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Florida Gardening Books

Your Florida Guide to Bedding Plants Selection, Establishment, and Maintenance

Edited by Robert J. Black and Edward Gilman

Wherever you live in Florida, Your Florida Guide to Bedding Plants meets your special needs with step-by-step information from experts in Florida horticulture

More plant pages
Air Plants
Bamboos
Bulbs
Fruit
Orchids
Shrubs
Aroids
Bananas
Epiphytes
Gingers 
Palms
Trees
Annuals
Bromeliads
Ferns
Herbs
>Perennials
Vines

PLANTS ONLINE: More Florida Garden Plants

In the warmer regions of Florida, some perennials behave as annuals while impatiens, can go year 'round. Many plants show up in the garden centers from other parts of the country, and their ability to perform is a matter of trial and error.

Bedding Plants: Selection, Establishment and Maintenance
Classic paper by Florida Horticulture expert Robert J. Black, University of Florida.

Begonia `Tom Ment`
Image in the University of Minnesota Greenhouse; 'Tom Ment' is used as a ground cover for moderately shaded, well-drained sites.

Want to look a little different? Try these perennials in your Florida garden:

Gaillardia 'The Sun'

The most floriferous of all Blanket Flowers, this hybrid sets its big yellow-and-orange blooms for many months, so your garden is never "out of bloom"!

15 inches high and wide -- a good size for flowerpots as well as the garden bed and border -- if you keep the flowers picked or deadheaded, new buds will appear.
Blanket Flower is a native American perennial that thrives in hot, somewhat dry conditions. Zones 3-10.


Isolepsis cernua 'Live Wire'
"Fiber Optic Grass": a cute sedge for wet soils

6 to 8 inches high, sets long, slender green stems, at the very end of which is a tiny, round silver bloom.

'Live Wire' is a Sedge, reaching 20 inches across in sun or part shade (or bright light indoors). Children are fascinated by its unusual shape, and it puts up with a lot of stress, from heat and humidity to poor soil. Hardy only in zones 8-10. Pkt is 15 multi-pellets, each of which yields 3 to 5 plants.

Liatris spicata ' Kobold'

More compact but no less colorful than its taller cousins, this dwarf Blazing Star offers bright rosy-purple plumes on neat 12-inch stalks. Plants bloom abundantly, in full sun or part shade, remaining attractive long after bloom with fresh, grasslike foliage that stays neat and colorful well into fall. Blooming heightn 2 feet tall, about 18 inches wide. Zones 3-10.

Muhly Grass 'White Cloud' Muhlenbergia capillaris 'White Cloud'

Grows in hot climates, in dry or poor soil. From early fall through mid-winter, this upright grass is topped with airy plumes that add soft color and texture to the garden. As they mature to tan in winter, birds come to feast on the ripening seeds. Zones 6-10.