Spider Lily

It looks like a crinum but this is a Florida native known as Hymenocallis latifolia. We found this growing near on a sandy island with little water evident. This plant does well in coastal areas and should be specified more than it is. It seemed to be doing fine next right next to a gopher tortoise burrow.

welcome to my "office"

These are some of my favorite days at work. Today Jamie and I got to take a ride on a flats boat to Little Gasparilla Island with an architect, his wife, a developer, and a D.E.P. official. I snuck away to take some striking stormy skies photos. Click on any photo to enlarge.

When this gardener wanted to create a shady spot for his patio he didn't have to look any farther than the bosque of Brazilian Pepper trees that crowded his unfinished lot adjacent to his residence. Undettered by the massive snarl of branches customary with Brazillian Pepper, Chris carefully pruned out a large area for his table, chairs and a large selection of shade plants. There was a temperature difference of at least 10 degrees between the manicured yard and the Pepper bosque.
The homeowner's association either doesn't know it exists or has not commented. When Chris saw me taking photos he looked cross and let me know he thought I was with the Homeowner's Assoc. I left with an invitation to feel free to come back to get pups or cuttings for my gardens.

When the landscape crew is lacking sufficient training it is the tree that suffers. Weeds have encroached on the mulch area of this tree and an overzealous weed-wacker has repeatedly wounded the trunk of the Silver Buttonwood in the photo. The trunk has become girdled by the wounds and the tree will need to be replaced when it succumbs to the damage of being girdled. Nutrients in a tree flow up the secondary phloem right next to the cambium under the bark. Girdling results in the loss of the phloem and the cambium around the circumference of the tree depriving it of the structure necessary to support growth.

The ability of the Brazillian Pepper to thrive in our part of Florida is unrivaled by any other tree (except maybe the Melaleuca, another introduced exotic invasive). This specimen was described as a Heritage tree by the applicant requesting a survey of the site for Threatened and Endangered Species. Fortunately for him it was a Pepper and in Charlotte County sites that will be built are required to remove noxious and invasive trees/plants. These trees are easily recognized by the red berry which are spread by the birds that eat them. It is because of the heavy load of berries and green foliage that it is frequently misunderstood to be "Florida Holly" by tourists, those that are recently relocated and even veteran Floridians.

This is more typical of conventional Charlotte County single family home construction. Trees visible are on another home lot. This house was built on fill that brought it's finished floor elevation at least 2' above the crown of the road as required by FEMA. An alternative would be to use stem wall construction instead of slab on grade. This would allow builders to preserve trees on site rather than clearing and filling the site. Homes built with stemwall construction would require more creative solutions to make the transition between existing grade and finished floor elevation.

This is a home in Port Charlotte that is definitely

the exception. Trees preserved when building a home can contribute instant value to the site and can reduce energy bills by shading the home. Most home builders here prefer to clear the site of all trees prior to building and plant a few saplings or Palms at the completion of construction.