Florida Landscaping
I grew up just outside of Washington. DC. When I think about flowers and grass and trees, I think of the things you see in a typical mid-Atlantic yard. Moving to Florida meant re-learning everything I knew about gardening and landscaping.
I had to learn how to take care of St. Augustine grass and how to get in there and kill and remove the crabgrass in the winter when the St. Augustine goes dormant. By the way, the trick to that involved a solution of water and powdered Arm & Hammer detergent. I had to relearn what flowers to even bothering putting into the flowerbeds in the hot summer sun. I have to relearn the growing seasons for different garden fruits and vegetables.
I am still trying to get the hang of things. I think I have tomatoes down now, but the squirrels in the yard do not leave them alone long enough after they approach ripeness for me to be 100% sure. Oh, and I figured out False Heather does great in full, hot sun. I might just stick to that for the flower beds.
I’ve been reading a lot of websites with info on yards in hot areas of the United States. I can glean as much information from sites about Albuquerque landscaping as I can from sites that focus on Florida. I know we have some differences, but it really all comes down to leaning how to garden in places where the sun burns up most plants and grasses. I know landscaping in Albuquerque would be a lot easier for me now that I have lived in Florida. (By the way, I chose Albuquerque arbitrarily, as an example of another sunny locale.)
And while I love the citrus here, and the extended growing seasons and the fragrant summer nights, I still miss the bulb flowers and lilacs and softer grasses of the northern yards. I want to walk out in the morning and see the Lily of the Valley flowers growing along the fence, the Morning Glories fading on the trellis and the Bride’s Bouquet blooming on the bushes in the backyard. Although, the USDA website seems to indicate that Bride’s Bouquet actually grows mostly in Florida and Puerto Rico. That’s news to me.
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