This Red Admiral butterfly was flittering and fluttering around the entrance to our back porch as we were closing, what a beautiful specimen!
It generally uses a common lawn “weed” called Florida Pellitory that occurs in moist part shade areas, like the back of the nursery, and also our native False Nettle among a few others as it’s host plant.
Allowing for some of these plants to establish in your yard and can provide a home for these creatures, along with changing the way you look at some things we commonly call “weeds”.
They need nectar from a variety of flowers but according to UF entomologists they prefer fermenting tree sap, rotting fruit, and fresh dung as their food source!
Now that
the dog days of summer are a thing of the past and the snowbirds have started
rolling in again, we can take a moment to look back at an amazing event that
happened this summer. Those who stuck out the steamy Florida summer had the
opportunity to enjoy a truly inspiring community-oriented ecological action
event in the Crescent Heights Neighborhood of St. Petersburg.
The Ocean
Friendly Gardens program in Crescent Heights started in June when the Surfrider
Foundation’s Suncoast Chapter Chair and Past President of the Crescent Heights
Neighborhood Association, Thomas Paterek, applied for a City of St. Petersburg
matching grant for neighborhoods aiming to build relationships and improve the
community. Thomas, who currently sits on the board of the Crescent Heights
neighborhood association, board of Crescent Heights, which is just north of
downtown St. Petersburg, took advantage of the grant opportunity made available
by the city. “The ability to bring multiple nonprofits, our city and residents
together for a project to promote sustainable practices was a really exciting
opportunity,” Thomas said. Crescent Heights is a historic neighborhood just
north of downtown St. Petersburg and enjoys a strong community vibe and active
board already, which made it a prime candidate for a neighborhood-wide project
such as this.
The
Surfrider Foundation is an environmental advocacy group that was founded by
surfers in 1984 and has chapters around the country and the world. Their
Ocean Friendly Garden program promotes several sustainable gardening practices
including retaining rainwater; “creating living soil to sponge up water, filter
pollution and sequester carbon; and installing climate-appropriate plants to
create wildlife habitat and a sense of place.” All of these goals were actions
that Wilcox could get behind.
Their idea was to take underused or overgrown corner lot triangular patches, of which there were 40 chosen throughout the neighborhood, clear them of weeds and debris, and replant them with beautiful native plants. The native plants that Wilcox Nursery and Landscape designer, Arnie Rutkis, chose included coonties, muhly grass, coreopsis, matchweed, dune sunflower, and others. These plants are hardy, drought-tolerant, adaptable, and put down deep roots, all characteristics that advance the goals of the Ocean Friendly Garden program. These installations would be completed by local volunteers and supported by the city and the community.
One might
think that people concerned with ocean health would concentrate on the ocean,
or at least the beach! However, as we have seen time and time again our canals,
rivers, beaches, oceans and wetlands are intimately and vitally connected to
our uplands, coastal ecosystems, and suburban and urban neighborhoods. This
happens through rainwater carrying pollution runoff over impermeable concrete,
plastic trash going down the gutter, and excess nutrients from
overfertilization of lawns. When it comes to water, everything is connected! In
such a flat wet state as Florida, these relationships are even easier to see.
While there
are still millions of acres of wildlands, rangelands, agricultural lands, as
well as the Everglades, humans are rapidly developing these lands. This
includes paving over them, building thousands of large homes, and connect these
developments with roads and highways. Development prevents water from naturally
percolating through the soil, and runoff generally goes through chemically
intensive landscaping, making the runoff water a carrier of pollution. Runoff
further carries roadway pollutants like oil, brake dust, asphalt, and other
pollutants. According to Surfrider Foundation, water pollution is the number
one source of ocean pollution in urban areas.
In response to this problem, they
have developed the Ocean Friendly Gardens Program (OFG). The program seeks to
educate anyone interested in how to plant and maintain a piece of land, home
landscape, median, traffic circle, or any piece of dirt within a city for water
health. Additionally, they say that an OFG applies CPR – Conservation,
Permeability, and Retention.
This is where Wilcox Nursery and Landscape designer Arnie Rutkis and native plants come in to play the starring role. The goal of creating habitat, fostering a sense of place, and solidifying and holding together soil with native plants was the obvious choice.
Arnie Rutkis is the owner of Stone
Shovel Design, a landscape design and installation company specializing in
native plants, design, stonework, and water features. He has been a designer
and installer with Wilcox Nursery and Landscape since moving here from
Birmingham, Alabama.
Thomas said
he had known what a native plant was, “but did not know the diversity available
to Floridians, I thought there were just a few bushes available, not flowering
plants. The biggest eyeopener was the native plant list Arnie sent.t was mind-blowing
the amount of native plants that you can use.”
Arnie’s
initial reaction to Thomas and the idea of OFG’s was, “Curiosity mostly, as I
did not quite know what the scope of the project would be, then excitement as
this type of project touches on some very important issues we are dealing with
these days. Thomas’s connection to Surfrider Foundation piqued my interest as
well, so I immediately did some research on Ocean Friendly Gardens. It seemed
like a perfect fit for me and Wilcox!”
