From Sandy Soil A Sustainable Landscape Can Grow
Oh, the sand. There sure is a lot of that. And not necessarily where you want it Garden Landscaping.
When Valerie Daniels moved to Sarasota’s Indian Beach neighborhood three years ago, she was drawn by the same natural amenities that attracted countless others over the past 150 years. Then she tried to do some gardening and realized that the soil was as sandy as the Rhode Island beaches near her hometown of Rehoboth, Mass.
“What do I do with this?” she thought as she dug into her yard. She’s since hired and fired three landscaping companies in her search for the answer, and now has turned to courses offered by the Sarasota County Extension Service.
One of them, “Nine Landscape Principles,” was held Monday at the Fruitville Library, in the middle of dry season. Of course, it rained that day, and several days after. But that didn’t keep 13 women and one male journalist from peppering master gardeners Jane Smith and Melba Watts with questions about mulch, proper watering, using old newspapers as a weed barrier, and dealing with the compacted soils around newer houses that are more like concrete than dirt.
Daniels was among that group. She attends such seminars in hopes of finding the ideal plants and methods for making a success of her Florida landscape.
“It’s just a little bit of a challenge for me and something I have to learn to reckon with,” she said of her sandy soil. She has planted oleander with good success, and her new pygmy date palms are doing well, as is the lantana. “And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. That’s why I’m here; I want to know what to do with the west side of the house.”
That’s where it gets so hot in the afternoon.
“The first year I lived here, I saw Florida gardening as an enigma,” said Daniels, “because I wondered how … you do it with all this heat. I didn’t do much gardening the first year. Then I heard ‘coreopsis,’ Garden Landscaping and I thought, ‘I had those up north.’ I tuned into that, and bought a couple of books on Florida gardening and came to a couple of these classes. The book they gave out today was a nifty one. That plant guide (”A Guide to Florida-Friendly Landscaping”) … I’m glad I came just for that.”
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