Green Gardening Matters: Green Resources

Here are links to some of my articles and posts. See below for some of my favorite Florida gardening books. - Ginny

Barbara's buttons (Marshallia graminifolia)

- Getting started with native plants in Florida
- Palmettos in the landscape
- Longleaf pines
- An appreciation of scarlet hibiscus
- A shrub to be thankful for: the groundseltree or saltbush
- Florida's palms
- A review: The Trees of Florida
- What??! Native plants not pretty?
- Doug Tallamy!
- Snow squarestem: a bee and butterfly magnet
- Natives for your yard: the next step
- Natives for landscaping: an FNPS tool for you
- No need to beg for beggarticks
- Red bays are dying
- An update: red bay trees that died back from laurel wilt disease in 2008.
- White-topped sedge
- Florida's marvelous mangroves
- Field trip to Torreya State park with Gil Nelson
- Pokeweed: A bird-friendly native
- The St. John's-worts: under-rated landscape plants
- The Arbor Day Foundation and Florida
- Maypop, a native butterfly and bee magnet
- Florida's native plant communities
- Remarkable resurrection ferns
- Florida natives for your landscape
- My magnificent, but messy, magnolias
- There's nothing Spanish or mossy about Spanish moss
- An appreciation of Muhly grass
- End of March blues
- Let’s make native gardens the new normal
- Winged elm: a beautiful Florida native
- Giant Ironweed
- For a more beautiful yard, plant more beautyberry
- Growing Florida's wildflowers from seed
- Tropical sage: a Florida native wildflower

- Wax myrtle: an under-used Florida native
- Florida's red maples
- The hand of the gardener in native landscapes

- Green-eyes: beautiful and resilient Florida wildflowers
- Starry rosinweed is a star in Florida yards
- Hibiscus: Plants with the most beautiful flowers
- Netted chain ferns
- Red cedar: an important habitat tree
- Lyreleaf sage
- Ohio Spiderwort: a pollinator-friendly native wildflower
- Florida's goldenrods
- Tall elephantsfoot
- White wild indigo
- Winged sumac, a useful understory shrub
- Florida's grapes and more

http://www.fnps.org/
http://www.fnpsblog.org/

Other online resources for Florida natives:
- The Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) website www.fnps.org provides a wide range of resources including a tool to choose natives appropriate for your county with specific requirements such as shade, soil, and salinity. the FNPS site also includes a thorough description of Florida's native habitats, plus some frequently asked questions such as, "Why plant Natives?"
- The FNPS blog www.fnpsblog.org offers a wide variety of articles about native plants and their habitats.
- The Florida Association Native Nurseries provides tools to find a plant or a nursery near you: http://plantrealflorida.org.
- The Atlas of Florida Plants provides distribution maps and photos of plants--native or not: http://www.florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/ (This is my authority on whether plants are native to Florida.)

Good garden soil hosts lots of critters.

Good gardening

- Pot bound!
- Give Peace (Lilies) a Chance!
- Hurricane-Scaping
- A less than ideal potted tree? Even natives can have problems.
- I don't love crepe myrtles, But...
- Trees and shrubs: the bones of your landscape
- Gardenfests not popular? I beg to differ
- Troublesome spot? Convert to containers
- When native plants die...
- Summertime, summertime...
- Listening to your landscape
- Just say not to seasonal plantings
- Rock-scaping in Florida: A good idea or not
- A South American engulfed my resting vegetable beds
- Marigolds in the garden and more
- Hurricane-scaping in Florida
- Two weeds: one native and one nonnative

Integrated pest management (IPM)

- Just say no to poisons
- A poison is a poison is a poison!
- Results: the nematode experiment
- Integrated pest management in the edible garden
- Soap destroys plants' defenses
- A green lynx spider saga
- A discussion on neonicotinoids

An all-American landscape
Landscaping

- All-American landscape filled with natives
- The never-ending story of a native landscape
- Sensational sunflowers
- Pee-yew! Those smelly stinkhorn fungi
- Ferns in the landscape
- Edging projects: risks and rewards
- There's gold in our meadows
- Jewels of summer
- Plan ahead!
- Adventures in creating a native garden
- Rayless sunflowers, fall seedlings, and more...
- Fixing a slumping problem
- Instant landscaping
- 6 easy ways to save time and money in your landscape
- NYC's High Line Park: a community restoration
- Chicago’s Lurie Garden: a very public native space
- Native landscapes ARE possible in HOA restricted communities
- Two geezers and a shed: Part 1 and Part 2
- Shrubs in the landscape
- Snags, longs and stumps provide habitat

Lawns

- Changes
- Cutting edges
- The lawn less mown
- Reducing the lawn in your landscape
- Sunshine mimosa, a lawn alternative for Florida
- From lawn to woods: a retrospective
- Our freedom lawn

Rain barrels, rain gardens, & other rain water issues

- Climb up my rain barrels
- Ooh la la, French drains
- A new bed... and standing stormwater
- Three More Rain Barrels
- Rain Lilies for my rain gardens
- Rain barrels revisited
- Expanded rain garden
- Reworking the elevated rain barrels
- Rain Gardening in the South: a Review
- Reworking a downspout after drainpipe clog
- An unexpected drainage project

Science in the garden

- A Plant by Any Common Name...
- Invasive vs. aggressive Part1
- The magic of the mistletoes
- The Science Behind Southern Grasses, Including Turf
- Water Science for Gardeners
- Mother Nature's mysteries
- Plants have hormones, too
- Dealing with hydrophobic soil
- Transpiration: Forests' most important service
- Smart gardening
- Lichen: a three-way symbiotic organism
- Celebrating the winter solstice
- Why do plants produce caffeine?