Arnie
brought to this project a wealth of experience from years of design and
installation work in Florida, Alabama, and time spent as a student of art and
design. In a neighborhood like Crescent Heights, where there are so many
eclectic and historic homes, the design of these small medians had to follow
many different guidelines. Arnie used his experience to coalesce all the goals
and larger purpose and presented a plan to the neighborhood.
“I have
worked on this scale before on public garden projects with multiple partners
and in an ecological context. It’s definitely challenging, but it gets me to
focus better in some ways as it is a garden that many people will see and
interact with,” Arnie said.
As part of
the project and a requirement of the grant, Arnie also interacted with a crowd
with lots of questions about the plants he selected at the Neighborhood
Association’s town hall-style meeting. “It was very good to share my
approach and discuss the plants that Wilcox has to offer, their many benefits,
and versatility, especially within these tough semi-urban areas, and how they
blend with the ocean-friendly approach to gardening.”
After the
plans were set in motion and the plants were delivered and set out by Arnie and
other crew members, the volunteers were ready to step up. As a project with
multiple partners, it’s easy to imagine certain unique challenges that can
arise, and there were definitely surprises encountered by Arnie and all those
involved.
“Logistics
are always a challenge with such a dispersed job site but planning and breaking
it up into two steps helped.” Arnie and crew prepared the locations one day and
the second day was the big volunteer effort to install all the new native plant
gardens throughout Crescent Heights.
“The
volunteers were key in keeping everything moving along.” And
because education is key, Arnie taught the volunteers a crash course in
planting natives before they set out on foot and bike to plant around the
neighborhood. “This project was truly a lesson in the beauty and functionality
of the native plants, and folks got right on board!” Stated Arnie.
To ensure the success of the gardens, the weekend of the install was only part of the project and follow up was also needed. “Proper plant selection is a large part of the approach here. Drought resistance and the ability to adapt are why I chose the specific plants. To establish them properly we just needed to ensure they get consistent watering in times of drought throughout the first season. We are doing follow up checks through the next few months to make sure things go well,” Arnie states.
Four months
into the project, all of the plants have been watered in and established, and
the OFGs are doing well. Outside of the occasional errant curb hopping car
wheel, these plantings are accomplishing the goals that were set out for them
and will be ready to absorb the next summer’s rains, decrease runoff, provide
habitat, and beautify the neighborhood.
Thomas
summed the event up well by saying, “This is the planting of the seed, the idea
is to create an awareness to create an individual that sees there are better
ways to do things, I hope the collaboration of Surfrider Foundation, Wilcox and
the community will show people that they have the power to do something like this.
“He further stated, “We wanted to inspire other neighborhoods, the city, the
state and other people to do these best practices. It’s one thing to talk about
it and another to actually make it tangible on a large scale, it creates a buzz
and an awareness, if we can create it on a neighborhood scale, we can certainly
accomplish it on a much larger state scale.”
As further
proof of the wide-reaching influence of the project, City of St. Pete Mayor,
Rick Kriseman, and city council member, Darden Rice, honored the gardens with a
ribbon-cutting ceremony. They both were proud of the community action that took
place through this project and expressed an interest in seeing more community
projects like this throughout the city.
Additional Resources:
Visit WilcoxNursery.com for additional information and call 727-595-2073 for additional questions on
native plants including design, installation, maintenance and other issues.
Follow us on Instagram @wilcox_nursery and on FaceBook.
They are not directly responsible
for already naturally occurring red tide outbreaks, but nutrients can go into
coastal waters which can exacerbate an already existing Red Tide bloom which
usually develops 10-40 miles offshore. https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/faq/
Welcome to our first Florida Native Plant Tour, where we explore landscapes, local parks, and more! Today we will be talking about some of the native plant communities at Bonner Park right here in Largo, Florida. Learn about Frostweed and Marlberry, as well as a host of our wetland species!
The weather in Florida is what we Floridians would consider appropriately chilly now to remind us that Christmas is almost here. Christmas is all about having fun together with the family and making memories for a lifetime. Christmas trees are a huge part of the seasonal celebrations and tradition. But have you thought of getting a living Christmas tree that you can enjoy indoors during the holidays and plant outdoors in the landscape to enjoy its flowers, fruits and greenery throughout the year. (more…)
Front yard redesign by Wilcox designer Paul Meyers in the up and coming Old Southeast Neighborhood of St.Pete.
The client wanted to remove their lawn in the front that was always a challenge and replace it with Florida Native and Florida Friendly plants!
Thank you, Paul and Wilcox Crew for the professional work you guys do. @ Old Southeast, Saint Petersburg.
Paul Meyers (Landscape Designer)
He greatly enjoys the transformation of outdoor spaces to beautiful, relaxing private gardens that meet individual client needs. He is excited to be part of the Wilcox team where native plants not only play a part in beautifying our outdoor spaces, but also creates a better habitat for Florida wildlife!
