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Let the 'land of flowers' do your landscaping

Photo by Troy Springer

Salvia coccinea, also known as tropical sage, is a hummingbird (and butterfly) magnet that provides bright garden color most of the year.

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By PENNY CARNATHAN

pcarnathan@tampatrib.com

Published: July 2, 2009

Updated: 07/03/2009 12:11 pm

Florida native landscaping gained a whole new luster during the spring drought. As lawns and shrubs shriveled under Draconian water restrictions, more people called Troy Springer at Springer Environmental.

The landscape designer works exclusively with native plants, which require less watering than non-natives, and no fertilizer or soil amending.

"I'm very proud of this yard. There is no irrigation at all," Troy says of his own ever-expanding gardens in Plant City.

That does not mean establishing native landscapes is easy, or even less work, than non-natives, he warns. "Any awesome garden is a lot of work," he says. "The key is plant selection. Stick with the plants that will work in the environment; don't try to change the environment to suit the plant. You have to be self-disciplined."

Occasionally that requires passing up a stunner that might adapt in favor of something less eye-catching but perfectly suited. It's a challenge Troy admits he hasn't completely mastered. Florida does mean "land of flowers," which suggests lots of choices.

One of his favorite guides is "Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities" by Walter Kingsley Taylor (University Press of Florida, $24.95). Its color photos are accompanied by details about various species, including their natural habitats. Another good source of information is meetings of the Florida Native Plant Society; Troy is president of the Suncoast chapter, which includes Hillsborough County.

Some people don't like the messy look native gardens can have, and Troy agrees they can be poorly planned and executed - "garbage."

He recommends choosing a dominant feature, then progressively less dominant elements, much like you see in the wild. His mainstays are large drifts of Liatris and Chrysopsis mariana, which reach their full purple and yellow glory in the fall. In the largest garden, cheerful daisylike starry rosinweed and hummingbird magnet Salvia coccinea provide color nearly year-round.

At the center of the bed stands a cluster of two live oaks and a wax myrtle, Troy's first plantings in this garden. The lower branches of the oaks touch the ground, as nature intended, giving the trees stability and providing a ladder for wildlife to scamper into the upper canopy.

His beds are neat free-form shapes cut from the Bahia lawn he inherited.

Downsides to native gardens include lots of weeding in new beds. Troy mulches with a very thin layer of straw so plants can easily re-seed. But that also allows weeds to spring up, a problem that diminishes as the natives fill in.

And although his gardens are spectacular palettes of color in the fall, come December and January they're brown and creaky.

"They look like they belong next to a haunted house."

The payoff, Troy says, is a garden that preserves a community's unique habitat and doesn't pollute or waste resources.

The Suncoast Native Plant Society meets at 7 p.m. the third Wednesday of each month at the Hillsborough County Extension Office, 5339 County Road 579, Seffner. Call (813) 967-4538.

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