You are now entering a no loropetalum, schefflera, or podocarpus zone! Drive through any Central Florida neighborhood and you'll see the same landscape: liriope, ti plant, agapanthus, flax, nandina and crepe myrtle along with a dozen or so others. Little of it is native or feels inspired. Most of it does not support birds, wildlife, or pollinators. And beyond that, some of them are harmful to wildlife — nandina's berries are toxic to cedar waxwings and other birds. How did such a small, borrowed, hackneyed palette, one that looks nothing like natural Florida — end up everywhere?
For this recent design and install, I imagined an alternate to this played out Florida formula. The idea was for it to feel naturalistic and intentional — wild and cultivated.
The design brief:
- Remove the existing rows of shrubs that require frequent shearing and plant native shrubs for a naturalistic, woodland edge landscape.
- Support wildlife with food sources, larval host plants, and habitat to complete their life cycles.
- Reflect a plant palette of the actual region.
- Create a front yard with year round structure that would require less water once it gets established, with plantings that will never need chemical inputs.
- Create a beautiful, unique landscape where seasonal changes are welcomed.
I chose Florida native shrubs that actually feed wildlife and support pollinators, repeating just two species in loose groupings for a natural rhythm.
Before
After
Native blueberries provide food for wildlife in the spring and fall colors ranging from red, burgundy, orange to purplish. St. John's wort is an evergreen ground covering shrub with bright yellow flowers in the summer that are loved by native bees. I switched out the non-native viburnum hedge on the side corner for one of our native pawpaws, the only host plant for the zebra swallowtail butterfly.
The existing live oak is now underplanted with an evergreen North American native carex, interspersed with a handful of Florida native wildflowers. This simple meadow of carex, coreopsis, and asclepias is a better alternative than turf. This soft layer is important ecological space: live oaks are keystone species hosting the caterpillars of hundreds of species of butterflies and moths.
Some of the caterpillars that feed on the live oak's leaves eventually drop from the tree to pupate in the soil and leaf litter below. Bare dirt or chemically treated sod gives them nowhere safe to go, but this carex meadow does. No lawn also means no mowing — nothing chopping through the ground layer where they're trying to complete their life cycle.
I topped off this planting with a layer of pine straw mulch. In the future the oak tree will provide the leaves for the mulch and pine straw will not need to be applied again. Just leave the oak leaves!
This Florida native plant front yard was designed and planted by My Florida Meadow Co.
What are you ready to create in your outdoor space? A woodland edge, a front-yard or backyard meadow, a pollinator side yard, a prairie pocket on an urban lot? What I love about this work is that each client and project is unique and site-specific.
Interested in the process of how I work? Start here.
Thank you for following along! - Andrea
Reference
Woldemeskel, M., & Styer, E. L. (2010). Feeding Behavior-Related Toxicity due to Nandina domestica in Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). Veterinary Medicine International, 2010, Article 818159. https://doi.org/10.4061/2010/818159