You might be an ace gardener up north, but getting good at gardening in Florida is another challenge altogether.
The soil is sandy and the heat can be a killer if you don’t choose the right things to grow. You want to make sure you plant things in the right area, like making sure a live oak tree won’t mess with your home’s foundation as it grows. Plus, you could plant everything just right and then have a hurricane blow through and take it all away.
Yet there’s help. The Sarasota-based office of UF-IFAS Extension has a program ready to guide locals on good gardening practices, targeted just for our area. Operated by the University of Florida, IFAS stands for the Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences. There are UF-IFAS Extension offices in each of Florida’s 67 counties.
One major component of the UF-IFAS Extension office is a Master Gardener program, which trains volunteers on best gardening practices for their area, says Ashley Ellis, residential horticulture agent and Master Gardener coordinator. The approximately 120 volunteers go through a 14-week training program that covers topics like Florida-friendly landscaping. Training takes place one day a week.
Volunteers take that new knowledge and share it with others, often as part of community HOA groups or similar organizations.
“The goal of the Florida-friendly landscaping program is to ultimately teach people ways to landscape sustainably,” Ellis says. “That means reducing the amount of water we’re using and reducing the amount of chemicals put into our landscapes, like herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.”
It also means learning about the types of plants that naturally grow best in Florida—which isn’t always clear from chain gardening stores.
For instance, maybe you see a citrus tree for sale in the gardening section of a local store, Ellis says. You may remember picking oranges from your grandmother’s backyard in Florida years ago and want to replicate that pleasant memory. However, you might not be aware of citrus greening, a disease that has devastated many of Florida’s citrus crops and has made it harder to grow oranges nowadays.
With help from the Extension office folks, you and other residents can learn about alternative things to grow, like mangoes or a fruit called finger limes.
There are also local residents in places like Siesta Key who lost all or most of their landscaping during hurricanes Helene and Milton, Ellis says. With help from the Extension office, they can make alternate landscaping plans that are more sustainable for coastal living.
Residents also can visit the Extension office in person for its Plant Clinic (basically serving as a doctor for your forlorn plants), to attend a tour, or to see its outside food forest, which provides examples of edible items that grow well in our local climate.
If you’re at the Sarasota Farmers Market or the Phillippi Farmhouse Market when an Extension representative is there, you can ask your random plant questions, Ellis adds.
