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Chuck, congrats on your new place! Gary gives good advice. First you need to answer a few questions to know what direction to head. Good luck!

Good to 'see' you again, Gary!

Ana

If you plan to do it yourself, definitely start small with one section and work your way out. In hindsight, I wish I had done this.

As for plant suggestions, well, it is hard to go there. Everyone has their favorite plants or even favorite styles. What one person finds appealing might be garish or boring to another. Also what might work in one part of Florida might not work so well in another. Fringe Tree is an attractive late winter flowering tree, but it might have pretty hard time getting established in your area.

I would suggest checking to see if your local IFAS extension office has a demonstration garden or checking on any other public gardens in your area and visiting them. Look to see what is growing, take notes and don't be afraid to talk to one of the people working in the gardens, as busy as they might look, it has been my experience that they enjoy taking a moment to actually talk about the plants with visitors.

Ana

Where have you been?? lol I'm sure we've all missed seeing pics of your landscape Pond still up and running?? gary

congrats on the new place. I love bougnvillia for color. keep in mind FL is termite central and if you have to get your house tented for termites, the grass and plants closest to your house will die. its from where the edge of your roof is down and in, that area will die from being tented. I get my house tented every 2 yrs so I keep planters that I can move closest to the house. good luck!

What I did when we bought our house, was to drive around the neighborhood and get ideas. The house we bought had no landscaping at all in front. Just lawn up to the wall of the house.

Moving from NY, and having gardened all my life, I knew I needed shrubs as a backbone. I also knew I wanted to eliminate as much lawn area as I could.

I decided to look at professionally landscaped properties (hotels) and photograph the shrubs they had as backbone. I started buying the shrubs. I bought seedlings as I learned that everything grows like crazy in Florida.

I used the shrubs as the foundation. As they grew, I interplanted with flowers which could handle the sun and heat. Mostly tropicals and rose bushes. I've tried plants I had grown in NY but they quickly burned in the sun. Start with the shrubs and work around them.

In less than 3 years, my gardens are so overgrown I constantly have to cut everything back. I do mulch everything. I used thick slabs of cardboard boxes as weed blockers before adding the wood chips. Weeds still show up, but I constantly recycle cardboard and wood chips. Works well and is free!

Jane

Hi Gary! I've been around, just not visiting here regularly. I'm going to try to get back into the habit.

Yes, we still have our pond, but this year we had a terrible time with your waterlilies. We had two (we think two, but fear there's more) snapper turtles in the pond. They literally ate up and killed all the waterlilies except one, which is barely alive and now protected by a wire fence. We captured and relocated the snappers (no easy feat), and hope the last lily is not too far gone. The pond has not done well without the lilies. It gets algae in the late afternoon heat because there is nothing to provide shade. My husband tried to order more 'Woods Blue Goddess', but the six that came were so incredibly tiny that they promptly died! We are trying our best for that one lily to make it so we can propagate it next year and have our pond be normal again. Really sad. We enjoyed your gorgeous lilies for all these years. Hopefully, we'll be able to say it again next year. No, our pond will not get photos this year! Thanks for remembering and asking, though.

Anna

Sorry to hear that !! I had the usual invasion of cane toads I'm above ground so no turtles I finally located one of those gigantic asian lotus was doing well but something ate the tuber !! Lilies are doing well maybe too well as I'm now into serious pruning lol . Blue Goddess has always been very hardy for me ,I'm sure yours will recover Always something?? lol gary

Variegated ginger brings some color to your yard

Orange Bird of paradise has nice foliage with flowers

Here are my plants.I live in Tampa

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Here is the same stump with blooming bromeliads "Red Torch"

I would like to say Thank You to everyone who has responded to my question. You have given me some things to think about. A big thank you to celerygirl for the plant suggestions and the beautiful pictures.

Celerygirl, that seating area under the oak is magnificent! I love your garden.

Gary, you're right, it's always something. If it's not the snappers, it's the squirrels or the cane toads!

Thank you Anna! We had empty spot in front-side yard. It was my husband's idea to make sitting area under the oak tree. It is pretty private. I am passionate about tropical plants.

beautiful pics guys!