A bluebird in the early morning sun.

Wildlife

- Backyard habitat certification
- From stump to butterfly haven
- Pond pleasures
- Cheer for the predators in ecosystem gardening
- Of timberdoodles and ecotones
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
- Christmas is for the birds
- Managing a natural meadow
- Invite birds to your yard
- Can the birds count on you?
- One native plant = three habitat benefits
- An inch-by-inch decoration feat
- An exception to the rules
- Attracting damsels and dragons
- Teeming with zebras
- The joys of a Florida pond
- Managing a natural pond
- 6 easy steps to support wildlife in 2014
- Spiders in the marigolds
- Birds of prey in our yard
- Habitat gardening
- Snags, stumps, and logs provide habitat

Great reference books for Florida gardening and conservation:

"Sustainable Gardening for Florida": It's my own book, so of course, I'm recommending it. But what makes it different is that I've included information about how to be a better gardener. You'll learn: how to plant a tree, the best way to use containers (surprise--don't use gravel in the bottom), why you need to build rain gardens & rain barrels, how to prepare for hurricanes, and much more. 50% of the royalties from this book are automatically donated to the Florida branch of The Nature Conservancy.

Purchase at Amazon

I wrote my second book, "Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida" with cowriter Melissa Contreras who gardens in Miami. There are a couple of vegetable books for Florida growers, but they do not cover organic methods. We've arranged the crops by plant family to help gardeners with crop rotation scheduling and also we then only have to explain about legumes and their nitrogen-fixing bacterial or how to build a squash mound one time for the all the crops in those families.

Here are links to some reviews: in the Tallahassee Democrat, in the The Daytona Beach News Journal. Purchase at Amazon

My third book, "The Art of Maintaining a Florida Native Landscape" answers the question, "So you want a native landscape; now what?" I've provided ideas and tools for planning, proven planting methods, and tips for easier ongoing maintenance. My advice helps ensure that you'll be a happy gardener, your plants will be happy, and so will your neighbors and maybe even your HOA. 50% of the royalties for this book will be automatically donated to The Florida Native Plant Society. Purchase at Amazon.

I wrote "A Step-by-Step Guide to a Florida Native Yard" with Marjorie Shropshire, who has been my illustrator for the previous 2 books. She's a coauthor here because her drawings are central to the book's main purpose, which is to help Floridians nativize their yards. It answers the question, "I have a small yard filled with exotics; where do I start?"

20% of the royalties will go to The Florida Native Plant Society. Purchase at Amazon.

Sue Reed, a landscape architect in Massachusetts is my coauthor of "Climate-Wise Landscaping: Practical Actions for a Sustainable Future." We did not debate climate change but came up with 100s of things that you can do right now that will accomplish at least one of 3 goals:
1) Help the landscape be more resilient in the face of climate change.
2) Help wildlife survive conditions caused by climate change.
3) Help mitigate climate change.

For more information and to order the book, go to our website www.climatewiselandscaping.com.

I wrote "Adventures of a Transplanted Gardener: Advice for Gardeners New to Florida" during the pandemic in 2020/2021 as an introduction to Florida in general and as a look back at some of the columns dealing with my difficulties adjusting from gardening in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states to North Florida. I provide 20/20 hindsight and more.

Click to purchase the book from University Press of Florida or at Amazon.

If you can afford only one other book, buy Gil Nelson's "Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants: 200 Readily Available Species for Homeowners and Professionals." It provides details on size, where to plant, type of soil, and what to plant with each of the 200 plants. He wrote it with the help of David Chiappini of The Florida Association of Native Nurseries to ensure that the plants are likely to be available. Purchase at Amazon

Craig Huegel, a Florida native nurseryman has written a trio of useful books for helping Florida gardeners choosing and being successful with their native plants.


Native Wildflowers and other Groundcovers for Florida Landscapes	Native Plant Landscaping for Florida Wildlife	Native Florida Plants for Shady Landscapes

Gil Nelson has written a number of field guides, but these two are my favorites. Of course, trees and shrubs are the bones of your landscape, so it's good to find out what the heck you have. And I love ferns, because if you take out the turf from beneath the trees, ferns are often the best replacements.

Purchase Trees of Florida and/or Ferns of Florida at Amazon.

I own "Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida" by Richard Wunderlin & Bruce Hansen. I'd recommend it only to the more serious botantists, because it assumes your understanding the botanical terms to use the keys. There are no illustrations, but it covers everything, which is really useful.

Purchase at Amazon

Doug Tallamy has provided native plant enthusiasts with well-researched and easy-to-understand arguments for using more native plants in your yard, no matter how small. See my post Doug Tallamy!

Purchase Bringing Nature Home at Amazon

Purchase Nature's Best Hope at Amazon

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was way ahead of her time with this wonderful book. I'd highly recommend "The Everglades: River of Grass" to any Florida citizen.

Purchase at Amazon

Pages

Green Resources

Arborist chipped woodCompost & mulch

Conservation

A bountiful harvest! Edibles

Environmentalism

Florida's native plants

Good gardening

Integrated pest management (IPM)

An all-American landscapeLandscaping

Lawns

Rain barrels, rain gardens, & other rain water issues

Science in the garden

A bluebird in the early morning sun. Wildlife

Great reference books for Florida gardening and conservation:

Arborist chipped wood

Compost & mulch

A bountiful harvest!

Edibles

An all-American landscape
Landscaping

A bluebird in the early morning sun.

Wildlife