So You Want to Garden in South Florida?

 By The Plant Lady
              I spent a lot of years gardening in the Midwest. It in no way prepared me for dealing with a little more than an acre in South Florida. The biggest difference is that nothing shuts down in Florida. There may be a slow season when things don't grow as much, but there is no true dormancy like you have when a couple of inches of snow covers everything. 

                 For example, it is mid-February now, and it has been a rather cool, wet, atypical winter here. Yet I have new leaves sprouting on my pomegranate tree, Knockout roses and orchids all over the yard, and my bromeliads, begonias, firecracker plant and pentas are all in full bloom. Hundreds of beautiful white and burgundy flowers covered my spectacular 35-ft tall Clerodendrum Quadriloculare tree (also known as a starburst) from top to bottom for most of January and February.

Starburst Clerodendrum

                True, many trees have thinned out and lost some leaves, but only a few, like my crepe myrtles, are totally bare.  The landscape may not be lush right now, but it is a far cry from the starkness of the Midwest at this time of year.My yard  is, for the most part, still green.
                Newcomers to the subtropics may think that makes gardening so much easier. After all, everything grows in South Florida, all year round, right? What could be more fun than that? But that is precisely why gardening here is a much bigger challenge than those from low-numbered USDA zones could ever imagine. Insects don't die, weeds keep growing, and nothing ever truly "dies back." 
                I think the biggest mistake I made as a new southern gardener was spacing my plantings. Or rather, not spacing my plantings.I had no concept of how much and how fast things would grow. I bought the towering tree at the left in a 3-gallon pot about 8 or 10 years ago and pruned it vigorously until I could no longer reach high enough. 
              Almost everything I ever planted here is crashing into something else. The beautiful flowering trees I planted in my front yard rarely flower, because they are shaded by the two giant Live Oaks in the center of the yard that I figured would never get much bigger than they already were--at least while I still lived here. Wrong. 
My Firebush, which is about a million times bigger than I ever envisioned it, has completely overgrown the Firespike next to it, and is encroaching on a couple Crotons as well.
         So remember, no matter how barren it looks when you first lay out your plantings according to  spacing recommendations, it won't be a problem for long. And do a little research online, adding the word Florida to your search, because the growing tips on most plant labels do not accommodate Florida conditions.
          So here are just a few beginners' tips for starting your Florida landscape. 
          1. Don't try to reproduce the things you loved "back home." They won't be happy here. Just because Home Depot and Lowes sell roses and hydrangeas and lilies doesn't mean you should plant them. Go for a mix of native and tropical plants. The natives, because Mother Nature designed them to grow here, and the tropicals because they can stand most of the weather conditions here, or at least all but the most severe cold snaps, and will add the flash and bang that natives sometimes lack.
           2. Beware of  invasives. Once they are given a toe-hold, you will spend half your gardening hours trying to uproot them. Remember, there is no frost to kill them off. Though pretty, those cheerful purple Ruella can be a nightmare. And just because the label says they are sterile, don't fall for it: They spread by underground runners. Mother-in-law tongues, benign houseplants in the north, can take over a garden, as can those favorites of northern hanging baskets, asparagus ferns.
            Even natives can have bad habits: I once planted four small native dune or beach sunflowers, pretty little yellow-daisy like flowers with bright green leaves. Big mistake. By the time I realized they were getting out of control, I was able to fill six large garbage cans and a few black bags with what I pulled out. 
           Check the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council (fleppc.org) or FLIP (Florida Invasive Plant), a field guide created by the University of South Florida, among other groups, at plantatlas.usf.edu.
              I have to admit that although it does not make any of the official lists, the clerodendrum family of gorgeous bushes, like the one above, and the beautiful orange pagoda bush, can be troublesome. They spread by underground runners, and I have found sprouts coming up dozens of yards away from the original plant, in the middle of hedges and even in the neighbors' yard. If left untended they grow into bushes rapidly. I am careful to weed them out, and the lawnmower takes care of most of them. Although I love the flowers, I can't recommend these bushes/trees without a warning.
            3. Think twice before you plant vines. There are many gorgeous tropical vines,and a lot of people probably disagree with me about this, but my experience is that they are difficult to control. I once had a passion vine bend my fence, jump to a tree and cover the top of it. I didn't realize it until one day I saw passion flowers dangling down among the leaves of a Barbados cherry tree. 
            4. Your biggest job will be pruning, and it is best not to let it get away from you: things grow faster here than you ever imagined. Your favorite tools will be a lopper, a machete, and one of those long pole saws. 
            So good luck, and welcome to South Florida, where orchids grow on your patio, tomatoes bear fruit in the winter and gardening is a lot of work.