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Florida's Best Native
Landscape Plants
Your Florida Landscape: Planting and Maintenance
Florida Landscape Plants
Your Florida Guide to Shrubs
Landscape Plants for Subtropical Climates
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8/27/2008 Landscape Design Solutions
Strange Cut-Outs and Leafless Hedges
There was a time in Florida horticulture when hand-held hedge trimmers, edging tools and leaf rakes curtailed the wanton planting of shrubs requiring weekly sawing and planing, as well as the mysterious appearance of strange cut-out shapes in the lawn.
Chainsaws, line trimmers, and blowers, so-called maintenance devices, not only opened up the Pandora's Box of plant butchery, but in concert have destroyed the air of a peaceful neighborhood, contributing loads of debris whisked into the sewers and waterways, none of it doing any good there. 
Property owners should be aware that the use of these implements of mass destruction can be avoided with the proper selection of plant material for the application.
For example, why plant Ficus benjamina , a 60'-90'H tree by nature, as a hedge under a window where it has to be maintained at 30"H? Because of its very genetics to become a tree, the plant requires a chainsaw to conform to the wrong space. Consider only plants which will mature at a height reaching the bottom of the window or lower, Further, consider a planting which will never need clipping.
In this case, planting a naturally round shrub maturing at 4', set out 4' from the bare wall space, with a lower grassy planting under the window connecting to the Ixora would give more depth and gracefulness to the foundation than a stiff straight hedge. If renovation and replanting is not in the budget, removing the Ficus and sodding the bare area to the wall would be visually more appealing, and makes more sense than continuing to waste labor maintaining an eyesore of gnarly sticks.
Links
Coping
with Drought in the Landscape
IFAS Fact Sheet by Gary W. Knox. Guidelines
for management practices in times of drought.
Fertilizing
Excerpt from IFAS Fact Sheet has Table indicating a fertilizing schedule for St.
Augustine lawns, suggested formulations, and rate of application.
Florida
Weeds
IFAS publication by David W. Hall has a catalogue of Florida weeds,
listed by common name and scientific name, with information for their identification,
accompanied by an illustrated glossary.
GreenNet
- The Landscape contractors industry site.
Features online articles from
twelve magazines of interest to the professional landscape industry.
Ground Covers
for Florida Homes
Selection, design, establishment, and maintenance of
ground covers, by Robert J. Black, Extension Consumer Horticulturist.
Master Gardener
Notebook
This IFAS site organizes many IFAS documents into a notebook
for all aspects of Florida garden, lawn, and landscape.
Mulches
for the Landscape
IFAS Fact Sheet by Robert J. Black, Edward F. Gilman,
Gary W. Knox and Kathleen C. Ruppert. All about Florida mulches and how to use
them.
The
Nature and Use of a Soil Survey
IFAS Fact Sheet by R. E. Caldwell and
R. B. Brown gives the low-down on soil surveys as used for planning and development.
Basic
Principles of Landscape Design
IFAS publication by Dewayne L. Ingram describes
selection and placement as the last step in the landscape design process.
Propagation
of Landscape Plants
IFAS Fact Sheet by Dewayne L. Ingram and Thomas H.
Yeager tells how homeowners can decrease landscape costs by propagating plants
from their existing landscape.
Landscape Contents
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