NEW FLORIDA GARDENER

hi everyone,

I am a VERY NEW FLORIDA GARDENER.....any suggestions of southern floridian plants that i can plant along my fence in my backyard?

Im used to gardening up NORTH in NY..this is all so new to me...and starting from scratch again is tough...i still miss my once beautiful gardens in ny...the girls who bought our home said that we couldn't take any of the plants that they wanted them...i had yuccas, iris, lilies, roses so many different things and then my gfriend told me that they had dug up everything and thew it away devastated me....those gardens were started when we first moved in the house when we were married 8 yrs ago...i had so many sentimental gardens and now knowing they are all torn up really upset me....

so, any suggestions for this NEW SOUTHERN GARDENER would be appreciated.....

thanks

luv ya
cindy

I am very sorry to hear what happened to your old garden!! That is a big fear for me. I am hoping to be able to buy before I sell. I'd cry my eyes out if someone destroyed my plants.

I can tell you, if I moved to that climate, I'd be surounded by bananas, cannas, sagos, palms, ears, brugs, cleros, tropical hibiscus-all the plants I dearly love and have to drag in and out here. LOL I may be able to help you out with some of those (if that is the way you go) when it cools down here. I don't have the room to store all my plants anymore.

BADSEED.

THAT WOULD be wonderful!!!!! all of the above is want i want to do.....lol.....

when we moved here, i said to carl i want tropical look...whole new life, whole new gardens.....i did cry when my gfriend told me this.....i was already homesick and then to tell me my beautiful plants and flowers were destroyed, i cried like a baby....

thanks hopefully it will cool off soon.....lol.....

luv ya
cindy

Cindy, where ya been lurkin' since April? Welcome aboard.

I'm a FL native (now re-moved) but since I don't know where North Port is, I hesitate to give suggestions.

cindy - welcome aboard. where in n.y. did you live?

I would definately go with brugs, gingers, hibiscus, daylilies, and especially elephant ears. I have xanthasoma against my privacy fence and they are over 7 feet tall. I also have grapevines and passiflowers growing on the fence. I have lots of hibiscus, both hardy and tropical everywhere. I have over 39 banana trees growing along the fence, surrounding the pond, and against the house. I have a few yuccas, aloes, here and there. We can grow so much here. Before you know it, you will have a tropical paradise and you will love it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the canna. Gotta have that. Here is a pic of my elephant ears. Taller than my 6 foot high privacy fence.

Welcome FloridaG! DG is a great to place! I have learned so much since I started here it's amazing - better than a whole library full of books. There's a canna co-op going on under the Plant Trading Forum that I would highly recommend. Prices are so unbelievable that even I ordered some and I don't like cannas; actually I love canna I just don't like those little bugs that chew holes in the leaves down here! There are lots of Tropical nuts on DG so you'll have that garden filled in no time! Just don't bother trying to grow all those northern perennials in the catalogs - I've done em all and they just won't take the heat. There are a few exceptions: Salvias, echinacea, rudbeckias and a few others do OK, but you have to substitute tropicals for the rest, esp. in summer. And lots of early bloomers like petunias, pansies, lobelia, etc. have to be planted in fall for early spring bloom. Spring comes so early down here - February basically, that if you wait then by the time you get them in the ground its too late already! If you email me your addy I'll send you a welcome box next week!

Badseed - Yes, you would be surrounded by trops. You would also be surrounded by cutworms and caterpillars and all the other munching beasties that feast on said tropicals all year long! That's the bad thing about having no winter - the bugs just keep on multiplying! Wait, there goes one of my palm trees now.....Stop! Stop! Put that down!!!!!!!!!!
dd:)

hi everyone,

Darius, lol....had some health issues arise had to take of that and geting the house together kept me busy most of the time...and had MAJOR HOMESICKNESS.....really missed my FAMILY AND FRIENDS.....homesickness has gotten better....still miss everyone, but at least i don;t cry everyday...

Delphi, what a nice thing that you want to do......i can use all the help i can get....our house came with only a basic landscape package......it came with hibisicus which thank goodness are gorgeous, they haven;t stopped bloomin...

we built a pond in our back yard and have started putting container plants around it.....i have a chain link fence that we had put up for the dogs that needs plants and the front yard needs help.....to sum it up, I NEED HELP IN ALL AREAS...lol....

thanks everyone for your generosity.....hopefully soon i will have gardens full of flowers and will be sharing with ya all....

Any southerners here, you can email me anytime.....

Delphi this is my email addy email me and i will send you my addy if this is okay with you...

kotweety@comcast.net

North Port is in Sarasota county.....near Venice, Englewood...

thanks again

luv ya
cindy