Sounds good, Mary! Whenever I visit my daughter and we go somewhere, I always get them to drive me there through the countryside, if possible. I love the look of the native trees and shrubs, even saw palmetto, even though it doesn't host anything as far as I know. Sherry

One book that I have been enjoying is called Gardening and Landscaping in Central Florida by Marlys Bell. It does not tackle the Tropical look specifically, but illustrates all the issues that living in zone 9a/b has to take into consideration. Throughout the book it gives suggestions for what types of plants to put in for what kind of situation and goal. "If you want green and lush through out the year, try these..." type of suggestions. It also doesn't cover some of the more exotic types of plants that might be used, but more covers the ones that you "plant and forget" as the book tries to follow the Florida Friendly concepts of "Right Plant, Right Place", "Water Efficiently", "Mulching", "Appropriate Fertilization", "Responsible Pest Management", "Recycling", "Reducing Storm Runoff" and "Protecting the Waterways". I don't think this book by itself will help you to achieve that Tropical Look, but it can definitely help you to make sure landscape works instead of having to be replaced a few years down the road. Another book to look into is free over the internet and has lots of good information about Landscaping in Florida. The Florida-Friendly Guide to Plant Selection and Landscape Design (for some reason the Update Message button keeps adding a space at the end of this link and breaking it. If/when you follow this link, check the address bar and remove the spaces from between the d and f in pdf) was put out by the University of Florida and is chocked full of good information. And at the end of this pdf is a rather large illustrated list of plants to consider for use. But you have to read over this list with care as it covers all plants for all of Florida, so a beautiful, tropical looking palm might turn out to be Zone 11 recommended. I like this book so much that I downloaded it to my computer so that I always have it on hand instead of having to find an internet connection and to check online. If the above link takes you directly to the PDF file instead of giving you the option to download it, you can right-click the link and choose "Save Target Link as..." to save it to your computer. Those are the only two books that I have to suggest, as they are pretty much the only books I have so far (well, I also have Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants but this will definitely NOT help you to achieve the Tropical look... well... it could... but not to the extent that I think you're looking for.). But these two are so full of information to take into consideration that I wish I had found them when I first started working with my yard. Edit: And now that the caffeine has penetrated my system a little more and my eyes are a tad bit more open... I realize you never really said you wanted the Tropical Look... just you wanted a book about Tropical Gardening... Oops. This post was edited by Leekle2ManE on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 7:52

solstice98 and others: Here is another great web site- you can get a list of native species for any Florida county- just click on your county from the map: http://www.fnps.org/pages/plants/landscape_plants.php I will post this on the Florida Gardening site so it does not get lost here from the rest of the Florida gardeners. I just moved here recently and have been trying to transform the exotic garden I moved into to mostly native- so far I've been able to attract Green Anoles, Monarch Butterflies, and Zebra Longwing Butterflies- and I live in Miami!

Ah... the popcorn tree. I guess that makes sense since there are four or five of them in my neighborhood, though none closer than a block away, that I know of. I think before I pull it up I will check with my mother. Her family had one of these in their yard when she was growing up in Alabama and has often commented about wanting one for the 'popcorn'. And while I don't really want invasive/weedy plants in my yard, I can't begrudge her too much for wanting a tree from her childhood. But then... I will have to read up on it first and find out just how invasive we're talking about... Thanks Kara and LTY.