Yard makeover plants winning ideas for everyone

Donald Chatman has a room with a view. Finally.

Two weeks ago, he looked out on sun-baked weeds from his home office in Wesley Chapel. Today, the window frames 15-foot crape myrtles awash in fuchsia blooms, the jaunty plumes of mature queen palms, an expanse of green Floratam St. Augustine grass, big bunches of Fakahatchee grass, and African irises.

"It went from barren desert to oasis," he says. "It's an unreal transformation."

Best of all, it's a yard even a nongardener like Chatman can maintain.

The IT contractor won the makeover worth about $5,000 in the Save That Yard contest sponsored by RISE, a trade association for makers and sellers of pesticides and fertilizers. It was part of a campaign to make Floridians aware of the benefits of a pest-free, weed-free landscape.

Chatman uploaded photos of his yard to www.debugthemyths.com in May. He got a call this month saying website visitors had voted his landscape the most pitiful. He had two oaks, shabby shrubs, weeds, grubs, chinch bugs and a statue of a deer in the front. The back held more weeds, bugs and tired bushes.

On June 15, workers from Cornerstone Solutions Group of Dade City went to work ripping out the old. They planted Florida-friendly plants and trees and modified the irrigation system. They finished up June 17 by laying Bitterblue St. Augustine in the shady front yard, and Floratam in the sunny back.

Chatman had asked for a low-maintenance landscape. That was easy to deliver, Cornerstone director Peter Klinkenberg says.

"Working in this business, the last thing I want to do when I come home is yardwork," he says. "I have a lot of the same plants at my own home."

Part of the plan was to reduce the amount of lawn, which needs more water than drought-tolerant plant beds. For the beds, he chose some of his favorite plants. They're beautiful and tough: pest- and disease-resistant, cold hardy and low-maintenance.

•Fakahatchee grass: A Florida native, it looks like fountain grass but with wider blades topped by seed pods instead of feathers. "It can take part shade or full sun, rain or drought ... It's a survivor," Klinkenberg says. "Trim it back in the springtime and it regrows very fast."

•Lantana: "I love lantana," he says. "There are a lot of colors: yellow, orange, purple, confetti. It flowers, it's hardy and it doesn't need much. It does well in drought or sandy soil. Butterflies love it."

The purple variety is slightly more cold-hardy than others, he says, and lantana performs best if trimmed back once or twice a year.

Lantana is a low-growing, spreading shrub covered with blooms nearly year-round. It does well in full sun.

•Feijoa: Also called pineapple guava, it's one of Klinkenberg's favorite shrubs (it can also be pruned to a tree form). Silver-bottomed leaves add an interesting foliage highlight and come spring, it's covered with red and white blossoms. After two or three years in the ground, those blossoms might even become sweet fruit, he says.

He planted a dozen on the east and west sides of the house. Feijoa does well in full sun.

•Vibernum suspensum: A trouble-free evergreen foundation shrub, Klinkenberg says homeowners should have no trouble finding this one at their local garden center (also look for the name Sandanqua viburnum.) It has interesting dark green, "wrinkly" leaves and does best in half sun, half shade.

•Tuscarora crape myrtle: This hybrid of the popular flowering tree will grow to about 25 feet tall and has deep pink, ruffled flowers. It can take full sun and prefers rich, moist soil but can tolerate sandy soil and drought once established.

To keep his new landscape looking lush, Chatman now has a zoned irrigation system that will give the new sod plenty of water to get it established without drowning the less-thirsty foundation plants. The beds got a water-conserving micro-irrigation drip system. Cornerstone even programmed the timers.

To make sure the weeds and bugs never get out of hand again, Chatman started interviewing landscape maintenance companies the day his makeover was finished. The only thing he needs to learn, he says, is how to prune.

The deer statue, which Chatman brought with him from California six years ago, still stands in the front yard.

"If he could talk," Chatman says, "he would tell you he enjoys it."

RISE, Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment, promotes the proper use of pesticides and fertilizers to create a healthy environment. Find tips and information at www.pestfacts

Other tips from Cornerstone Solutions

•Peter Klinkenberg's company propagates many of its plants from cuttings. For the home gardener, he recommends starting cuttings in a good potting mix available from a neighborhood garden center. Root hormones help, but aren't necessary for all plants. Some plants are easy to start, including lantana and Asiatic jasmine. Some, he says, don't even bother. Those include juniper and lorapetalum.

•Although six-month slow-release fertilizers are fine for some plants, including Fakahatchee grass, many do better with three-month products applied four times a year. That's because the longer-term fertilizers feed less at the beginning and end of the cycle.

•Beds with curved edges provide a nice contrast to the straight lines of a house. Klinkenberg always designs beds with soft curves.

•Adding flowers in large pots around your home is a quick way to bring more color to your landscape. If you're putting your house on the market, consider planting yellow flowers; some claim the color yellow puts people in the mood to spend money.