Sandhill Cranes in the Driveway

It's been a while since I posted, I know. It was both cold (low 20's F multiple nights)and dry down here so I had to do a lot of cutting back. The two Columnar cacti I put in seem to be doing fine, Oreocereus celsianus and Espostoa lanata. That's pretty cool. Dudleya hassei looks great as well and the Puya alpestris gets bigger and bigger. I realized a year ago that "Florida Scrub" is for real a desert type situation. If you drive around and look at gardens (where the gardeners water) you can get a false sense of things, but if you look at the native vegetation and gardens that are untended for large periods of the year you can see what plants can actually survive without supplemental watering. Many of our early choices are doing well including Nolinas, Salvias, Aloes, Agaves et alia; many weren't able to handle the regular drought and the unpredictable cold. Now that I'm understanding conditions better and being realistic about them, I'm really beginning to like the challenge.