These are quite pretty, aren’t they?

Too bad they’re deadly poisonous. I took that picture a couple of weeks ago… they’re all over the place down here.

Once rosary peas get established, they keep showing up. The seeds have hard seed coats and can last quite awhile before randomly germinating in your yard or garden.

I’ve pulled them out before but they keep coming back, so we’ve done our best to train everyone to leave them alone!

As you can tell, rosary peas are a member of the bean and pea family. As nitrogen-fixers, they’re great at jumping in and colonizing lousy soil like the sand here in South Florida. You’ll see them by the sides of the road, growing on chain link fences, twining through the brush at the edge of parks and schools… they’re just a part of the ecosystem.

I did a video on rosary peas two years ago:

I wonder why all the thumbs down? My bet is they didn’t like my amazing song at the beginning. Come on, YouTubers – I didn’t even hit a bad note!

Would you guys go over to YouTube and give it some more up votes? Pretty please with NO rosary peas on top?

Have a great weekend, everyone… I’ve got a lot of good stuff coming in the days ahead. Stay tuned.