Blog
Make Your Own Compost
Put your grass clippings, leaves, and food scraps to work. Combine them in a compost pile or bin and mix with oxygen and water to eventually yield a nutrient-rich humus that can be utilized in your landscape as a soil amendment or fertilizer.
Add a Butterfly Garden to Your Landscape
Attracting butterflies to your Florida landscape is easy. Step One: find out which butterfly species inhabit your region. Step Two: add plants that provide food for those species. You may need two plants: one for the caterpillar and one for the adult.
Espaliered Trees: Efficient, Functioning Art
It was the Romans who introduced espalier—the practice of training trees to grow along a flat support such as a wall or fence. Today’s homeowners can easily adopt this growing technique, which results in trees that look like art and require little space.
Five Tips for Safe Working Outside
Working outside in Florida winter weather is generally delightful. Gardeners who take a few simple safety precautions can enjoy work days throughout the winter without injury or accident. It comes down to protective clothing, proper lifting, awareness, and respecting machinery and wildlife.
Mistletoe: Friend or Foe?
Mistletoe, the stuff of legend and tradition, grows in two varieties: dwarf mistletoe, found in the western United States, and leafy mistletoe, found in the southwest and Florida. While leafy mistletoe is not as deadly as its western counterpart, it can severely impact a tree’s health and vigor.
Protect Your Plants from the Cold
Some areas of Florida experience freezing temperatures during the winter. This can kill or damage tropical or temperate plants. Bring potted plants inside or group them together outside against a wall. Cover cold-sensitive plants and shrubs with sheets or garden blankets.
Do You Know Your Soil?
Knowing a property’s soil type and its pH level enables landscape companies and gardeners alike to install plants that thrive in those soil conditions. Soils can be amended to improve their nutrient value and their ability to hold water, as well as to adjust their pH levels.
How to Prevent Sooty Mold
Sooty black mold on shrubs and trees indicates the presence of sap-sucking pests such as aphids or scales. These pests excrete honeydew—a substance on which sooty mold grows. Prevent black mold by eradicating sap-sucking pests. There are a variety of natural controls you can implement.
Spanish Moss: Fact and Fiction
Spanish moss grows throughout Florida and the southeast United States. Contrary to common belief, it does not harm trees and generally does not need to be removed. It provides cover for insects and small animals and today is used mostly for mulch and craft materials.
From Home to Field: Florida’s Turf Grasses
Florida turf grasses must be relatively robust and able to tolerate high temperatures and high humidity. In coastal locations, turf grasses must also tolerate salt air and, often, salt water irrigation. Grasses that meet these demanding requirements include Bermuda, Zoysia, St. Augustine, Bahia, Centipede and Seashore Paspalum.