Strolls help amateur landscapers to ‘Go Native!’

Posted by Nancy Guenther Chapman on September 2nd, 2010 at 3:38 am,
with photos by courtesy Native Plant Society

Par­tic­i­pants of a recent Native Plant Soci­ety walk stop to dis­cuss the foliage along a trail.

Sub­mit­ted by Sue Free­man, Native Plant Soci­ety

A frosty win­ter. Dry spells fol­lowed by wet spells.

If you’re hav­ing trou­ble get­ting things to grow in your yard, maybe you need to con­sider going native — by uti­liz­ing native plants. Native plants are accli­mated to the con­di­tions here and have devel­oped over time to thrive through cold, hot, wet and dry.

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Learn­ing about native plants can seem over­whelm­ing if you’re not a Florida native your­self. Local nurs­eries aren’t help­ful; if your non-native plants die they know you’ll return to buy replace­ments. The clos­est native plant nurs­ery is north of Myakka State Park, so you need to have a plan when you drive that far to buy plants, or know how to select natives from the area nurs­ery stocks.

The eas­i­est way to learn about native plants is to go on monthly walks with the Native Plant Soci­ety. “Walk” is a mis­nomer in this case. They are strolls. Slow strolls that any­one who is steady on their feet can man­age. They are lead by peo­ple with inti­mate knowl­edge of and an eagle eye for native plants. And, the walks are free and open to any­one. You don’t even have to be a mem­ber of the Native Plant Soci­ety to participate.

Each month, on the last Sat­ur­day, a loose con­tin­gent of knowl­edge­able peo­ple and rote begin­ners gather in a park and head off down the trail — slowly. “Here’s a shinny cof­fee,” will come the call. Then, “Al, come here. What’s this plant?’” Even if the same ques­tion has been asked a thou­sand times, Al Squires or any of the other knowl­edge­able peo­ple cheer­fully answer.

In late sum­mer and fall the native beau­ty­berry bush lives up to its name by dis­play­ing clus­ters of bright pur­ple berries.

I’m a slow learner. I go on the walks reg­u­larly and grad­u­ally I’m begin­ning to get famil­iar with the native veg­e­ta­tion of Florida. I’m now able to go to a nurs­ery and rec­og­nize if a plant will grow well in my yard, and if so, where in my yard. I can now dis­tin­guish between sales hype and good hor­ti­cul­tural man­age­ment. And, I’m hav­ing fun learn­ing, exper­i­ment­ing and explor­ing the vari­ety of local parks. Plus, I’ve found that the native plant peo­ple are a fun-loving, enjoy­able crowd to be around.

Come join us on a stroll. The next one is at 9 a.m. Sept. 25 at Man­a­sota Scrub Pre­serve. Meet at the park­ing area on Bridge Street, near the cor­ner of Man­a­sota Beach Road just off Engle­wood Road. (Go to http://mangrove.fnpschapters.org for other dates, times and locations.)

I’ll be the one point­ing out the beau­ty­berry and leav­ing the tough stuff for the experts.

Also, mark on your cal­en­dar to be at Lemon Bay Park at 7 p.m. Oct. 12 (it’s at 570 Bay Park Blvd.).  Jane Wal­lace, another native plant expert, will talk about the native plant gar­dens she’s devel­op­ing along the Legacy Trail in Venice.

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