Irma I'd check with the library and the historical society. The histerical society should be a wealth of info.

MsMarion gives you the perfect lead.

I'd just add that even though you will likely not find a nice list of plants available from a nursery, etc in the time period. You will have success though in looking at photographs of families and houses and then you look at the house plantings, or other background hints of plants that were common.

Then you just need to have an eye to ID plants in black and white.

I have old post cards and a lot of them have the Orange Trumpet Creeper vine (Pyrostegia venusta)pictured. I saw alot of bouganvilla & Lots of palms too(queens, sagos, sabals, coconuts even!)I did notice that their shrubs were 'meatballed'

more historic postcards here
http://www.stpete.org/pics.htm

Hi
Have alway found the history of Palm Beach county interesting . Not only from the standpoint that it's the largest county east of the Mississippi. The first permanent house appears to be Whitehall on the island . Calling that a "house" is sort of like calling Versailles a cabin lol.
Always the super rich and the super poor. Landscaping still fits into those two catagories lol
I once saw a pix taken in 1910 and the whole population was in it lol Interesting how all this land went soooo long with nothing at all. Of course this is also true of all south florida.
Tough to imagine life with no air or ice cubes huh gary

Nehrling's book on gardening in turn of the century Central/south central FL is pretty interesting, but probably not a good example of the typical, because he was a collector. Still, it could give you some ideas.

Lots of times in the public library you'll see old gardening guides from the 50's and earlier that can give some ideas too.

Many of old time garden plants are now on the invasive list (Brazillian Pepper, Australian pine, camphors) and others are considered weedy or too common by some (Turk's cap). Natives are a good choice.

It would be neat to find some once typical but now mostly forgotten garden plants. Does anyone know of any?

I once started a thread here called "What says old Fl to you in the Garden?" but I doubt it's still around.

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Nehrling's Florida Gardens

Edison's garden in Ft. Myers had a lot of old plants but he too was a collector and he wasn't here in the 1900's - probably not until the 30's

Awesome Thread.

I have a book on the history of Ft Lauderdale. (purchased from the Ft Lauderdale Historical Society) It has some pics of Homes and you can make out some landscaping. Back when people were moving to the area and the new river was "new".

I remember Bill's thread "What Says Old Florida to You in the Garden"

If anyone finds anything I would love to hear about it.

This is a bit off topic, but, does anyone know anythign about the Miami Circle? I saw a special about it twice. Wonder if it is still there and protected like the Historical Society was trying to do?

Tropcialfreak

I always thought and wondered if the way alot of the old homes in Key West are landscaped, is how it was done years ago? I love the landscaping down there.

Tropicalfreak

Gary, I recall hearing many a county employee tout that Palm Beach is the largest county in the US east of the Mississippi.

It's totally false.

Not even close. St. Louis County in the arrowhead of Minnesota is at least 3 times larger than Palm Beach County.

Irma,
After looking at my postcards, I would also mention that it shows what appears to be ixoria as well. It's hard to tell, these postcards are all colored over and I'm not even sure of the process they used to make them.

Early 1900s would be a lot of sabals, scrub palms ..it's not until the 1920s forward that gardens really started to develop.
Here is another excellent archive of old florida photos..I've sent hours just browsing!
http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/

When that last thread was around, I asked my mom. She is 90, and grew up in Florida and Georgia. She mentioned Zennias, confederate rose, spirea, Hydrangas, phlox, Crotons, Coleus, amarilis, and big masses of what they called "Milk and Wine" lilies. I still see these around older places. She also told me that lilies were usually planted out at the edge of the property, because they got eaten by lubbers.
Cracker rose and a white climbing rose (seven sisters?), fig (brown turkey), and the florida native lilies like the swamp lily. Blood lily. Nightblooming and something they called "Rock" jasmine. I don't know what that last one was, but the roses and jasmines were often planted under bedroom windows so that the scent would come though the house from windows that were almost always open.

But she also pointed out that raked sand yards were very common.

Sorry I can't help with any resources, but I wanted to say how much I loved the St Pete photos, especially the historic ones. My grandparents moved there in 1958, so I have lots of great memories of there. Near the bottom is a pic of the Sunshine Skyway, which could be seen from my parent's home on Tierra Verde. Also near the bottom is a gorgeous pic from Coquina Key, which is where my aunt lived.

longwood
i just checked and your right!! Though Aroostook Maine is larger still than St Louis county Minnesota if you don't count water area lol
Next you'll be disillusioning me that the Largest county is not in Texas but somewhere in Hawaii ??
gary

Thank you for the sources, lists, and very interesting memories. They seem true to me and stir memories. I will pass them on.

The "raked yards" tickled me. I had read of a very early Pass-a-Grille beach resident bragging to a Northerner about her garden ... when the friend made the trip down (and boatride across) she saw it was but raked sand ornamented with seashells. Makes sense when you think of what she had to work with.

Gary, you piqued my interest, so I googled it.

Largest "county" in US is up in Alaska (where they're called boroughs)

largest county in lower 48 is San Bernandino County in middle-of-nowhere interior California.

One of the reasons for raked yards was to be able to keep an eye out for the snakes... Suzanne

What a interesting post. Years ago I did volunteer work at the local museum in Fort Myers. One of my favorite things was sorting through the old news papers that a member of the historical society had left to the museum. They dated back to the early 1900s and it took me forever to catalogue them because every story and newsprint photograph was so interesting. I had to stop volunteering because the aging newsprint made my allergies go haywire as well as all the dusty relics in the museum. But, boy did I enjoy learning about the history of Fort Myers. Junglegal, that is a great site and I have been immersed in it for way too long! Thanks for sharing!

