Florida is a tropical (south) or subtropical (central and north) climate zone, right? So why the lack of color in so many yards? For larger subdivisions like Deercreek the answer is home builders. Home builders typically put in low maintenance shrubs and azaleas (As a side note, azaleas should not be turned into hedges but that's for another article). The only color variation would be from foliage and when the azaleas bloom briefly in mid March.

So where do you begin if you'd like to add more color? It depends. What's your budget? How much time or dollars do you want to spend in the yard? If low on both counts then keep the low maintenance plants you currently have.

If you'd like to do some minor improvements, adding some pizazz consider purchasing some annuals. What annuals are best for Florida yards? Deer resistant and drought/heat tolerant ones to be sure. That narrows the list down considerably. These would include verbena, marigolds (though deer ate mine; guess they were either starving or lazy), dusty miller, Mexican heather, dianthus, rosemary, sages. There are more options but this list is a sample of annuals/herbs you can find at a local home improvement store. Try a search for 'deer and drought resistant plants florida' on Google for additional ideas or go to http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw137 for advice from the UF Extension service.

If you want to really add color consider removing some or all of the original plantings and adding new shrubs, perennials and annuals. A really excellent resource for extensive landscape updates is the website, www.floridayards.org.  You can select a region and then the type of plant you are interested in. Keep in mind that annuals last for only one season, perennials will come back each year. The existing foundation plantings may be fine as a base background layer of foliage. Adding taller perennials in front of those and annuals on the border is a standard landscape design technique. You may also choose to create beds of annuals for more dramatic areas of color. These annual beds could be interesting under a tree that allows enough sun for the flowers but prevents deep plantings due to tree root mass. Remember that full sun is considered as 6 hours of direct sunlight per day.

Don't forget about wildlife when redesigning your gardens. There are many butterfly and bee attracting flowering plants available at local home improvement stores. For the birds, consider native plants instead of waging a constant feeder battle with squirrels. A list of annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees can be found online at www.nsis.org (click on birds). Easy native options include sunflowers, daisies, grasses, honeysuckle and trumpet vines.

May 2014

Doug & Carol Matthews

10076 Persimmon Hill Ct

Welcome Spring!  We certainly did not get the winter beating like the rest of the country but we had a cold north Florida winter. There are plenty of colorful flowers here to welcome the new season. The front garden is lined around a sycamore tree with red and white petunias, geranium, begonia and knockout roses.  This is accented with a potted yucca plant. The surprise is a cable box under that rock.

The corner garden is for the birds. Along with the statues, there is a birdbath, birdfeeder, a hanging "supertunia" plant, potted impatiens and boxwood schillings.

The bunny rabbits at the door are under a large potted fern plant.  Other landscaping includes pansies, mums, pittosporum, hollies and mondo grass.