December 11, 2010 by
RickHot off the press, the new Florida Yards and Neighborhoods Plant Selection Guide.
You will be very impressed with this downloadable publication that shows you in great detail how to design and implement a Florida Friendly Landscape. The experts at the University of Florida Extension Service have combined their talents and years of experience. The links are missing to the numbered EDIS publications for the critical proper planting of trees, turf and landscape plants so you will have to do some further searching on the Home Lawn and Landscape Section of the extensive EDIS Site to complete the implementation of your plan.
I consider this knowledge essential to professionals you may hire and a valuable resource for you to check the credibility of a contractor’s knowledge. Too often folks tend to trust a ‘yardman’ to select and properly install the Right Plant in the Right Place only to later find that the selection was inappropriate.
Bookmark these references and turn your garden into a functional Florida Friendly Landscape. Here are the 9 Principles of Florida Friendly Landscaping.
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November 20, 2010 by
Rick
Burgmansias fill the garden with delicious scents in the evening. They are very undemanding plants and fill the space given in a home garden. With their big leaves able to capture light energy they are capable in growing in partially shaded settings. Burgmansias send their roots deep and are quite capable of surviving in our sandy soils on rainfall alone once they are established making them very Florida Friendly. Mulch them heavily once or twice a year and you can fertilize them only if you want them to grow faster or larger. Even after the extreme winter of 2009-2010 all the Burgmansias sprouted back from the roots and were in bloom by summer.
Check out Fred’s Blog for some of his new hybrid Burgs that may amaze you.
Another hybridizer, Alice Harris has some beautiful success stories to share too. Check out the availability of many Harris and Karchesky hybrids on their site.
Here are some Google images to show you the diversity of the new hybrids becoming available.
Check out some images and what Ewa is posting from Europe on Burgs.
If you really get into Burgmansia breeding and history there is a Registry of Hybrids to show who has done what. Enjoy and share gardening with friends.
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Harry P. Leu Gardens is owned by and located near the Downtown area of Orlando. This Florida treasure is worth supporting and maintaining. Quite a few Floridians have either been married at Leu Gardens or attended weddings there is this serene and beautiful setting. Check their schedule as they are booked up to a year in advance for weekend weddings.
Google images show lots of wedding activity along with beautiful vistas and flowers.
See hundreds of amazing Images of Leu Gardens on flickr.
Take a camera and make some design notes. Most of the plants are labeled. They have home, butterfly garden and garden and vegetable demonstration gardens set and have much information to share and take with you. Look for new plants I recently left for the garden, Salvia Wendy’s Wish, an amazing hummingbird magnet that blooms year round with lipstick colored flowers.
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Gardeners are getting so clever with pumpkins these days. In Florida it is tough to grow pumpkins of any size with our summer heat and rain. A clever idea I have seen is to grow Ornamental Sweet Potatoes as a permanent easy to care for ground cover and place your pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks as if the vines had actually produced your crop. These imitation pumpkin vines contrast nicely with pumpkins or gourds and easily fool the untrained eye. For even more contrast you can add a colorful border to contain and frame your pumpkin patch by edging it with SausEdge.
Let your imagination run and look at some of these Links:
Pumpkin 1 Pumpkin 2 Pumpkin 3 Pumpkin 4
Another idea is to grow your Ornamental Sweet Potatoes in large containers as SPILLERS and arrange them on your front porch or patio with pumpkins and other colorful containers of Crotons as FILLERS and ornamental grass as THRILLERS. Try orange or black coleus for additional seasonal color that last longer than mums.
Add some Muhly Grass to your display and later plant if in a sunny spot in the garden. I also have a wonderful friend and great gardener, Janis, whose nickname is Pumpkin and here is her Blog.
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September 9, 2010 by
Rick
If you live near any wooded or open area, chances are you have volunteer Beautyberry seedlings that have sprouted in your garden periphery. It is one of the natives we recommend for your perennial and butterfly gardens on our Florida Friendly Plants website. Birds drop the seed everywhere so the chances of having them are high. If not, you can poke around in the woods or fence rows and find seedlings just about anywhere to transplant to your perennial border. Here is a link to all the images on the web to help you ID this wonderful native wildflower.
Eat the Weeds writer, Green Dean, has a website filled with information on what you can eat right from the wild. Check him out and bookmark him in case your fridge is looking a little bare or your feel like an eating adventure on your next trip to the forest.
Consider a large bed of Beautyberry to replace thirsty turf. The beautyberry will become a permanent garden plant that only requires an annual layer of oak leaves or other mulch to keep the bed more weed free and self maintaining. Cut the plants back hard in late winter and your garden chores will be reduced and the butterflies and birds will be stopping by for regular visits.
You can see Beautyberry on display at the University of Florida’s Teaching Garden in Plant City along with many other native, landscape plants and vegetable garden techniques. Here is the Florida publication on Beautyberry from Dr. Ed Gilman.
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