Longwood
guess that pushes PB county down to 7-8 lol
Had always heard the largest was in Texas also the smallest total population of 354 .King county. but i'd bet Alaska could beat that lol
One question you might know about PB county Have heard that both Coconut and Royal palms occured here natually. Have seen the famous Fairchild pic but as I recall it was in either Broward or Dade counties. Can't seem to find it again. All the old pics I've seen of Palm Beach have both, everywhere but I'm sure the "landscape" budget allowed for imports . lol Know anything about this or where i can find some info?? gary

I love the old photos you sometimes see of the raked sand yards in the Keys/Bahamas. They were usually edged with conch shells and sometimes had beds with palms, cootnie, etc.
Betsy

Hi
Had often wondered about how many tulips lilacs and daffodils must have been slaughtered in zone ten. lol
Can you imagine how difficult it must have been to get appropriate plants or even knowledge of what is appropriate.?
Key West in particular, without those bridges, Of course there is the water shortage also. Without the pipeline to Miami .Gardening would have to be severely limited.
Would also like to thank everyone for the sites. Was particularly interested in the election of 1860. All votes for Lincoln were discarded and he didn't even appear on the ballot lol Gee they seem to be still doing that !!!
i particularly was interested in who voted against the withdrawel from the union and by what percentage it passed.. Still studying the Seminole wars. but did provide a general outline Thanks again gary

Greetings, Gary:

I love your posts. If you're asking about Palm Beach County, I have read that the coconut palms came to the island of Palm Beach when the Spanish ship, Providencia, was shipwrecked on Jan. 9, 1878, and the cargo floated ashore. This cargo included thousands of coconuts and led to the naming of Palm Beach. I don't believe coconuts were native. The royal palms are a different matter. I've read there are two types: Cuban and Floridian. The native royal palms have a straighter trunk with fewer "constrictions". Info on this comes from PIONEERS IN PARADISE, published by the Palm Beach Post and through research my husband and I have done on our neighborhood. I have a photocopy of a circa 1900 issue of the Weekly Lake Worth News Christmas edition which shows some interesting photos of the area. It shows coconut palms, sabal palms, royals and seagrapes. In early WPB, many places were identified by being "at the big rubber tree". (I think that may have been the Banyan tree for which 1st Street was named.) We had an ostrich farm, a gator farm and a pineapple farm. Johnny Jumper, a Seminole, was advertised in the paper as making Indian Suits and rattlesnake belts. There were banana trees, citrus of all types, paw-paw, sapodilla, avocados (called avocada pears), tamarinds and royal poinciana (for which they named a hotel). West Palm Beach has streets named for many plants grown here early on: Hibiscus, Fern, Olive, Tamarind, Clematis (FL has some native clematis, I've learned), Banyan, Sapodilla, Rosemary, etc. I think my husband got the copy from one of the Lainharts (of Lainhart & Potter Hardware).
Julie--WPB

Re: raked yards..when I was VERY young, we had chickens, which were allowed to range far & wide. Of course, their droppings were everywhere. We used a broom made of dogfennel or some such branches to SWEEP our yard every Saturday to get rid of all these nasty things. Everyone in the neighborhood did this & if one house had a yard that wasn't swept the family that lived there was considered trashy.

Julie
The Coconut seems to have originated in Africa but there seems to be at least a little reference to them in Columbus second diary. It seems they were at least on Cuba
They have always been a food plant so were frequently moved by humans. Cook identified them in Hawaii as well as Magellan in the Phillipines, but definitely not native to either area.
Obviously Coconuts can and do sprout on their own in PB county and they are notorious for floating from island to island. There was human habitation here no later than 9 000
years ago . Coconut has always been a valued food plant and has always been moved by humans anywhere within it's range.
So if these inhabitants came from the south sure seems logical they brought them with them. Obviously PB county is on the northen limits of survivability. "Native" would be open to interpretation. Given this it's certainly possible the coconut was here but certainly not native.
Royals on the other hand can not tolerate saltwater so spreding the seed accidently would be much tougher
The famous Fairchild pic . I believe taken in the everglades of a royal may or may not prove they were native . How could you be certain they were not brought from Cuba by native Americas??
As to the species I believe there are six. but you sure need to be a botanist to tell them apart lol.
In my own experience the seeds of Royals sprout very easily but have yet to find one that sprouted entirely on it's own. Though mostly all it needed was some supplimental water and then only as a seedling. To my knowledge they are not nor ever have been used as a food plant. which would really cast doubt they were seeded by natives. ornamental
agriculture seems to have been centered in Europe and Asia.
since Florida was onre of the first discovered explored and settled what is "native" is always going to be debated.
I find palm Beach county particularly interesting as it's definitely on the edge between tropical and temperate.
Almost anything could have happened.

Gary:

Fascinating stuff. You are so right about the question of native. I have often told newcomers that they are naturalized Floridians after 9 yrs. I think I can extend this to plants on a longer timeline, say 100 yrs., and only as long as they don't crowd out the ones here earlier. Hey, that works for people, too. VBG
Julie--WPB

Hi
I guess a continuation of this thought would be what will landscapes look like a hundred years from now???
Though I doubt any of us will care lol I'm sure it will be entirely different than now especially if the global warming theory is true . A LOT more water plants?? lol
gary

Which begs the question: What do you use to fertilize a seaweed garden?

Lawns of turtle grass? Gardeners would suffer from mosquitos and sea lice. Would we worry about fresh water intrusion?

I think having blue crabs in my yard may be a sign of things to come. Though I am most fond of Uca pugilator.

Julie

BUMPING this thread from 10 years ago... for an indoor-day's reading!