leisure at any time after the broadcast.  Click on the link below to listen.

Rose chat radio guest Robert Bornstein explains the healing powers of the rose.

Thank you for stopping by my blog and see you again soon.


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Early spring blooms in the garden

One of my favorite aspects of gardening is observing blooms opening day by day.  I like to take a few minutes before work to tour the garden.   This week the ginger is starting to bloom.

It is beautiful to see sunlight shining through the tropical foliage and highlighting the bloom as it begins to open.

As the sheath separates, the smooth white flowers with pink tips reveal themselves like pearls.

As the cluster matures, each flower opens up and within the heart of the white flower, revealing a yellow/orange center.  It is reminiscent of  a snap dragon.  Each day more yellow flowers emerge from the top of the cluster downward.  The joys of gardening are plentiful.

Thank you for following my blog and see you again soon!


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition Show

Every year the Florida Nursery, Landscape and Growers Association has a gigantic plant show, the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition show at the Broward County Convention Center.  Since I started writing for Examiner.com I cover the event for them.  However, I have been attending the event for many years.

I know many of the nurserymen from when I was a state of Florida state agriculture inspector for the Division of Plant Industry.  It was my first job out of college.  I had to inspect nurseries who wanted to become certified to ship plants out of state to California, Texas and Arizona.  Those states had strict laws restricting plants grown in soil from Florida due to our destructive nematode problems in our soils.

Back to the plant show.  There are so many vendors the show takes up the entire hall.  It is fun seeing the latest plant introductions.  It is nice to see the growers I used to visit.  I like to learn about the new products all the other vendors offer. Growers from Canada, China, and Europe are also there.  There is so much to see I often go back more than once to see everything.

Here is a link to the Examiner article and slide show I wrote.  Enjoy and thank you for stopping by my blog.  Click on the link below.

TPIE show and Slide show

Thank you for stopping by and please enjoy these other educational and informative links.


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.

Majestic Oaks, Seniors, Fathers and sons

A tree grows more stately and elegant as the years go by.  The tree canopy reaches up to the heavens   Their trunks show strength and stability.  Here are the best places to view majestic oaks in South Florida. How well are we aging?
Where to view majestic oaks in South Florida

I work with seniors as their candles are burning out.  A slight faint glimmer of a flame remains.  Sometimes as I glide the wheelchairs back to their rooms after class and see ancient photos of their past vibrant selves, it really makes me sad.  I try not to think about it too much.  As I pass by a mirror and view myself in the reflection, I am cognizant of the reality.  It is happening to me as well.

Father and son back in the day.

What I see in the mirror is an image of my father.  Do not get me wrong, I am happy to look like my father.  Here we are together.

Now my father works with me at the nursing homes.  We both enjoy each other's company while at work, but sometimes he gets melancholy and asks me forlornly, is this my fate?  I smile and tell him I will take care of him and my mother, they can move into my house.  But what will happen when they need much more care?  We both know the answer.

Robert and my father at work

This takes us back to the beauty of the majestic oaks, who get stronger and more powerful with age.  My father is a like an oak, his wisdom makes him stronger with age.  With wisdom comes a sense of inner peace, of knowing more and worrying less about the small stuff.  Of having the self confidence of being comfortable in your shoes, with who you are.  I see this with my seniors, they have a sense of dignity.

Maturity has its advantages.  My garden gets more beautiful with age.

Thank you for stopping by my garden blog, hope to see you again soon!  For more inspiration, links are provided below.  See you in the social net universe.


Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for free!
Like my Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden
Subscribe to Miami Garden Reporter articles
Follow me on Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.