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Saturday, July 28, 2018

Rock-scaping in Florida: A good idea or not?

2008: A blue bee goes crazy in a prickly pear flower.

Rock-Scaping in Florida:
a cautionary tale


It all started simply enough in 2005 when someone gave me a few pads of prickly pear cactus (Opuntia humifusa), a Florida native.

I had no clear idea what I was going to do with them, but you know how it is. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I rooted them in a couple of pots.

Meanwhile, my husband and I were totally redoing the front and side beds, because they were a weedy mess. The previous owners had covered the beds with lava rock and the weeds loved it. We removed the rock from the beds, put it in a pile, and then rinsed the soil away.