The afternoon rains and sweltering heat came early this year. We can usually expect this wilting combination to start in September, but the daily thunderstorms and relentless heat started in June. Right now we have a slight reprieve. No rain the last few days, and today we have cooler temps, and it's overcast. But the weatherman predicts more thundershowers for next week, and there's a tropical storm 'Dorian' that appears to heading toward us like a line drive. It would be nice to have another season without a hurricane, so let's keep everything crossed that 'Dorian' turns out to be a curve ball.
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| Royal Poinciana tree in bloom |
With all that rain, the ponds have been very high. You can see from the photo that the level is down about 3 feet from it's highest level.
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| Guess which villas had their roofs installed in 2007? |
The new fountain on the East Pond was down for about a week, but after working on it most of a day, Dave, from Bonita Sprinkler, got the fountain working again. The River Otters often make it to our ponds these days, and the 30"+ long, Grass-Eating Carp, that were easy to spot feeding in the ponds when the level was lower, have all but disappeared from sight into the new dark depths.
There's a Osprey that's perched in a tree on the West Pond that views the pond as his personal cafeteria. Residents describe sightings of the big bird swooping over the surface of the pond and helping himself to our $15 carp.
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| Osprey fishing |
Lee County dictates how many Grass-Eating Carp Forest Villas can have in each pond to control grass at the bottom of our ponds. And although the two ponds received some new fish a few years back, it might be time for a few more. The carp are sterile & don't reproduce. So if the birds get them, or they die off, replacement fish have to be purchased.
Not much activity here this summer. No July 4th celebration to report on. I have discontinued the TGIF get-together at present, because the hot sticky weather keeps most residents indoors.
With the summer comes the blooming of our invasive, and highly flammable Melaleuca trees (Paper Bark trees). Who knew this plant provides natural anti-fungal and antibiotic tea tree oil? They make quite the mess when all the flowers drop.
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| Melaleuca Trees |
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| Detail of Melaleuca Blooms |
Another pest making an appearance again this year is the Whitefly. Currently the Whitefly is using the White Bird of Paradise trees as its' host here in Forest Villas. This week the trees had to be washed down and sprayed with an insecticide. Otherwise the black sooty mold and white residue the flies leave behind gradually diminishes the health of the trees. This will be an ongoing problem for years to come.
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| Bird of Paradise leaf with Whitefly residue |
This pest migrated from Central American. It has quite a foothold in Naples. When Whitefly hits those tall private ficus hedges, they can lose all their leaves almost overnight. 125 different plants and tree are captive hosts to the Whitefly currently, including Live Oak trees, & Coconut Palms, so beware if you have affected plants.
Another pest that made its appearance this week in our lawns was the Chinch Bug. Now that much of the Dollar Weed is under control, this bug comes along and just sucks the moisture from every blade of grass leaving behind a carpet of straw. The bug control spray trucks were here today, spraying all the lawns in an effort to control these beasts.
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| Damage from Chinch Bugs |
Forest Villas has more lawn than most communities in Fort Myers, &, like other communities, we spend a good amount on mowing, fertilizing, watering, treating & replacing the Floritam (St. Augustine) grass, yet almost no one, except the lawn crews, ever walks on our lawns or uses their yards. SW Florida's sandy soil has almost no nutritive value for growing lawns. If we ever stopped fertilizing, all the lawns would turn yellow.
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| Yellowing lawns right before we fertilized in June |
Expanding existing plant beds and installing low maintenance native plants at the base of all the palm & leaf trees, could easily reduce the size of our lawns by 20+%, but of course it would be up to the individual owners to do this.
The U of F Extension Service has a website: http://floridayards.org/ that provides information about Florida Friendly Yards & plants that do well here in Florida.
The Mahogany tree in my back yard, is finally large enough to cast a large circle of shade in the late afternoon. It's really a perfect location to sit and relax. The spot is a virtual wind tunnel between my villa and the one next door, so there are few bugs that bite, and sitting under the tree offers me a prime spot to view the east pond & any native wildlife around the pond.
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| Wildlife at Forest Villas |
There is only one item that keeps this experience from being blissful. The compressor in the East Pond Pump House. Please click on the video below so you can experience this compressor first hand.
Now in contrast, please click on the video below of the the compressor at the West Pond Pump House.
Quite a difference in the two compressors?? It doesn't take too long sitting under the tree before, instead of being relaxed, you're wishing you had a weapon to put the compressor out of it's misery. I'm hoping there is a 'compressor fairy godmother' who can do something about this "noise pollution".
Sorry this blog is so long, but it's been 7 months since my last entry and I had lots of territory to cover. Let me end with informing you that Forest Villas has finally topped $175k for the sale of one of the villas. It has taken forever to crawl back to this price level, and based on other sales in adjacent neighborhoods, we are still about 20% below market price for villas our size with private lots. New homes are back under construction in new communities down here.
Currently there is only one FV villa listed for sale on the MLS, and the villa with the old roof still sits vacant, decomposing. I've not heard anything official about the status of this villa. In checking LeePa.org, it appears that there was some type transaction recorded for the villa on July 23rd. There is a financial institution listed as the owner, but I'm not sure what that means to the HOA.
This blog is not in anyway affiliated with Forest Villas HOA
